In Season 3, episode 6 of REPOD, we chat with Hillary Manning, the puzzle design expert on Create The Escape. Create the Escape is a fun kids show where in each episode, kids design an escape room for their parents to play and hopefully escape. Hillary has previously worked at escape rooms like Beat the Bomb and Escape The Room as a puzzle designer and gamemaster.

Hillary walks us through the challenges of designing escape rooms for a television audience, and creating puzzles that are both fun to play and visually pleasing with a large scale. She takes us behind the scenes of how the show is produced, and what it takes to get cast on the show. It's especially exciting to hear about how much input the kids have on designing the puzzles and helping build the room. I think this show will be a great introduction for more families to learn about escape rooms. Hillary is a fun, energetic host on the show, and she brings the same great energy to this podcast episode.

Show Notes

We're doing a Mailbag episode where we answer your questions, share your stories, and learn from you fine folks. There are a few ways to take part:

• Take our survey

Here's how to do each:

Share your feedback anonymously through this survey. 

If you’d like to be on the podcast, please submit a voice recording by calling the Room Escape Artist not-so-hotline that always goes straight to voicemail (551-227-7273), and record your thoughts and feels about REPOD straight into the voicemail.

Your message should be:

• Short, no longer than 30 seconds - it will help to jot down your ideas before recording

Hit us up at: [email protected]

Room Escape Artist

Thank you to our sponsors: 

• Morty - A free app for discovering, planning, tracking, and reviewing your escape rooms and other immersive social outings.

Our escape room and immersive gaming convention, will be an incredible event for creators and consumers of the games we love. We hope to see you in Boston. Learn More about RECON.

Production Credits

Hosted by David Spira & Peih-Gee Law

Produced by Lisa Spira

Edited by Steve Ewing of Stand Inside Media

Music by Ryan Elder

Logo by Janine Pracht