Spice Pantry Podcast's posts

----“See extra content on our Show Notes here! http://www.spicepantrypodcast.com/episodes/season-1-episode-2-the-pieces-of-an-escape-room/“ ---- As a special treat in this 2nd podcast, especially for those of you who are still skeptical about how fun this whole thing is, you will be hearing the real audio of our friends going through their very first Escape Room...! And what’s even cooler is that it’s an escape room that we created! As those of you close to us already probably know, on the 4th and 5th of December of this year, we had a beautiful engagement ceremony in Kansas City, and the month beforehand, when we were planning it, we wanted to let our close friends and family in Chile know that it would be coming up in a unique and special way. So we decided to put into practice everything that we had been experiencing and learning about Escape Rooms in the past 6 months and created our own so they could escape and discover our special news! In this episode, we are going to ***dive into what makes up a good escape room-*** What gets your adrenaline pumping, the art, craft, immersion, etc - basically the different factors we had to think about when putting ours together for our family and friends. 1) A solid, enveloping story- the more it allows you to leave the world behind and enter a new reality, the better! (Think of how you feel when you enter a movie theatre- you are no longer you- you are James Bond, Hans Solo, Katniss Everdeen...) In our case, (which for lack of time was a pretty simple story) we explained to them about why they were all there and what they were trying to find out. 2) Clues that flow together/continue the story/feel cohesive -When putting together our own room, first we started with the puzzles, as this is the essence of what people are actually solving- you need enough of these to not be too easy, but not be impossibly difficult so as to not have any chance of finishing within the hour. Then we worked backwards from there to try to figure out how they would come up with the elements needed to solve those puzzles. In our case, since the escape room was going to lead up to announcing our engagement, a lot of the theme of the clues were things related to us, inside jokes that only those who knew us well would understand, and memories that we had with those who were going to be in the room. Id like to mention here that one of the common problems with escape rooms is replayability and changing out rooms. Happily, we seemed to have done this seamlessly by the way we structured our second puzzle. We simply changed out he images and answers and made sure it led to the same numbers at he end to open the lock. 3) A mission you need to accomplish, that everything leads up to Normally when you enter the escape room, the very first thing you are immersed into, along with the story, is the “reason” why you are there.. It may be to save the world, to stop a nuclear bomb from exploding, to rob a bank and steal the diamonds, or in our case (a rather weak “mission” due to the lack of time to put it together), to generically “figure out what happened to us”. In my opinion, the best escape rooms are those that have very compelling reasons to finish correctly and FAST— and the theming of the room all comes together for this. For example, in an escape room where you need to rob the diamonds from the bank, you might hear sirens in the background get closer and closer as the police gain on you. Or in one where you need to disarm a bomb, you might hear it ticking and see a clock on the wall counting down the minutes until it blows up. These types of details really add to the immersive experience! 4) Challenging obstacles that require teamwork, quick thinking, and often times going completely outside the box Many of the escape rooms we have gone to have some sort of puzzle that is impossible for 1 person to do on their own. For example, one person might be in a totally different room with their h...

Here we are! Episode 1 of our first season is finally available! In Season 1 we are going to dive deeper into a recent passion of ours – Escape Rooms. This first episode answers the question: “What are Escape Rooms?”. We have been to over 7 rooms in 3 countries and want to share this incredible phenomenon. You will be plunged into a story filled with wonder, excitement, and have your eyes opened to what this new industry really means for the future of entertainment as we know it. Throughout this first season we will talk about: Episode 2 – What to look for in Escape Rooms when you want to find one for yourself (considerations for larger groups, families, with kids, first timers, etc.) Episode 3 – What makes an authentic Escape Room experience (immersion, story, themes, art and craft) Episode 4 – Why Escape Rooms are so engaging (motivation, puzzle designs, and importance of having a sense of accomplishment) Episode 5 – Why escape rooms are so successful compared to other activities (scientific evidence and the lucrative market right now for this new industry) Episode 6 – What the future holds for escape rooms (is it just a fad/trend? other live/interactive puzzle games happening around the world) There may be some special bonus episodes as well as we have something special to announce at the end of this 6 episode run! So stick around while we explore this wonderful new phenomenon that is truly changing the way we experience entertainment in the future. #escaperoom #roomescape

This is a teaser of what each episode of The Spice Pantry podcast will feel like. After months of preparing, deliberating and being too scared to hit publish, we’re finally pushing this out into the world! The start of our first podcast! Episode 0 of the Spice Pantry Podcast will help you learn about what we plan on covering each episode with some teasers to what will come and some background on why it has taken us so long to get this published despite having worked on it since February. We are planning a “seasonal” format of publishing every 2 weeks for a certain number of episodes and then taking a break. This first season will include at least 6 new and original episodes covering a passion that is very close to our heart right now!