{0:23] Hello everyone, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal and this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast with an attraction on entertainment community. Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you. And we return to you this week to discuss a video game. That's, right, Haunt Weekly becomes Video Game Weekly. That was a great magazine back in the day.
Well, and we've done other episodes about video games. We're going to talk about one later.
We're not going to mention it again. So this is coming up full circle, but yes, we're talking about a video game that has, Enraptured the house a little bit. We know maybe in Rapture's a little strong But has become a key part of our home And we won't talk about its impacts both on the haunt industry and the escape room industry which are adjacent industries, But if that is not your jam, but that doesn't sound like something you want to listen to understood There's lots of other on weekly episodes, 396 to be exact you can find them all at hauntweekly.com Haunt Weekly on Twitter, Haunt Weekly on Facebook, and YouTube.com slash Haunt Weekly also wherever you get your podcasts from. We don't care. Our provider just puts it out there and whoever Whoever picks it up, picks it up.
Very casual.

[1:34] Uh-huh well anyways um we actually need to begin this week with something we haven't begun with in a long time i forgot to put it in the notes yeah work we did on the haunt yeah we actually have a few items to discuss crystal toledo um so demolition started yep that's good that's good demolition has started uh i am very upset with past us for the way that we did rushed builds at the end. Which is hilarious because past us in this situation would have been either late 2019.

[2:08] Or early 2020. Might have been something we did in the rush to HonkCon. Yeah. And that visit.
Because we were closed 2019 due to our road being torn up, but we knew about that closure in September so we didn't really need to rush that much. Yeah. So we kind of stopped work with like the Haunt being about 85-ish percent done we'll say. And then it's like oh yeah we're having people over from home. Fuck! That's how that went. But hey, you know what? Past us has always been dicks. Yeah. Go back 396 episodes. Past us always been dicks. I don't see why future us will be any different. Yeah. But whatever. So yeah, that began and we also took advantage of an Amazon Prime deal, and have acquired six outdoor and indoor outdoor cameras. Honestly, we don't have a plan on how to use them. We've got some ideas. We've got ideas, but ideas do not equal plan.
All right. But, you know, because basically, A, we want to actually use them for security, on the house. Yeah. And it's basically, we had a guy come over from our homeowner's insurance, and basically just pull up in front of the house even though I was home. Ellie, was gone, I think. Yeah. Yeah, so it looked like nobody was home because no cars were here.
He's over here. Peace.

[3:31] Pulled up, got out of the car, and walked right into our backyard, took photos of shit, all over the property, then left. And he was gone like so fast.
Yeah.
It was ridiculous. And I realized we didn't have any coverage of him. Haunt cameras are off.
We didn't have any coverage of him once he passed the front of the house, so we're fixing that.
That's part of what we're fixing. But I have a feeling some of them are going to find use either in the haunt or at the very least the queue line. Yeah.
Because these are supposedly very good cameras. So I'm excited about that.
We were supposed to put him up this weekend, but we had a lot going on.
And the other thing I think we can say we did for homework was we may have made connections that are going to get us a lot more actors.

Making Connections for More Actors and Haunt Progress

[4:11] Yeah, it seems that way. We had a wonderful breakfast this morning with new friends.
I'd call it brunch, but there was no alcohol. Yeah.

[4:19] Yeah. And it was appropriate too, because there were underage people there.
So that's totally reasonable.
Yeah. There were going to be goats. The goats were outside in the rain. Yeah.
Of rain. You know, it's kind of, look, when you say the fact that our plans were interrupted by rain, and you remember we live in New Orleans, it sounds kind of like our fault. But it usually doesn't rain that hard in the morning. That's usually afternoon showers. Yeah, that's the 3 p.m. shower, 3 to 4 p.m. shower we got. So yeah, but anyway, so we made some good connections.
Honestly, it feels like it's been a productive weekend for the Haunt, even if not super much has happened. Yeah. I actually feel like we've made some ground up. In fact, I've I've got to send some messages to that family what we're done here. Mm-hmm.

[5:04] All right, so I'm happy to bring that segment back. Yes. Even with the crushing fucking hate, my god.
Yes, and all of you people out there saying, so many days to Halloween, stop it.

[5:19] It is not doing anything. You're not helping my anxiety.
And I have GI issues that are connected to anxiety.
You're not helping. Yeah, exactly.
So yeah, please be thoughtful of the people who are behind when you post those.
And we're people who are behind. Yes. Well, anyways moving on because it's what we do, Every week we try to ask you a question a week and last week's was a fun one and we got some great answers on it It was if money were no object, Where would you build a haunt that doesn't have one currently? We didn't want to like talk about putting other haunts out of business No, no, no, we wanted to get into this game of like where needs a haunt like that and y'all came through, First off, Chris Gay, a long time friend of the podcast, there's an abandoned shopping plaza outside of Atlantic City, New Jersey, which is right at the intersection of the Garden State Parkway and the Atlantic City Expressway, that in addition to being at the intersection of two major interstates in that area, highways and interstates in that area, is also across the street from the Spirit Halloween Headquarters store.
That was in the news last week? Yeah, we covered it in the news last week.
And you know, Chris said it was perfect for a season, indoor hot, plus summer festivities to capture the Jersey Shore, you know, people that go there.
Yeah, okay, yeah, you know what, that's some good thinking. I cannot argue against that at all.
I have no counter. Yeah.

[6:48] Right. Another longtime listener, Sam Farrell, said, near Asheville, North Carolina, areas known for density of breweries.

[6:55] Make note, visit Asheville. Yeah, I know. Open year-round flights and flights attraction for smaller themed haunts to go with beer flights. That's a good little business plan there. And I love the name. That's good marketing. You got brand. I like this one. Yeah. All right.
Halloween haunted house Hudson, New Hampshire said. Salem, Massachusetts. Yeah. Now I looked into it there are haunted attractions and singled yeah but I think their point was that there were no year-round ones that I could find yeah and there's only one actual haunted attraction the rest are like yeah those tours and haunted houses that are supposed to be actually haunted with ghost yeah that kind of thing I think it may have the French Quarter problem yeah well there's such an overabundance of spooky shit to do that a haunt just doesn't fit also putting a haunt like we were talking about and it's still where I would immediately think to do it but I also understand the headache we're signing ourselves up for yeah between smaller units because it's a historic area and putting up with historic committees so yeah but I really was surprised to hear that Salem did not have a major attraction no no it has one and it does seem to have some notoriety but yeah that's interesting next up Oh Samuel J Howard said Springfield, Illinois.

[8:20] So much focus on Chicago area wants to pull focus to the center of the state You know I can't argue that and the thing of the thing I love about that is we've talked in this podcast before about how normal people, Protip we're not normal people and I include both crystal and I in that we know and you dear listener in that We because if you're listening to a podcast called haunt weekly that's hit 396 episodes I'm gonna assume you're a wee little bit of a fan and might travel further than the average customer for a haunted house.
But we've seen where customers will travel like 30 miles up to 50 miles, but not much further.
So if you've got an area far enough outside of Chicago, you might have a whole new untapped market.
And like you pointed out, the Chicagoland area does get a lot of focus, very deservedly so, I might add. The haunts are plentiful and excellent in our experience there.
But yeah, I think that's a great idea. And Carolyn Wells said Hawaii, specifically she said that Maui apparently has a major Halloween parade and basically shuts down for Halloween.
But many islanders haven't been to a haunted house. Now there is a haunted house, a haunted attraction in Honolulu.
But it does not seem to be very well regarded according to the Google reviews.
I mean I know nothing about it.

[9:38] But we do know a person that ran a large home haunt there. now operate and they're now they moved to the states they moved to the mainland sorry the lower 48 is what i meant to say yeah they moved to those states i don't know where exactly but we didn't know someone that actually ran a very large home haunt there.

Exploring the potential for year-round haunts in tourist hotspots

[9:57] And apparently this is just not super widespread yet i think honestly uh maui and honolulu in general could be a great spot for a year-round haunt yeah there are enough tourists coming in that it makes sense. And that's just it. It's Galveston, it's New Orleans, it's Austin, it's, you know, San Antonio, where you've got enough tourists to sustain a fairly significant year-round haunt yeah Gatlinburg also has one so yeah I mean I think that's a that's a great idea So, honestly...

Question of the Week: Video Game Recommendations

[10:34] I really don't have much objection to any of these. No.
Alright, but this week's question of the week is, do you have any video games Haunter should play? Our answers are coming up, but we want to hear yours.
Let us know at hauntweekly.com, hauntweekly on Twitter, hauntweekly on Facebook, and youtube.com slash hauntweekly.
Leave a comment, send an email, post a reply, but also post a question directly on Facebook.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'm very curious what y'all have to say.
All right, so it's that time of year.

Steam summer sales - A PC Gamer's Delight

[11:08] It's like Christmas, but better in many ways. It's Steam summer sales.
So for some PC gamers like us, this is kind of a holy time. Yeah, it's time to explore all of the new-to-us games.
And I like going into the co-op section and just seeing what's there and what's available.
And I know we've been, I mean, okay, Crystal and I have played an ungodly amount of Deep Rock Galactic. Yeah.
I think, in fact, I noticed today when we exited that Steam's like, you have played 750 hours.
It made, DRG is going to become the first game I have put four digits of hours in according to Steam. Yeah. I'm pretty confident though.
Yeah. Because I remember when I put in 200 hours in Just Cause 2, I thought that was batshit insane.
Yeah. And I never thought I would see anything like that. and then Deep Rock we hit 750. Yeah that's a lot of hours but so like you said we jump into the co-op, and this time around we plucked out a weird little game that caught our eye called Escape Simulator.
It was it's developed and published by Pine Studio and originally was released in October 2021 so to a year and a half ago, basically.

[12:28] Features online co-op. They say two to three players are ideal. I agree.
I do too, because it gets very crowded because the rooms are small.
So imagine if you were in a, in real life, you know, a physical room escape with too many people.
If you've been in that situation, it's horrible.
So same goes for the virtual. Yeah, there was one room we did.
I remember it was like, oh yeah, we can take up to 12 people. We had seven.
And the first room, we were assholes and elbows because the whole point is you're supposed to like escape that first tiny room and then blossom out into the bigger space.
But that first room, man, it was like that scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, everyone's in the shrinking room and everyone's crowded into the tunnel.
It was like that. I mean, we won, we did well, but Jesus Christ.
I mean, if I had spent another minute in there, it was gonna get claustrophobic.
And I do not have claustrophobia.

[13:24] But yes, they say two to three players are ideal. We agree.
I know a lot of you out there are Steam Deck users these days.
It is Steam Deck compatible, Garret full on compatible. And the base game features a total of 27 rooms.
And that's the professional design rooms that they give you.
There's one tutorial, which even though it's not really an escape room, there is an escape room at the end of it where you can find collectible items. Yes, because that's one thing that this has is it has two missions. Yeah, each one has two missions.

The Rooms and DLCs in Escape Simulator

[14:00] Yeah. We'll get into that a little more in a minute. In addition to the tutorial, there are four locations with five rooms each. There's an Egyptian one, a space one, an old-timey mansion one, so you know various rooms. And then they have six quote-unquote extra rooms which don't have an overarching theme, but they provide.

[14:19] Uh, there's i'm, sorry, go ahead. No, there's two sets of dlc each uh adds four more rooms and each folks on one location. Yeah, i'm looking forward to playing the steampunk one. Yeah, You know, we've been on a bit of a steampunk kick lately. Yeah, which haunter hasn't had a steampunk kick though Honestly, I think I don't think you're a haunter if you haven't but one of the things that i'm really looking forward to Are the community rooms which we haven't had a chance to play yet because we're still getting used to the game. Yeah.

[14:48] Yeah, we did complete all of the Egyptian rooms.
Yeah, yeah, and so I think that the next one is a community room probably, and they have haunted house themed ones, so I'm looking forward to it.
Yeah, I don't know what we're gonna do next, but we'll figure it out, I'm sure it'll be fun.
But here's the thing, yeah, there's tons of community rooms, and it looks like they have a very healthy community in there making rooms, but the actual rooms that they provide are bite-sized.
Yeah. small rooms, if they were in a physical space, it'd probably be about 20 foot by 20 foot.
Yeah. Yeah, they are. Three people feels crowded. Which is why three people is about what you want to do, honestly. But the rooms themselves are 15 minutes each, and both rooms feature a main puzzle which is a sequence of puzzles more aptly that you try to complete, and there are bonus tokens hidden in every motherfucking tiny-ass crack dickheads can shove them into.
Put them on a fucking scarab that crawls worldwide. That's totally fair.
Yeah, you can't stop the scarab. I tried. I tried to plug the holes in the wall with the bricks.
You had to catch it and grab the token.

[15:59] Yeah. Like Pop-Pop did, you know, back in the day when he was wrestling scarabs.
Yeah, and one of the things about the tokens is you can look for those after the mission's over.
So don't get too distracted with them because you could stay in the room on the clock. Yeah, Yeah, you can stay in the room after the clock is the least of the rooms we've done There's 15 minute timer, and like you said there's post game fuck about mode where you can You know try to find all of the tokens and we we found all the tokens in some of the rooms We've been hit and miss there, but we've been enjoying the actual puzzles a lot. But yeah, they're small rooms. Don't expect much exploration, don't expect to like Have a moment where it opens up into a bigger space that would be a cool thing But it seems and that's not the focus of this game, right?
Anyway, right now.

[16:44] Um, if you want to if you catch this before the 12th, which is when the steam games and so this is going live The 10th, so if you do it the day release or the day after pretty much, Um, you can get it for 25 off it, but it's usually just 15 bucks So it's like 11 50 or something, It's not the biggest discount in the world. So don't worry if you miss it, but it's also not the biggest investment.

[17:08] Yeah, and the dlc is on sale too But once again, not significant discounts and not much money for those either.
But yeah, the thing that we noticed and the reason we're doing this episode is it actually scratched our escape room itch that we've had.
We've been talking amongst us about going to an escape room, getting teaming together, seeing when Dawn or Matt or someone else we know can play, and then go to an escape room.
And we haven't done that yet.
And I think the conversation has died down thanks to this game.
And that's what we want to discuss, is why.
So it's going to be a bit of a winding path. I promise we're going to come back to Escape Simulator in a little bit.
For those of you who don't want to listen to the whole episode, or are just curious about the game, that gives you the 411 on the game.
Do recommend. If you want to end the episode here, I understand.
Recommend the game. Go get it.
It's on Steam. Go listen to a different all-weekly episode. Yeah, tons of them, and I already listed the places twice, I don't feel like doing it again.
So, here's the thing, some background on us, is I actually pulled up our notes.
We've played roughly 25 escape rooms, which is a weird number.
Yeah. Like, the really passionate fans have done many, many times that.
Hundreds of escape rooms. I think I've seen on one of the groups, a couple people have hit 1,000.
It gets ridiculous how many they have.

[18:33] But it's, so we're weirdly low if we were fans of escape rooms, but weirdly high for just casual people. Right.
Again, most people are like, yeah, I did one or two. You know, I had a couple. No, we've done 25.

[18:47] Well, it's a weird number. We've won all but four. Two were due to issues in the room. I don't count those as our losses. No, so two real losses. Yeah, two quote-unquote real losses that I agree our team failed the objective. Yeah. Maybe it was an unfair objective, but we failed the objective legitimately, I call it. Oh, again, the ones that were not actual losses, one, they were broken locked yeah so yeah we lost 15 minutes wrestling with that mm-hmm and the other was a room where you and I went in as a twosome and they had lied to us and told us the room could be completed with a twosome when it objectively could not right that is bullshit yeah you needed a third person we still got closer cuz they expected as well man you did way better though what the fuck yeah you did the best out of two people teams we've ever seen oh so nobody's actually Completed it with two people. Yeah, and we got stuck and spent our last two minutes on a puzzle that realistically needed three people Yeah, there was no way two people who could have actually done that. No. Oh my god. I was so frustrated with that Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's totally doable two people. Yeah, then to get out. Wow. Y'all got further than two some ever. Yeah, Fuck dude You know.

[20:08] So yes Now, all of our escape room playing took place between September 2015 and October 2019.
Things shut down for obvious reasons in early 2020.

[20:22] But here's the thing, we were stuck at home like everyone else during the pandemic.
We had an itch to do an escape room.

Trying Mail Order Escape Rooms

[20:31] So what we did is we tried mail order escape rooms. Yeah.
So there was a service called Finders Seekers. And they actually still exist, I checked.

[20:40] Yeah, that's $30 a month or $300 a year. And it's a combination of internet and physical pen and paper.
So they send you a box and you unbox it and then you go to the website and you pull up videos and questions, and you have to answer the questions to get to the next quote, section of the game.
And the boxes themselves contained a lot of paper stuff, but also one or two physical items.
Like one came with a special flashlight that was like red colored, red tinted.
One came with like a metal compass. It actually felt like hefty and nice.
Yeah.
And one came with a rocket.
Yeah. So I think we actually, or Ellie was the one that actually did this.
So I don't know for certain, but I think she did the six month subscription.
Yeah. So I think we played three and then we shelved three.
Yeah.
Because it really wasn't doing it for us. Right.
And the thing is the puzzles weren't bad, right? I don't want to like totally dunk on it. I think someone who's not us might get more out of this on it That's just truth this would be like good for a corporate setting for like a team-building episode or if you've got a class that you want to, introduce them to the idea of escape rooms.
I also think it might be good for like individuals.

[22:07] Because like if you want to do escape rooms, but you don't have a team or you know I mean then it might work because problem one was that the games were very linear, Yeah, that problem is overcome if it's just you one person could definitely do these quote-unquote rooms. Yeah, no problem.

[22:24] So yeah, even with it, but even when multiple people could work together. It was very hard with the paper, Because it was very hard because most of them are letter-sized pieces of paper It's very hard to share and let everyone see it, you know and work on at the same time. Yeah, we tried to do one, With a friend at a bar. Yeah back when they allowed outdoor dining it was during one of those respites. Yeah, You know, we brought a friend to a big picnic table outside of a bar Yeah, and that did not work. We did not finish it in the time allotted. No, Yeah, and then and honestly, you know, there is a time there is a quote-unquote time limit But it's not really a time limit, right? There's no like loud buzzer. That's gonna go off They're not gonna like yell at you whenever it happens either. No, no.

[23:14] Yeah, it's it's nice for a relaxing time in a selfie pose Like I said, if I were in one person instead of three or four trying to do it I think it would have been kind of cool. Yeah, but trying to do it in a group, didn't really work and like I said was very very linear just didn't scratch the edge right so yeah we ended up not renewing the subscription and we still have three unopened games in our living room yeah I'm probably donating one to work because they're so one of the things that the sim labs doing is is building escape rooms using the bodies and having students solve questions that they'll be tested on later by doing it in physical.
Man, school is so cool these days. Man, when the old fuckers were in school, they didn't do shit like this. So I'm excited because we're gonna get one of those tables, like the autopsy tables, that's virtual.
Oh, wow. full-size virtual autopsy. That is wicked.
Yeah. It's like things out of TV shows that I never thought would actually exist.
And that you would actually be able to like interact with it at any point.
Yeah.

Exploring Different Types of Escape Rooms

[24:31] So that's kind of our history with escape rooms. Played a lot of physical ones, pandemic, tried the virtual ones. We tried some online ones too.
Yeah. And in fact, we did an episode on them. I don't know what that was, but we were not super over the moon about those either.
Right. So we have tried a lot of different approaches to scratch that itch without going to an escape room, which is interesting because that's kind of how the history of escape rooms works.
Yeah.
So a brief history of escape rooms. There's actually some debate about how the concept started.

[25:04] Because a lot of it is how do you define an escape room. Right.
Because there were attractions that could be seen as like proto-escape rooms in Japan before even the virtual ones. Yeah.
But some say yes, some say no, but whatever. But basically, the history of widespread global popularity does begin virtually.
Yeah.
And it goes all the way back to the 1970s and adventure games and text games, but it realistically began in earnest in the early 2000s. Because basically that was an era in which there was all these flash games being made and one of the easiest and types of game to make with a flash using that system was an escape room. Tiny environment, didn't have to do a lot of drawing and art, easy to program, so escape the room type games became this whole genre of free game that Winning gangbusters. Yeah, and you really liked him. You played a few of those way too many of those I got I went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs for those for a time. And yeah, apparently I wasn't alone, right because the first modern physical escape room opened in Japan in 2007, But realistically it started in the United States in like 2012 and then between 2012 and like 2017 or so it really was in a growth in the United States 2015 is what many considered the golden age of.

[26:29] Escape rooms in the United States. Um, that's one like everybody has to go. We want all the escape rooms, But as we've discussed in other episodes the market and especially like going back to the trans world one Yeah, there's been some struggle in that market. Yeah, cuz there are just so many of them They've oversaturated the market and people who don't go to haunted houses don't realize is that the Haunted House ones are different than the ones you play in a shopping center.
Yeah, you know? Yeah.

[27:03] Yeah, because basically with an escape room, right, you have a lack of replayability.
Once you've completed escape room, win, lose, or draw, you realistically can't go back and do it again. Yeah. Because you've solved the puzzles.
Yeah, and for a while there, there were a lot of these out-of-the-box kind of escape rooms that you could go to, and those were just poor quality games.
Yeah. linear there wasn't a lot of play that you could do simultaneously and they just they ruined part of the reputation of them. Yeah a lot of people got in on it I mean like and like we went to some of these office park escape room type things and some of them were really good yeah because yeah okay maybe the sets weren't the greatest but he but the guy cleverly made it the bookies office yeah So the fact you're in an office park right in an office that looks like an office, Works right because it was they took into account the story. Yeah, And he actually had the one i'm thinking of had really good puzzle design Yeah, he did and he didn't do an out of the box. No, no, But there were like you said a lot of these that just stunk. Yeah.

[28:18] Yeah, it was like if you bought a template for an escape room and had it shipped to you and just set it up randomly.
And then not particularly well. Yeah, look, here's a blank room.
We've put pictures on the wall that kind of fit the theme and here's a couple of puzzles.
Like even in 2019, they were struggling with those issues. And then of course the pandemic hits and doesn't help anything. Right.
So yeah, there are a lot of challenges in this industry. I think the industry is still gonna do well.
I still think the games that, the high quality games I think will continue, that are in good places for those games, will still do very well.

[28:58] I think that's one thing to consider because like Rise had some really amazing games, but the location wasn't right.
So those games have moved now to Baton Rouge, they're with 13th Gate, or they've been divvied up actually, but I think the ones I was following the closest went to 13th Gate, that's a better place because there definitely is a more of a turnover, more of a, you know what I mean?
It makes more sense than Tickfaw, Louisiana, basically.
But yeah, the basic history of the escape room has been that it's going back and forth between virtual and real, and now That brings us back to escape simulator.

[29:39] Because this is why this is incredibly interesting or why we're interested to talk about at the very least because this game, Scratches that escape room itch in a way that no virtual one had. Yeah, because I remember playing the virtual ones, like in the early 2000s, especially, and thinking, man, it'd be so cool if someone just did something like this and for real, like you get your hands on and play, you think about all the things you could do, and, now someone took the physical experience and brought it back to the virtual in a, fairly significant way. Yeah, and it's, you know, full 3D, so you can look around everywhere. There's no jumping in it, but you do crouch so you can see underneath things and you can interact with everything in the room. Yeah, interact in this case means you pick it up and you can spin it around and look at it and examine it really closely. You can throw it at your teammates. Throw it at your teammates.
It does not hurt them in any way shape or form, but it's amusing. Yes, you can, but also I think one difference is like the year going back to the 2000s, The puzzles were very arbitrary those puzzles felt more like adventure game puzzles. Yeah.

Escape Simulator: Simulating Physical Escape Rooms

[30:58] Like from the King's Quest Sam and Max that type of stuff right way back that those days where?
Escape simulator is trying to Simulate a physical escape room. Yeah, which which is kind of funny when you think about it because escape simulator is simulating in a physical escape room and a physical escape room was a simulation, of the virtual ones that existed before that. Right. So we've hit the next layer, it feels like and because of that most of the puzzles follow traditional escape room logic and rules. Right. Now there are exceptions. Yeah. For one you can break things and in fact you have to break things. Yeah you have to break things. Some of the puzzles include actually destroying items. Yeah. Like fully destroying where it disappears and you like, holy shit, did I do that wrong? One where you had to break an object in order to get a key out of it, for example.
Yeah, and there's no other way to progress other than smash and grab the key.
Example.

Unrealistic Elements in Escape Simulator

[32:05] The games, nothing is realistically off limits in these games in terms of what they can do.
Like the Egyptian one, the final one, ended on top of this pyramid, interacting with things way off in the distance. Our actual space to move around was so tiny, but you're looking way off into the distance. You can't do that with a real escape room.
So yeah, the game has elements that are not physically possible anywhere else.
The controls are a wee little bit janky and take some getting used to, especially if you're using a controller.
I personally encourage keyboard mouse.
Yeah, and if you're used to keyboard mouse, then use that. But if you're used to a controller, use a controller.
There is a little jank though with the controller, I will admit that though.
And also, one of the weird things we notice is that it's really easy to forget what you're carrying. It is.
However, your teammates can look at you because it's all sticking out your pockets.
Yeah, so that's a little weird. So it does do that.
But basically, you know, you have to approach Escape Simulator the way you would approach a real escape room. What's up?
Yeah, because, you know, I can say in a real escape room, you know, I've picked up a key or I see a box with blah, blah, blah, blah on it.
And you do that in this game too.

[33:27] But since you're not carrying the physical thing in your hand where you can see, everybody can see that you're holding something, it is harder to know what people have.
Exactly.

The importance of communication in escape room simulations

[33:41] And a shared inventory would actually solve that. Yeah, that's actually not a bad idea.
But that said, the skills you use an escape simulator that are identical to the ones you use in a real escape room.
Communication, most important. We have only played with people physically in the room with us. So I don't know how well the communication is, over the mic, over like a mic. So that's something that I would look into if you're gonna be playing with people not in the room with you, like at a LAN party environment. But you know, communication is incredibly The willingness to examine everything, get crouched down, look underneath shit, zoom in at stuff, look at it, see if it opens.

[34:27] A lot of lateral thinking. Like one of my favorite puzzles they had, and this sounds so stupid, right, but gotta remember this is in a virtual world, was we had to get a code of hieroglyphics off of something, and we actually had to sweep the dust off of it.
Yeah. That sounds so dumb. It's like, of course you sweep the dust off it. What are you talking about?
That's why I don't feel like that's a spoiler, because it is the obvious answer.
And it was the first thing in the first room.
Yeah, but you have to find the brush and use the brush to sweep the dust off.
And you have to let your teammates know that you have the fucking brush.
Ellie! Oh, I thought it was you.
Jonathan! Asshole!
No. It may have been me, I don't remember. We were still learning the controls at that moment.
We were, because it was the very first room. And we didn't realize that there wasn't a shared inventory.
Because you can get clues also like a voice of God and a physical one.
Yeah, they actually simulated that too, which is interesting.
Yeah, but the clue only goes to whoever picks it up. And then you have to share it.
So yeah.

[35:38] To repeat, though, we have not played any community rooms. We're looking forward to doing that soon.
But yeah, ultimately, I really do recommend this game very, very highly.
Just bear in mind that this game is crushingly family-friendly.
And I do mean that. Like, when you look at the art style, it looks like a children's cartoon almost.
It really does. I mean, this doesn't look like an adult game almost, but it very much is.
So yeah, it's family-friendly.
Don't expect anything too scary or too violent. Even looking at the Haunted Mansion ones, they look more Disney Haunted Mansion than they do...
I don't know. We're going to find out. We'll find out. Maybe we'll report or at least comment on this episode.
Yeah, I think we're going to have to... We'll mention it in a later episode, I'm sure of that.
But yeah, I mean, basically, we really enjoyed this game, and I'm looking forward to playing more of it tonight, actually. I really am.
The fact I'm saying that is actually kind of bad news for the escape room industry And I am sorry to be that bearer of bad news, Yeah, because on top of all the issues we discussed earlier now Now digital alternatives are becoming mainstream again.

[36:59] Yeah, yeah, because there was a lot of love for this game, because so one of the things that I do whenever I find new games is I go out and I look what the community is saying about them.
How wide has the word spread about the game? What are the cons?
What are the pros? And does it sound like a good fit for us?
Yeah, because it can be a great game and just not a good fit for us.
Yeah, it might be better for someone else.
Now, everything we found about this game was a lot of love, it has been reviewed well by both reviewers and users and players. And like you said, you go into the forums and you go into the community level editor and all that.
There are a lot of people that have invested a lot of time into this game, time and care into this game, that are not the developers.
Which you know, that sounds kind of crazy, but it is true.
A virtual escape room has limitations, yes, but it has a lot of advantages.
The biggest advantage is it's so inexpensive compared to a real one.
We pay $12 for this game. If you get it off sale, it's $15.
You can either look at it as, like I said, 27 tiny rooms, but even if you just look at it as like the Egyptian sequence is one room, because it takes about an hour, a little bit but I've already completed.

[38:21] You still get four escape rooms for that price. Find me an escape, physical escape room, where it's $15 for a ticket to do four rooms.
Yeah. That doesn't exist.
No. You can barely, you would have to hunt and probably make some sacrifices to get a $15 ticket for one room.
You may be able to do like a five minute escape room with that, but that's not a full experience. No, that's no. It can be played remotely.
We all happen to be in the same room, but you don't have to be. Yeah. So if you don't have to get your team cobbled together, you don't have to find a time in which everyone can schedule to go to the escape room, because this can be picked up and put down impulsively. Yeah. Hey, we're not doing anything right now you want to do an escape room. Boom. We don't have to call and make an appointment and be there next week for it. We don't have to book it online or whatever. It's just, hey, you want to do an escape room? Five minutes later we're in an escape room. Yeah.
You can't be that. No, that's very nice. That's an incredible, but it's very evil.

[39:36] And also it can do experiences that just aren't possible in physical escape rooms.
Mm-hmm like I talked about the the thing where they being on the top of the pyramid in Egypt, Yeah, very very cool. And oh and there is actually a VR component to this we do not have, a VR headset that is compatible with Steam. So I'm going to check at some point, see if it's on, because we actually have the MetaQuest 2. It's sitting on my shelf behind me right now. I haven't actually pulled it out in quite a while. Partly because I didn't have a place to. Now I actually do. The office is cleaned out enough that I can actually do it. But I need to check that. But But there is a VR component of it if you have that and that would be, Pretty cool. I think I think they'd be really interesting.

[40:26] But yeah from a competition standpoint. This is tough to beat and yeah I mean escape rooms are still a physical experience and this obviously is not, but That that's very very meaningful to hardcore escape room fans That's very meaningful to corporate clients that are doing team building and things like that Yeah, but to a casual player who just gets a bug up their ass and wants to try an escape room, This is might be a good enough substitution. Yeah. Well, and this might get you them, Interested in doing again then there could be the counter side Which is to be people's introduction to escape room because that is one of the problems I think escape rooms have is that if you've never done one before yeah, the buy-in is fucking huge Yeah, and you might be intimidated by the idea of it. I talked to a lot of people, And they are just intimidated by the idea of going in and failing in front of other people. That's true, And and all of these rooms are doable solo. Yeah.

[41:28] I mean we're focusing on the co-op aspect because we're focusing on that in our gameplay Yeah, I think it would be difficult to do it in the time limit Yeah, if you're gonna do it solo give up on the time limit in advance Yeah, you may be able to beat the time limit, but it's gonna be a lot harder I personally would and honestly the time limits more of a, Suggestion. Yeah, cuz yeah, you do get a pretty little trophy or not Actually, you don't let you get anything you get a icon of a trophy when you do it under the time limit But there's no you have failed Yeah, there's no countdown or beep beep beep. Take your embarrassing photograph and get out.

Escape Rooms vs Virtual Escape Rooms

[42:09] Hate those. Yeah, I hate them when we win. Yeah, I hate them worse when we lose. Yeah.
I'm not happy and like when we went to the wax museum and all that they wanted to take our photograph on the way We're like, can we just fucking not? Yeah, like are you sure? Yes. I'm very sure. I don't want my fucking photo taken. Yeah, Yeah.
And then you know what they um, they actually didn't to their credit. All right. Thank you, Um Yeah, i'm not saying we won't ever do a physical escape room again, But it's definitely going to be a more rare treat Right and you know with ellie's store and with our busy, You know weekly jobs our full-time jobs. It's harder and harder to find. Yeah times to schedule things like this, Yeah, it's it's damn near impossible. Yeah, so yeah, we have but and that's good speaks against the advantage of the virtual, We can just do this whenever the fuck we want midnight on Sunday night midnight before we go to bed. Yeah, why don't fuck not?

[43:15] We got 15 minutes before we're turning in. Yeah, I'm not turning on my brain that late But you know the reason why I put theoretically we could yeah, I know we could yeah the point remains We're not working around the escape room schedule. The escape room is working around our schedule now. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah. And this basically made it a little less urgent. The conversations we were having about doing an escape room got a little bit less urgent or a lot less urgent actually. So this got me thinking though. How does this apply to haunted attractions? If a virtual escape room can offer both some competition and possibly some overlap and collaboration with physical ones. What about haunts? Well, I think haunts are different. And the, reason is haunted attractions aren't games. Right. At least I don't see them as games. Maybe, hey, if y'all do, you know the places to come and let us know. Tell me how wrong I am. Yeah. I'm okay. I'm okay being wrong. I don't take offense to that.

Haunted Attractions as In-Person Experiences

[44:16] But there's no game animal. There's no fail or victory state. I guess if you powder out, You know you surrender then you fail. I mean, I guess that is one way to look at it, but that's not really a game Right. Right, you know.

[44:33] It's an in-person experience and the itch comes from you know the adrenaline you get from genuinely being scared, And I I love scary video games, But they don't scare they don't hit the way a haunted attraction as a real actor can, Can do so much more to me than the monster and um And like amnesia the dark descent or something, right?
Like an actor can do so much more to me than You know a character in a game. I mean, Yeah, I'll admit it. You know five nights of Freddy's in the movie coming out now. Mm-hmm, I actually did not enjoy the game that much I played it a couple of times and actually got a few night I got that like night three or four Yeah, but I found it a struggle to go through just because it is so tense. It's very tense, right?
It's not like scary tense to me. Yeah, it's an anxiety tension rather than a yeah, Someone's going to pop out and scare me tense.

[45:33] Yeah. I know that's weird. Maybe it's just me.
I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on this, but that's for me.
It hits a very different kind of anxiety, a very different trigger.
Now, I do think that a virtual escape room like this may be interesting to be able to play when you're in line.
Yeah. Waiting to go into a haunt.
Yeah, I could see that. Or even an AR one. You might be able to do an AR one. Yeah.
Something like that. and things like that. Yeah, to find shit around the outside of the haunt and solve puzzles.
That could be cool. Like zombie army has the ghost hunting one. An escape room slash puzzle one could be a lot of fun too. Yeah. But yeah, so yeah, I don't think the haunted attraction experience.

[46:17] Can be. I mean, maybe in some VR games. I've not done a lot of horror VR. I have to admit that.
That is a limitation. But like just regular PC games, like we talked about Layers of Fear way back in episode 109. Yeah. So damn near 300 episodes ago.
Yes. They actually apparently just released a third game. Right. Which is confusingly called Layers of Fear. They have Layers of Fear, Layers of Fear 2, and then Layers of Fear. Uh-huh. But also they have apparently a Blair Witch game by the same developer that does a lot of the same stuff. The Amnesia series I mentioned, Amnesia the Dark Descent, played that. They just released their fourth game, Bunker I think is what it's called. And apparently that's pretty good. Like I've heard not kind things about the second and third Amnesia games, but I'm hearing kind things about the fourth one. There's Soma, there's Outlast, there's a bunch of other of these quote-unquote walking, horror or walking simulator games.

The unique experience of Layers of Fear

[47:24] But yeah, I mean I enjoy them. We love layers of fear loved it enough to do a whole fucking episode on it. Yeah, Um, but it doesn't but we but it was interesting because when we did layers of fear We did the whole episode on it. We weren't talking about well, damn now you can get the haunted attraction experience and digital form, That never even crossed our fucking mind. Well, no because with that game it is such It does the thing that this simulator does by providing an environment and a playthrough that you can't get in the physical world.
Yeah. Like you can't go out of a door and it be completely in a different room without you noticing it.

[48:05] Yeah. The feeling of getting lost, of going in circles and nothing making sense.
The Willy Wonka-ness of it, if you will.
Yeah, exactly. Wonka references episode. Weird. Yeah. Usually I do zero in an episode but this, one's about two. Anyways, but yeah it just doesn't hit that same itch. And A, it could, be that we're just big Haunted Attraction fans. Like we said that Escape Simulator is not gonna necessarily scratch the itch for a big Escape Room fan. Yeah. It may be the same there. It may be that we're just OTT Haunt fans. Mm-hmm.
But I also think since haunts aren't games, it's kind of hard to scratch the itch from a game.
Because that's one thing about even Layers of Fear, is that they have to have some gameplay elements there. With Layers of Fear, it was simple puzzles and stuff.
It's game room stuff. I'm really curious if you are visually impaired and you're playing a game, versus going through a walkthrough of a haunted house, how they compare.

[49:16] Don't know I don't know either, but I'm really curious if you could scratch a similar itch Yeah, But I even like we didn't we did the VR experience 13th gate that was a horror one, Yeah, that didn't scratch that like that didn't compete with going through the 13th gate itself, I don't think anyone in their right mind was paying five bucks to do the five minute VR Experience and not going through the haunted house. Yeah, I don't think anyone that'd be stupid, huh?

Comparing Horror Games to Virtual Escape Rooms

[49:52] Especially since you put through all that work to get to the 13th gate, I mean Jesus Christ, Yeah people who live outside the area have to drive in it's always a little bit of a challenge, To find a place to park and do all that stuff, But yeah, I just I don't think to my mind Horror games don't hit Haunted attractions the way virtual escape rooms like Escape Simulator can't hit escape rooms.
Yeah. I don't think that analogy quite works. No. I agree. And it's hard to say why. But anyways, yeah.
So you want to go play some Escape Simulator now? Sure. I would guess we should probably wrap up the episode first though.
But thank you all for joining us. Please do let us know your thoughts on this and maybe we're deluding ourselves.
Entirely possible. Maybe I've got this wrong. Maybe I've got this backwards.
Let us know. Hauntweekly.com, Hauntweekly on Twitter, Hauntweekly on Facebook, and YouTube.com slash Hauntweekly. You can also find us wherever you get your podcasts from.
But until next time, I'm Jonathan. I'm Krystal. And we will see you all next week if we don't get to Enraptured playing Escape Simulate. We'll try not. See you all then.