The Witching Hour is upon us in this Halloween special, it's time to pull up a rickety, mouldy stool at the near-empty pub, the Brush, Nose and Bone. In this episode, we're joined by a master of horror, Keith Dozois of USB Escape to discuss all things horror in escape rooms. How does horror affect puzzles? What are our best (and worst) experiences with horror? And how do you make horror good in an escape room?

As always, here are your recommendations for this month.

Jamie - Ice Nine Kills (band), a metalcore whose recent output has been centred around iconic horror films, and was a big inspiration for Jamie's episode this arc.

Mairi - Strange Jigsaws (game by fleb), a short digital puzzle game about solving 50 or so rather strange jigsaws. The prequel (20 Small Mazes) is free, if you want to see what sort of thing you're getting yourself into.

Jon - Never Let Me Go (novel by Kazuo Ishiguro), a slow gentle book about a trio of young folks in the British countryside but they attend a very unusual school and are on an unusual life trajectory.

Keith - Scarlet Envelope for their fantastic puzzle games (yay), and Curios' Albrecht Manor Letters, an epistolary horror experience through writing letters. Two fantastic Canada-based game creators.

Hosts: Mairi Nolan, Jon Saunders, Jamie Gibbs

Special Guest: Keith Dozois

Editor: Jamie Gibbs

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

TLDR: The final episode in the VHS Nightmare arc has the four hosts chatting about all things horror game, and puzzle game design at a spooky pub.

The Infinite Escape Room is a comedy escape room podcast where a group of friends make and solve audio escape rooms for one another. It's one part tabletop RPG, one part escape room with a bit of Monkey Island humour sprinkled over the top.

Safely returned from their doorless room, with a hairbrush in hand, the team are left with only one VHS tape, adorned with images of graves. It sends them to a London Garden Park, with a curious statue guarding the gate, it's amazing what they call Art these days...

• Puzzle Maestro: Jon Saunders

• Solvers: Jamie Gibbs, Mairi Nolan

• Special Guest: Keith Dozois of USB Escape

• Episode Art: Dom Jordan

• Editor: Jon Saunders

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

TLDR: The third episode in the VHS Nightmare arc follows the team and special guest Keith Dozois in an escape room set in a London graveyard.

The Infinite Escape Room is a comedy escape room podcast where a group of friends make and solve audio escape rooms for one another. It's one part tabletop RPG, one part escape room with a bit of Monkey Island humour sprinkled over the top.

After missing their one-flight-a-day from the Australian desert, the gang decide to shelter for the night in an abandoned shack deep in the outback. Inside they find a VHS player, and three tapes.

Last week the team tried to play a VHS tape and were transported to a sinister sewer to face a laughing clown, this week they find themselves stood in a room with no windows or doors, lit only by the pale glow of a television showing static. Until it doesn't.

With 999 possible channels for the team to uncover, this won't be an easy task.

• Puzzle Maestro: Mairi Nolan

• Solvers: Jamie Gibbs, Jon Saunders

• Special Guest: Keith Dozois of USB Escape

• Episode Art: Dom Jordan

• Editor: Jon Saunders

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

TLDR: The second episode in the VHS Nightmare arc follows the team and special guest Keith Dozois in a Ring inspired escape room.

The Infinite Escape Room is a comedy escape room podcast where a group of friends make and solve audio escape rooms for one another. It's one part tabletop RPG, one part escape room with a bit of Monkey Island humour sprinkled over the top.

After missing their one-flight-a-day from the Australian desert, the gang decide to shelter for the night in an abandoned shack deep in the outback. Inside they find a VHS player, and three tapes.

But this is no ordinary VHS player, as the moment the tape goes in the world shimmers in static and we find ourselves transported to... A sewer.

There's distant crying coming from the darkness and a creepy red balloon hovering in the air. But there's no time for clowning around when there's a puzzle to solve.

If you're playing along with the puzzle, check out this visual asset when Jon finds the compass.

• Puzzle Maestro: Jamie Gibbs

• Solvers: Mairi Nolan, Jon Saunders

• Special Guest: Keith Dozois of USB Escape

• Episode Art: Dom Jordan

• Editor: Jamie Gibbs

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

TLDR: The first episode in the VHS Nightmare arc follows the team and special guest Keith Dozois in a maze-like sewer system inspired by Stephen King's IT.

The Infinite Escape Room is a comedy escape room podcast where a group of friends make and solve audio escape rooms for one another. It's one part tabletop RPG, one part escape room with a bit of Monkey Island humour sprinkled over the top.

In this new series, we put our professional puzzle design experience to good use and look at escape rooms in film and TV as if they were real escape rooms.

In this podcast we're looking at the escape room episode of Inside No. 9, "CTRL ALT ESCAPE". Follow Mairi, Jamie, and special guest Alex Hylands-White as they put the room through its paces and discuss what improvements they'd make to make it a better escape room.

Alex brings a wealth of escape room experience through his work as a designer at Clockwork Dog and Marketing Director at COGS. COGS is a show control software and hardware platform used to create and manage interactive live experiences like escape rooms, haunted houses, and immersive theater. It allows operators to easily design automated puzzles, control effects such as lights and sounds, and manage hardware like sensors and locks through a user-friendly interface, all without requiring complex programming skills.

Hosts: Mairi Nolan, Jamie Gibbs

Special Guest: Alex Hylands-White, Marketing Director of Clockwork Dog and COGS

Editor: Jamie Gibbs

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

Pull up a stool in the Northern northern northern Australian outback! At this near-empty Pub the team wrangle over the concept of difficulty in Escape Rooms, what it is, whether it is simply a feature of good or bad design, whether it is changing and, inevitably, what even counts as an Escape Room anymore at all!

As always we come to you with humble recommendations to ease you into Autumn.

Jamie - Thank Goodness You're Here! Cartoon style Steam game set in Northern England in which you help out the locals entirely by slapping things.

Mike - Dungeon Crawler Carl books. Unapologetically trope-ridden fast food adventure books for when you'd like to read, but not to think.

Jon - I Who Have Never Known Men. Utterly bleak dystopian sci fi novel, translated from French, that follows the first hand account of a young woman trapped in a cage with 39 other women for reasons none of them understand. You will be sad, but also know more.

Jon (AGAIN) - Superliminal. Incredibly straightforward yet shockingly mind bending puzzle game that is all about changing your perspective. Think Stanley Parable if it looked better and were more optimistic. Genuinely moving and uplifting.

Hosts: Jon Saunders, Jamie Gibbs, Mike Collins

Editor: Jon Saunders

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

With just twenty two minutes and thirty seconds remaining before our flight from Australia Airport leaves, the team have no choice but to solve Jon's puzzle puzzle at the crossroads. Somewhere off Australia Road (which by the way, is the road in Australia, in case you were wondering), the airport awaits...

But which way?

"Struth Ruth, Bruce is coming babe."

• Puzzle Maestro: Jon Saunders

• Solvers: Mike Collins, Jamie Gibbs

• Episode Art: Dom Jordan

• Editor: Jamie Gibbs

Visual handouts to play along

• Tin Horses

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

TLDR: The second escape room in the Outback Odyssey arc centres on a postman called Bruce, the Tin Horse Highway, and many letters without addresses. The Infinite Escape Room is a comedy escape room podcast where a group of friends make and solve audio escape rooms for one another. It's one part tabletop RPG, one part escape room with a bit of Monkey Island humour sprinkled over the top.

With the team's outback getaway driver KO-ed outside the toilet, the team find themselves stranded in the outback, 45 minutes before their flight from "Australia Airport" leaves. Time is of the essence, and in this special the solvers will have a shared 45-minutes to solve across both parts of the Outback Odyssey arc.

But before they can get back on the road they'll have to get through dozens and dozens of gnomes... in various state of undress (Jamie's exact words, not mine). Somewhere among these gnomes the key to escape lies. It's time to lock in and-

"Gnome more Mr. Nice Guy".

• Puzzle Maestro: Jamie Gibbs

• Solvers: Mike Collins, Jon Saunders

• Episode Art: Dom Jordan

• Editor: Mike Collins

All links to our social media profiles and our Patreon programme over at https://linktr.ee/theinfiniteescaperoom

TLDR: The first episode in the Outback Odyssey arc takes place in a field of gnomes in the Australian outback, featuring anagrams, rude gnome gestures, and a locked toilet.

The Infinite Escape Room is a comedy escape room podcast where a group of friends make and solve audio escape rooms for one another. It's one part tabletop RPG, one part escape room with a bit of Monkey Island humour sprinkled over the top.