Speaker 1: Hello, Puzzlers. Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast the smiley face
Speaker 1: in the margin of your puzzle report card. I am
Speaker 1: your host, AJ Jacobs, and today's guests are legends in
Speaker 1: the world of puzzles. They are Lisa Spira, David Spira,
Speaker 1: and pg Law. Three guests a record for the Puzzler.
Speaker 1: They are the experts of all experts on escape rooms.
Speaker 1: They founded Room Escape Artist, which is a website that
Speaker 1: runs funny and useful reviews and news about escape rooms,
Speaker 1: and they also have a podcast, the Reality Escape Pod,
Speaker 1: which Greg and I were recent guests on.
Speaker 2: Welcome everybody, Thank you for having us, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: There you go. We'll figure out later. Who's who? But
Speaker 1: to start? David and Lie's I interviewed you for the
Speaker 1: Puzzler book and at that point you had done about
Speaker 1: nine hundred escape rooms. It's been a couple of years.
Speaker 1: What's your number? What are you up to.
Speaker 3: At this point, we've done more than eleven hundred. In fact,
Speaker 3: I think we're approaching twelve hundred.
Speaker 2: We are, but we've slowed down since you had first
Speaker 2: met us. Now we're spending a lot more time running
Speaker 2: the website, running our convention, producing the podcast, we play
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 3: Less and we're choosy.
Speaker 1: Got it all right? But you still you've broke a
Speaker 1: thousand though, so that's important. We're going to get more
Speaker 1: into in a later episode. We're going to dive a
Speaker 1: little deeper into escape rooms and the weirdness and delight
Speaker 1: that they are. But if you had to pick out
Speaker 1: of those eleven hundred, is there one that is just
Speaker 1: the weirdest, most mind blowing one you've been or just
Speaker 1: weirdest doesn't have to be mind blowing.
Speaker 3: I can give an answer for weird and mind blowing.
Speaker 3: There's a game called The Dome in the Netherlands where
Speaker 3: you feel like you're in a hallucination and you have
Speaker 3: no idea what might happen next, and it's it's phenomenal
Speaker 3: and so impressive. Every time something new happens, it's weird.
Speaker 1: So are you still in the Dome? Perhaps? Do you
Speaker 1: think that like, if you haven't stopped hallucinating, maybe we
Speaker 1: never left. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's my theory.
Speaker 1: And David and Lisa, I know that you are married.
Speaker 1: Did you get married in an escape room?
Speaker 2: We did not get married in an escape room. I
Speaker 2: did begin my proposal in an escape room with a
Speaker 2: ring box that did not have a ring in it.
Speaker 2: It had a scroll with a puzzle on it. That
Speaker 2: was the beginning of a trail of puzzles that resulted
Speaker 2: in a custom puzzle box that had a ring.
Speaker 3: And in the end I had a ring and a
Speaker 3: puzzle box, which is my mass And.
Speaker 1: Did you were what if you didn't solve it, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't be married? Now? Is that the idea?
Speaker 3: Exactly?
Speaker 1: Yeah? All right, well, thank god you're a good solver.
Speaker 1: All right, So we'll talk more about escape rooms in
Speaker 1: another episode, but today we want to give you some
Speaker 1: puzzles from our audio escape room, and our chief puzzle Officer,
Speaker 1: Greg Pliska has come up from the puzzle Lab to
Speaker 1: deliver one. Hello Greg, I'm glad to be up from
Speaker 1: the muzzle lab.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. I wanted before I get into
Speaker 4: the puzzles to also ask PG a little bit about
Speaker 4: the podcast, since she's more involved in that end than
Speaker 4: in the escape room website. So PG tell us a
Speaker 4: little bit about the podcast.
Speaker 3: Thanks Greg.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I co host the Reality Escape Pod with David
Speaker 5: and David is a big fan of Survivor and I
Speaker 5: was actually on Survivor twice and Survivor I've always called
Speaker 5: it like the world's best immersive game ever, and so
Speaker 5: on the podcast we talk about we interview different creators
Speaker 5: from puzzle hunts, escape rooms, LARPs, anything that has to
Speaker 5: do with immersive gaming. We talked to all of them.
Speaker 1: Like Survivor is the opposite of escape Room. You're trying
Speaker 1: not to escape, you want to stay there.
Speaker 5: That's that's fair enough, that's fair enough.
Speaker 4: Well, I promise the puzzle today will be less hallucinatory
Speaker 4: than the dome and less gruelings.
Speaker 2: And we hold you to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, I promise. Now, this game is all about palindromes, which,
Speaker 4: of course you know what they are things that are
Speaker 4: the same forwards and backwards. And these are going to
Speaker 4: be kind of fanciful words or phrases. Uh. My example
Speaker 4: that I always go to is the clue is this
Speaker 4: feline is fond of Mexican food, and that, of course
Speaker 4: is a cat taco cat exactly pg. So these I'm
Speaker 4: going to give similar clues for these fanciful two word
Speaker 4: phrases with one twist. Each of these will be themed
Speaker 4: around you guys and the podcast. Okay, all right, so
Speaker 4: here's your first one, and anybody you know, if you've
Speaker 4: got an answer, you can jump in and tell us.
Speaker 4: Which thinking. Uh, this is a nickname for one of
Speaker 4: the podcast hosts, especially when he sings opera.
Speaker 2: Well, he is going to be me so.
Speaker 4: Very good. That's okay, jumped over the first hur Yes,
Speaker 4: so you know it's David, nickname.
Speaker 5: For me, a nickname for the podcast host, especially when
Speaker 5: he sings opera.
Speaker 3: So won't be Aria for opera. That's a good word to.
Speaker 4: Good thinking, good thinking.
Speaker 5: I got to write this down because it is visualizing.
Speaker 4: I will say that almost all of these are just
Speaker 4: two words, so these aren't going to be huge long
Speaker 4: you know, a manic plan, a canal, panama, palindromes. These
Speaker 4: are shorter spy aias.
Speaker 2: No, that doesn't have the P.
Speaker 4: Nope, nope. It doesn't use your surnames.
Speaker 1: Just your first name. They're too smart. I think they're
Speaker 1: too smart. That's there you're going, and beyond.
Speaker 4: It's just.
Speaker 3: Oh, diva diva, David.
Speaker 4: Nice diva, David exactly.
Speaker 2: That was my nickname in high school.
Speaker 4: You got it. See, I'm here from your past. This
Speaker 4: is actually an episode of This Is Your Life?
Speaker 5: Where do you see what You're never living this down.
Speaker 5: This is what I'm calling you on the podcast from
Speaker 5: now on.
Speaker 4: All right, here's your second one. Your podcast is very cool,
Speaker 4: but this would be an even more cool version of it.
Speaker 5: Okay, our podcast. So I'm assuming he's going to use
Speaker 5: repod and not the entire full out name, which is
Speaker 5: Reality Escape Pod.
Speaker 3: It's very low and repod starts ore. So this ends
Speaker 3: in R for cooler repod.
Speaker 4: Do good thinking, Lisa, Doper repod exactly, very good.
Speaker 3: We're going to use that too.
Speaker 4: The repod is dope enough, but this is the Doper repod.
Speaker 4: All right. This is one possible response to the question, David,
Speaker 4: what leafy green seasoning should I pick up at the store?
Speaker 5: Leafy green seasoning? So it could be like salad trussing
Speaker 5: or olive oil.
Speaker 3: Or like parsley, like a seasoning that is leafy.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm thinking. Is parsley or basil or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: Oh, basil is like me?
Speaker 4: And who is responding to this?
Speaker 3: Well, my letters, Lisa are go.
Speaker 4: Ahead, what do you mean?
Speaker 3: So you have something right there?
Speaker 4: So David, what leafy green seasoning should I pick up
Speaker 4: at the store? And he would say Basil.
Speaker 3: Lisa, No, but there's a bee.
Speaker 4: You got to flip it the other way, Basil, Basil,
Speaker 4: there you go, exactly, well played.
Speaker 5: I'm cheating a little bit because when when Lisa said Basil,
Speaker 5: Greg's AJ's face just lit up.
Speaker 1: It's I am here.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's okay. We're allowed that our faces are clues
Speaker 4: the hints.
Speaker 5: It's AJ's face is the hint system.
Speaker 1: I am an affordance. I like it. Say you learn
Speaker 1: something in this podcast.
Speaker 4: You thought a was for Arnold, it's not. It's for affordance.
Speaker 4: All right, let me give you a couple more. This
Speaker 4: is an escape experience in Southern Spain.
Speaker 2: Escape experience in Southern Spain.
Speaker 4: Interesting that has an Othello theme.
Speaker 3: And Othello theme.
Speaker 5: That's the My English team is going to be the
Speaker 5: game of th Yeah. Yeah, my English lit teacher is
Speaker 5: going to be really disappointed because I cannot remember what
Speaker 5: city it is set in.
Speaker 4: Don't need the city. It's a it's it's clue on
Speaker 4: the group of people to whom Othello belongs that were
Speaker 4: prominent in Southern Spain, among other regions of the levantoms. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the Moore's Room or the more Room exactly. I actually
Speaker 4: thought there probably would be one.
Speaker 2: Took me a moment to uh bring back some Shakespeare knowledge.
Speaker 4: All right, let me give I got another one for you.
Speaker 4: This is one of your podcast hosts primary care physicians.
Speaker 5: Doctor okay, pg's doctor, doctor, Oh, you're so close?
Speaker 4: Or doctor pg's GP, pg's GP exactly, you know. And
Speaker 4: it's only so many ways you can anagram PG, and
Speaker 4: that seemed to be the easiest one.
Speaker 2: Respect for finding that anagram.
Speaker 4: I think that's great. I think I've got I'll save
Speaker 4: one more of these for extra credit.
Speaker 1: Love it. You did fantastic as expected. You escaped our room,
Speaker 1: I think is that fair to say, Greg?
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, it was a good team effort too.
Speaker 1: And it's very appropriate, at least for me because I
Speaker 1: happen to be streaming Napoleon the movie. I'm about an
Speaker 1: hour in, and I'm sure there's going to be a
Speaker 1: line able was I ere I saw elbow at the
Speaker 1: end or maybe not? But it's it's weird because he
Speaker 1: speaks French Napoleon, so I'm not sure. So weird is
Speaker 1: that I'm not sure he would ever have said abel
Speaker 1: was I or I saw alba, which is a palindrome
Speaker 1: supposedly uttered by Napoleon when he was sentenced to Elba.
Speaker 1: All right, Greg, you mentioned you have an extra credit
Speaker 1: for the puzzlers at home.
Speaker 4: I do. I actually have two extra credits, one slightly
Speaker 4: easier and then one harder, so I'm going to give
Speaker 4: both of them. So the one I think is slightly
Speaker 4: easier is escape from one of the hosts of repod
Speaker 4: Love that one there for our listeners. And then this
Speaker 4: is the trickier one. This requires you to really know
Speaker 4: who these people are, and it is the suitable response
Speaker 4: to the question what's that damage to your shirt? Law?
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm working on them. I have not solved them,
Speaker 1: but I guess I have a whole day.
Speaker 5: Good luck. I'm ready to be stocked.
Speaker 1: You'll get the answer next episode, as will I and puzzlers.
Speaker 1: Please don't forget to subscribe, and if you like the show,
Speaker 1: tell a friend and we will see here tomorrow for
Speaker 1: more puzzling puzzles that puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 4: Hello puzzlers. Greg Pliska here with the extra credit answer
Speaker 4: from our previous episode. AJ and I played a game
Speaker 4: I called Untied States, in which each answer was the
Speaker 4: anagram of a state, or rather each clue ended with
Speaker 4: an anagram that gave you the name of a state.
Speaker 4: But for your extra credit, I did flip it around.
Speaker 4: I gave you this clue. During the colonial era, Massachusetts
Speaker 4: had a grape growing industry they wanted to keep secret
Speaker 4: from the British. This meant that along the coast there
Speaker 4: were many hidden blank blank. If you take the letters
Speaker 4: of Massachusetts and mixed them up, you get muscat stashes.
Speaker 4: Along the coast, there were many hidden muscat stashes. I
Speaker 4: hope you enjoyed a little glass of muscat while you
Speaker 4: solve that, and we'll see you here next time on
Speaker 4: the Puzzler.