As you’re probably aware by now, I’m a member of the design team for the Escape Room World Championship, and every year, thousands of solvers from dozens of countries compete to be the best at solving a series of themed puzzles. What you may not know is that the 2026 theme was just released!
I mentioned new projects this year, and here’s a little one – a utility for tracking puzzles and games I release into the wild. I’ve dropped games and puzzle books off to Little Free Libraries before, and now I’ve added a fun way to learn a little more about where these games wind up.
I stumbled across a double-faceted delight recently. I’m always excited to see new escape rooms open, and to my surprise and delight, a new business called “City Limits Escape” in Volo, IL showed up on the map. After combing through social media a bit, it seems that there’s a twist to this surprise- City Limits is bringing back the games from City 13 Escape!
MIT Mystery Hunt 2026 is live! The notorious puzzle hunt is a crown jewel of the world’s greatest puzzling events. Teams of the worlds best puzzlers get together and work around the clock to be the fastest to complete an extensive series of some of the world’s most complex puzzles.
There’s a lot to look forward to in 2026. I’ve already kicked off some fun new adventures, some of which I can talk about, some of which I can’t. Regarding the things I can share:
I have a curse. Any time I drive more than an hour south of Chicago in the winter, I hit a blizzard on the road. I’m 4/4 on winter road trips, and in every single one of these cases, my drive home is 100% clear. All that is to say that when I recently took a road trip to Atlanta, I most certainly hit a nasty blizzard in Indianapolis that cost me a few hours.
The difficulty of an escape room is a tough concept to nail. I had the pleasure this week to visit Ultimate Escape Game Atlanta and encounter an enthusiast’s dream- very difficult, but completely fair, rooms! It was truly a great experience for puzzle lovers.
I recently blindly purchased a puzzle game called Cantaloop (Chapter 1: Breaking into Prison). I’ve played a dozen different styles of escape room home games at this point, but even at this point, Cantaloop was quite different than any of the others both in aesthetic and puzzle design. Fans of old point & click computer games will love all the unique elements Cantaloop brings to the table. It’s essentially Monkey Island committed to paper.
Not every treasure has a map. Sometimes it’s the dollar you find in the pocket of your jacket. Other times, it’s your brother-in-law’s lost wedding ring. It really depends on the day, but the life lesson is to never stop looking for treasure- it’ll find you when you least expect it.
ER Champ 2025 Finals are completed! The Finals, broadcast live from Sofia, Bulgaria, brought viewers a thrilling competition with only seconds separating first, second, and third place. I wont spoil who was who, so if you’re curious, check out the stream or the results page. Congrats to the winners!
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