For a lot of us, navigating remote work / working from home has been some combination of learning new technology & embracing new freedoms remote or hybrid work allows (praise pajamas). Parallel, there is collective struggle to keep office “water cooler” culture alive (like a Puzzle Break virtual escape, of course).  But for many Gen Zs entering the workforce, it’s a little bit different. As is tradition with the “youth”, they catch and latch on to new trends and technology before the rest of us. And as we enter the third calendar year of COVID-19, some of them have never known tradit ..read more

The Puzzle Break team — which has always been fully remote except for our physical Seattle-based escape rooms — have explored a number of remote work tools and I want to share (some of) our experiences so you don’t have to play trial-and-error as your teams move to hybrid / remote workplaces.  These tools are beyond the “which video conferencing platform is superior” question (although I certainly have opinions on that), and move into culture retention, employee engagement, project management and more.  Top of the list: Slack/Discord (tie) Most offices, even when physically in a wor ..read more

Halloween looms ever closer – have you decided what your costume will be this year? I think Halloween appeals to people not only as an excuse to dress up and eat candy, but as a chance to step into another identity and be someone or something different for a night. And why not? Roleplaying can be a thrilling experience! Taking on an unfamiliar perspective, seeing the world through a different lens … there’s a reason tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons are seeing a renaissance today. Beyond the element of escapism, there’s a healthy psychological benefit to assuming a differe ..read more

Cybersecurity Awareness Month continues, and today I have another topic sure to send chills down your spine: video calls! Okay, maybe the idea of participating in a video call doesn’t make you shiver, but the possibility of exposing sensitive information certainly should. You’ve likely seen news footage of people committing gaffes during a videoconference by now, and as mortifying as it is to imagine being caught with your pants down on a video call — possibly literally — this is only one potential danger. Even more concerning is the risk of exposing sensitive personal or business information ..read more

October is upon us, escape room / puzzle lovers! With summer coming to a close, nights getting longer and Halloween creeping up on us, there’s only one thing that could be on everyone’s mind … cybersecurity!  Confused? Don’t be. As well as being the spooky season, October is also Cybersecurity Awareness Month. It’s especially important that we observe this month-long event this year, as the world has seen a significant uptick in cybercrime attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic. With so many of us working remotely, and many large organizations rapidly expanding their remote work accessibili ..read more

Back in the pre-COVID before-times, it was relatively easy to arrange a friendly competition between teams at work; it was as simple as finding a venue like a paintball course, a bowling alley or karaoke bar, reserving space, maybe engaging in a bit of trash talk with a rival team leader, and inviting people to show up and engage in a (mostly) friendly inter-office duel. That’s a little trickier when our teams are distributed! With members of your squad in multiple cities or countries, inviting everyone down to the local laser tag arena isn’t going to cut it. So what’s a competitive team to do ..read more

It’s been a minute since we discussed the skills we teach in Puzzle Break’s team-building experiences; over the past few months we’ve discussed must-have skills such as working under a veil of ambiguity, being active collaborators with our teammates, and developing good information analysis techniques. With the world continuing its slow re-opening after the global shut-down of 2020, and with more and more of us working on distributed remote or hybrid teams, it seems very apropos to discuss the concept of thinking with a global perspective. The concept of cultivating a global perspective has be ..read more

As we begin reopening our physical escape rooms, I find myself reflecting on all that we’ve gained by moving to developing virtual experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously, this move allowed us to keep Puzzle Break’s doors open; being able to retain our team and keep making puzzles for our fans was the most important benefit of all. But beyond that, it allowed us to stretch and grow in some ways we otherwise might not have. I’m proud to say that when faced with great adversity we adapted and evolved. When we made the choice to pivot to virtual escape experiences in response to the n ..read more

This is the first of many guest posts where we profile members of the Puzzle Break team. Creating world-class content requires some sharp folks, and they have great stories that I’m excited to share. -Nate Of all the changes brought about by the pandemic, one of the most impactful for Puzzle Break was our pivot to virtual experiences. Moving to an entirely new modality entailed recruiting a team of designers who could help us realize our vision; we’re proud introduce you to the principal designer of our newest virtual escape experience, Andrea Chin! We sat down with Andrea to talk about the p ..read more

One of the most common things our corporate customers tell us they appreciate about our team building experiences is that they allow their teams to feel vulnerable without stigma. That might seem like a strange thing to want at first, but it’s one of the best benefits of using escape rooms as a platform for team-building. It’s not by accident either - we design our experiences with the intention of putting people in a vulnerable position by not giving them enough information at the outset. The common technical term for this process is called “working with ambiguity”, and if you’re still on the ..read more