ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 138.
Wyatt Bushnell and Mike Salyh both have a background in physically extant escape rooms—not to mention arcade games, and other “out-of-home entertainment” experiences. (Gallery nerds would call them site-specific). As the co-founders of Coin Crew Games, they’re now bringing that experience to a videogame for PC and consoles, in the form of Escape Academy.
Here they talk about making the switch to at-home digital games, the importance of social play, and the tricky balance between exploring novel ideas on the one hand, and on the other, having your idea make instant, gut-level sense to players (including distracted and/or drunk ones).
You can get Escape Academy on Steam, Epic, Playstation, and Xbox (including Game Pass).
You can see more of Coin Crew Games’ work on their website.
You can also follow Mike, Wyatt, and Coin Crew Games on Twitter.
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• Here’s Mike’s really excellent talk on the process of building, and installing arcade games.
• And here’s Two Bit Circus!
• For more on arcade games (in and out of the time of COVID) check out our interview with Nik Mikros and Josh DeBonis of Killer Queen fame.
• Yes, Chuck E. Cheese (the character) is properly named Charles Entertainment Cheese, and yes, Drew will bring this fact up at any opportunity.
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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
“Top Floor Feeling” and “Escape Academy” from the Escape Academy OST by Doseone.
We’re on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Spotify, PocketCasts, and just about everywhere else. You can also subscribe using good old-fashioned RSS.
Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.
Everybody's Talking at Once 