Daily Inspiration: Meet Darryl Anka

Today we’d like to introduce you to Darryl Anka. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Darryl Anka & Erica Jordan come out of the film industry, where we wrote, produced and directed three independent films. In searching for something more interactive, we focused at first on creating a haunted attraction for Halloween but realized that would only be seasonal. In exploring options that could be done all year, we were told about escape rooms and, after researching the concept and playing several rooms ourselves, decided that building and operating an escape room would be the perfect extension of our skills at building sets and telling stories. After ten months of design, development, and construction, we are proud to introduce Boggled Escape Rooms’ first adventure, “The Key of Destiny” in our Calabasas location.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Designing and building an escape room is as challenging as the puzzles themselves. There are many factors to consider and, even as we opened to the public, there are constant changes to make to ensure that the clues are clear and the puzzles bulletproof. It’s an ongoing process. Another factor are the financial considerations that come with opening a new business and getting the word out to experienced escape room players as well as newcomers to the world of escape rooms.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Having been in the entertainment industry, doing sets, miniatures, storyboards, and production design since 1977 provided an opportunity to work on major projects, such as Star Trek, Iron Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, and many other films, which helped develop the knowledge and skills that we bring to creating our escape room adventures.

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
While our facility wasn’t open until after Covid, during our research we discovered that escape rooms have the unique ability to survive such crises because they can turn their live adventures into online games. This helped the escape room industry not only survive but actually thrive and expand during the pandemic.

Pricing:

• Our escape room tickets are $45 per person.

Contact Info:

• Website: boggledescaperooms.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/boggledescaperooms/
• Facebook: Facebook.com/BoggledEscapeRooms
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/boggled-escape-rooms-calabasas

Image Credits
Darryl Anka & Erica Jordan