Meet Grant Luecke | Escape Room Designer and Creative Engineer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Grant Luecke and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Grant, why did you pursue a creative career?
This is one of those questions that I always get asked, but never quite know the answer to. I kind of like the mystery of taking a moment to realize where I am in my life and career, and not really knowing why or how I ended up here. If I were to take a guess, I’d say most creatives spend a lot of their life and journey working on answering that question for themselves. What I can say right now, is that there is something about trying to create something new, that’s born from my heart and soul and hands that is addicting. There is an alchemy to that pursuit of discovery and creation that makes me feel very human and present. Also, it’s fun! I genuinely really love my work, and I know I’m very lucky to get to say that.

I am also incredibly lucky to share that this year I got to open the first escape room I’ve ever worked on at 60out Hollywood. The game is called Wizard’s Treasure, and it was my main focus and passion project for about two years. I poured every ounce of love and craft I had into making it, and I’m so incredibly proud of what we were able to accomplish with it.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
On paper I’m a escape room game designer, but I feel like what I really am is a creative problem solver. Whenever I am working, I think of every element as a problem that needs a solution. This mindset helps me take a seemingly impossible task, and break it down into smaller manageable parts. My creative process usually begins with a lot of questions. Rather than holding myself accountable for coming up with big creative ideas up front, I’ve grown to appreciate the importance of coming up with questions instead.

How will this work? What parts do I need to make this? What reaction will someone have when they see this? How can I influence their reaction by changing different design elements? What reaction am I even going for? How could this possibly break? How will I fix this when it breaks? Will this be fun? Where is the discovery? etc.

Having a huge list of questions is a great place to start any creative endeavor. Some of the questions will have easy answers, and others will take some work to figure out. The art and skill is in finding the best possible answer to each any every question. When starting with some huge problem such as needing to design and build an entire escape room, the only reasonable way I’ve found for solving that problem is starting with the questions, and following the process to find the answers.

The escape room industry is a super exciting place for me. Its fairly new and still figuring out what it can be. I see so much creative potential in the format, and I really want to do my part in moving the needle on what’s possible.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
In all honestly, I don’t get out that much other than to go play escape rooms, so I’ll drop a few of my favorites!

-Hope End (The Ministry of Peculiarities)
-The Weeping Witch (Cross Roads Escape Games)
-Whatever happened to the Garrets? (MAZE Rooms West LA)
-The Nest (Hatch Escapes)
-Atlantis: The Forgotten City (Hypnotic Escape Rooms)

Oh yeah and one more *cough cough* Wizard’s Treasure (60out Hollywood). Of course I’m going to recommend the game I made. I’m certainly biased but what can I say I love it.

If you want to find more escape rooms that are worth your time and money, check out the Morty app on iOS and Android!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Wow, where do I even begin? For starters, I had an incredible amount of support from my two bosses Alex and Richard Ong. They very generously gave me the creative space and freedom to make an escape room that took some risks. I really believe that I wouldn’t have been able to make the game I did without their help. I’m very lucky to work for business owners that highly value creativity and quality work. Next I have to shoutout my incredibly talented partner who built the set for the game, John Zell. He brought so much vision, skill, and expertise to the project, and also was a very patient listener every time I would start some TED Talk about an idea I had. I also have to shoutout my fiancé, Paige. Aside from being my favorite person in the whole world and probably my biggest fan, Paige is one of the few people in my life that will always give me an honest answer. Running my new ideas past her to see if they are any good is a core part of my creative process. I love you Paige!

Since there are just too many people to name, I’m just going to rapid fire names of people I love and care about, because without them and their support I would be nothing. My brother Tyler, and sister Madisen. My dear friend and actual wizard, Bentley. My friends Cameron, Jake, Torrin, Brian, Silly, Bo, Dylan, John, Leah, Bry, Jess, Matt, and Alex.

I also owe Room Escape Artist, RECON, and their podcast, Reality Escape Pod a huge shoutout for fast tracking my education of the escape room world and makerspace. I also continue to learn a lot from YouTube channels like Game Makers Toolkit by Mark Brown, Adam Savage’s Tested, and the entire vault of presentations from years past Game Developers Conference (GDC) talks. I’d also like to thank everyone from the LA escape room community that I’ve met. Everyone has been so incredibly kind and welcoming, and I’m very proud to work in the same space as you all.

Lastly, (and I know this might be a little cheesy, but its true) I have to thank my parents. Everything I do in some way comes from them. They both have always been such an inspiration to me. My dad has proven to me that there is always a fix for everything. He has empowered me to feel comfortable approaching a task I know nothing about, and has taught me the importance of asking the right questions, and learning from failure. My mom has taught me the power of kindness and commitment. Often when I’m working on things, I’ll ask myself if my mother would enjoy it or not. If the answer is no, I usually go in a different direction because she has great taste. She also is the personification of joy, and joy is something I always want front and center in my work. Okay phew I think that was everyone!

Instagram: grant120

Other: If you want to contact me, feel free to send me an email at grantluecke12@gmail.com If you’re interested in playing my game, you can find more info here! https://www.60out.com/los-angeles/escape-rooms/wizards-treasure

Image Credits
I took all of the pictures! However in some of the photos, the set design is by John Zell