Laura E. Hall is an American immersive artist,

puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are differe ...

game designer, and writer. She has written several books about video games, immersive entertainment, and

escape rooms An escape room, also known as an escape game, puzzle room, exit game, or riddle room, is a game in which a team of players discover clues, solve puzzles, and accomplish tasks in one or more rooms in order to accomplish a specific goal in a limit ...

. Hall co-created one of the first escape rooms in the United States. In 2022, Hall was the subject of a documentary about solving an

alternate reality game An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by int ...

puzzle 14 years after it was set, called ''Finding Satoshi'' ("").

Puzzles

Hall began participating in

s in college, and played Perplex City. She became invested in puzzles after moving to Portland and attending Puzzled Pint events. After Perplex City's completion in 2007, Hall continued to work on a puzzle that was still unsolved, ''Billion to One''. The puzzle focused on exploring the concept of

Six degrees of separation Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of "friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is al ...

by presenting a man's photograph and his first name, "Satoshi", asking players to locate him. In 2020, Tom-Lucas Säger used image recognition software and located Satoshi, reporting it to Hall, who ran the website tracking information about the hunt. In 2022, Hall was the subject of a documentary about the ''Billion to One'' puzzle, ''Finding Satoshi''.

Installation Art and Game Design

In 2014, Hall and five friends opened the first escape room game in the state of Oregon and one of the first 22 escape rooms in the United States. She has since created escape rooms and immersive experiences around the United States and the world. Her installation art and games have appeared in the

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum (PAM) is an art museum in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. The Portland Art Museum has 240,000 square feet (22,000 m2), with more than 112,000 square feet (10,400 m2) of gallery space. The museum’s permanent c ...

, XOXO, and the

London Games Festival The London Games Festival is an annual video gaming festival for both consumers and trade specialists held annually in April. The Festival is part of Games London an initiative to boost investment and skills in the capital, delivered by Ukie and ...

Writing

Hall writes about films, games, and culture for ''

Letterboxd Letterboxd ( ) is an online social cataloging service for film founded (partially with investment company Tiny since 2023) and owned by Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow in 2011, and headquartered in New Zealand. Members can rate and review ...

'', Dan and Dave’s ''Art of Play'', '' A Profound Waste of Time'', and ''The Atlantic''.

''Katamari Damacy'' (2018)

In 2018, Hall published ''Katamari Damacy'' with

Boss Fight Books Boss Fight Books is a Los Angeles-based book publisher and its eponymous series of books about video games. Similar to the style of 33⅓, a series of books about individual record albums, each book focuses solely on one video game. The compan ...

about the creation of the 2004 video game ''

Katamari Damacy () is a 2004 action-puzzle video game developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation 2. The game's plot concerns a diminutive prince on a mission to rebuild stars, constellations, and the Moon, which were inadvertently destroyed by his f ...

'', featuring interviews with creator

Keita Takahashi is a Japanese game developer and artist. He is best known for creating the '' Katamari'' game franchise and working as director and lead designer on ''Katamari Damacy'' as well as its sequel, '' We Love Katamari''. The original game was a surpr ...

''Planning Your Escape'' (2021)

In 2021, Hall published ''Planning Your Escape: Strategy Secrets to Make You an Escape Room Superstar'' with

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...

, about the history of the immersive entertainment genre and a toolkit for new escape room players.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Laura E. Immersive entertainment American game designers Escape rooms Transmedia storytelling Alternate reality games Year of birth missing (living people) Living people