About Us
We’re Calvin and Kiara Kammer, founders of Next-Gen Escape, Fresno’s immersive, story-driven escape room. We met each other in college, graduated from Fresno State in 2019, and opened our doors that August with two original games: Global National and Clancey’s Lodge. From the start, we set out to build something different: escape rooms with strong storytelling, original worlds, and sets that didn’t feel like repurposed office space (other than the backrooms-esque feverdream that was Global National).]
Two weeks before launching our third and most ambitious game yet, King’s Keep, Calvin was awarded the Fresno Chamber of Commerce Student Entrepreneur of the Year (video). Two weeks after launching King's Keep, we were shut down by the pandemic.
We didn’t wait it out. We pivoted. We made our rooms playable through Zoom and hosted players from around the world. We delivered Escape Crates by hand across the Central Valley (news clip). We launched Fresno’s first outdoor escape room just in time for Halloween (coverage). We built digital games, consulted on boxed escape rooms, and learned to work with whatever tools we had.
After reopening, we released Cerebral, our fourth game and Fresno’s first attempt at an R-rated escape room. Player feedback helped us rebalance it and dial back the horror. We also rebuilt Global National from the ground up and re-released it as Bomb Threat.
Around this time, we founded Griffin Games, our in-house board game label. We've released four games so far, two of which directly connect to our escape room universe. In 2023, Calvin published The Escape Room Traveler, a journal for players to log their escape games and discoveries.
In late 2023, we began searching for a new home. Our old location had served its purpose, but we had outgrown it. When we found our current spot at First and Nees, we knew it was the right move. It gave us the space to create what we had always wanted: a continuous escape room world where every chapter builds on the one before it.
We launched:
- Chapter 1: Caves of Caneen (October 2024) a dwarven expedition into an abandoned mine
- Chapter 2: Vampire Crypt (December 2024) a gothic adventure steeped in bloodline and betrayal
- Chapter 0: The Bloated Toad (June 2025) a lighthearted tavern full of secrets and strange patrons
- Chapter 3: The Fall of Kingskeep (coming soon)
Our work has been recognized internationally and locally. We were nominated by Top Escape Rooms Project for Global Best Escape Room in 2020 and 2021. In February 2022, the City of Fresno named us Business of the Month.
We’re currently developing projects in partnership with Hobb’s Grove, Kearney Mansion Museum, and Crazy Squirrel Games. Previously we've ran escape rooms inside of Crazy Squirrel Games store with the MtG tie-in of Mystery of Squirrelov Manor. We have made or assisted in the production of two dozen games, with a million more on the way. Our focus remains the same: to craft immersive, story-first adventure games for players who care about detail, logic, and discovery.
Next-Gen Escape is built for players who want more than locks and keys. If you’re the kind of person who reads the lore, notices the worldbuilding, and wants to see where the story goes next, you’re in the right place!
When they aren't running the business, you can find Calvin and Kiara fostering labradoodles, flipping paper/rolling dice at Crazy Squirrel, or chronically playing video games (Kiara is playing Minecraft as I write this at midnight).