Month: May 2018
Another Murder Mystery at UCL
It didn’t seem that long ago that my intrepid team of investigators were dispatched to UCL Museums to solve a fiendish murder mystery. Now our help was needed again.
This time a young curator had disappeared.
Disappeared!
The next few hours were spent combing the UCL museums, searching for clues. The team visited the Grant Museum of Zoology and discovered the suspect Doris Mackinnon. They moved on to the Petrie Museum where Violette LaFleur came under suspicion. On to the UCL Art Museum where Winifred Knights was implicated. Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the final name in the frame, found in the pop-up pathology museum.
This event was more of a treasure hunt than a murder mystery. At each location the team answered clues and found letters that feed into a larger puzzle.
Yes, my team found the answers to all the clues and the names of all the suspects, as well as the room codes, but we failed to win the final prize.
A fun night out that ended with burgers, wraps and ice creams outside UCL.
Dreaming of Big Money
There are many ways to make big money.
Sure, you could study hard and get a well paid job. Or you could start your own multi-million pound business.
But both of those sound like hard work.
How about becoming a high paid footballer (looking at you Lionel Messi) or an actor such as Mark Wahlberg?
Or how about just winning the lottery?……
Dreaming of Big Money
It had been a gruelling drive to Manchester for a Business Mastermind retreat. We’d been under pressure to make it in time. However, roadworks, traffic jams and imposed speed restrictions meant the journey, which started as a 4 hour drive, ended up taking nearly 6 hours.
We finally arrived, exhausted, and in need of a toilet, but luckily in time for the first event. The weekend proceedings kicked off with a team building escape room at Lucardo.
With the number of business owners taking part, the group needed to split across two rooms. This meant not everyone would get to play the same game. The girls elected to play Lucardo’s The Dream room, which was ranked their hardest room. Meanwhile the boys got to play Lucardo’s Espionage.
Lucardo: The Dream
Appropriately enough, given this was a business event, The Dream involved us finding the key to riches. Although, in this case it was not by implementing business strategy, but by finding the winning numbers to the lottery.
Plot: Your dreams are always happy and delightful, but tonight something is going wrong. Your wildest dreams of finding the magic numbers are slowly slipping away, through a whirlwind of riddles, puzzles and illusions. Can you solve your way out of this dream before your chances get lost in the subconscious forever? Be aware, things may not be as they appear…
The Game
To enter the room we were put to sleep. Wearing eye masks, we were lead into the room and left to explore the world of dreams. Our aim was to find the winning combination for the lottery.
Removing the masks we found ourselves in a strange room that looked a little like a child’s playroom. A playroom, but the kind that would appear in a dream. Yes it was full of games, but there were things that were out of place. Chairs stuck to the walls. Things hanging from the ceiling……
The game is non-linear, so we were able to explore and find things in what felt like a random order. The room was very lock heavy. I assumed this was in keeping with the theme – find the combination of balls to win the lottery. However, having spoken to the boys, it appears that Lucardo rooms are lock heavy.
I’d asked about the lighting levels before we went in. Sometimes a room is dusky and trying to see to input combinations is difficult in low lighting. The Games Master, Mathew, had said there was a bit of darkness but not everyone needed to experience this. Finding the room in dusk (again in keeping with sleep) was not a surprise, but we were all experiencing it, so………….and then I found the light switch!
We set about searching the room and found a number of codes. With so many locks, most codes needed to be tried in multiple places to find the right lock. There was also a clever mechanical puzzle that tied into the lottery theme really well. That kept the team busy for quite a while.
And yes we found the dark place. By then we all wanted to experience it.
The two end puzzles looked easy and turned out to be anything but. One we had tried to solve in a variety of ways throughout the game. Our unique attempts probably had the GM laughing, as it could not be solved until we had unlocked props available later in the game.
We escaped with 1.06 minutes on the clock.
Lucardo: Espionage
Plot: The year is 1938, just prior to the outbreak of WWII. You and your team are part of the newly founded British Secret Intelligence Service. The War Office has had a number of classified documents stolen, which are thought to be held in a secret enemy bunker. Intelligence tells us the guards change every hour. Your Mission: crack the bunker security codes and recover the documents before the guards change.
Espionage has been described by other bloggers as the easiest game. The boys team escaped the room with 8.45 minutes to spare.
The main feedback was that there were a lot of padlocks in the room. Also, some of them felt cheated by the ending. Instead of “escaping”, the Games Master walked through the exit door, then led them out of the entrance.
However, they all enjoyed the game and were looking forward to playing more escape rooms in the future.
