#celestial chain

So a while back, the OJT family did the HintHunt Live Escape Game challenge (read about it here) and it having been a while since the crew had met up, we decided to do something similar.  This time it was the Time Run Celestial Chain game; a game for teams of 3-5 people.

We were told to ring a doorbell at precisely 3.30pm (no sooner, no later) on the day.  We arrived early to find the place, as the map seemed to show it was in a warehouse somewhere near London Fields.  We arrived to find the door you saw above but as we had some time, we headed to a nearby café to prepare and strategize.

Turns out that it was difficult to strategize as we basically had no idea what we were about to have to do.  We’d been told that it wasn’t quite the same as a traditional escape room game but that was pretty much all we knew.  We’d figured that there would be a time travel element to it (the name Time Run sort of gives that away).

Soon enough, but after a surprising long time of JW trying to get the GoPro shot you see above,  3.30pm came along so we headed over and pressed the doorbell.  We were led inside by a tall gentleman dressed in a lab coat and it was explained to us that we were about to emback on an adventure through time collecting powerful artifacts to save the world from a dark and powerful force intent on taking over the world.

We can’t say too much about the game itself but it was set over a number of rooms (5 in total), each set in a different time period and it was up to us to work as a team to solve puzzles and find the artifacts that would help us save the world.

It’s still amazing to me how quickly time flies when you are under time pressure with tasks to complete.  We had 12 minutes in each room and it flew by like nothing else.  We had no real idea of how we were doing as we went through the game but at the last stage, we were able to save the world, which was the first indication that we’d done ok.  At the end, we were also given a score card and that was when we realized that we’d done a lot better than we thought with a score of 95 out of 100!

We were told that the average score was 51 out of 100 so we were pretty chuffed (and more than a little surprised actually) with our 95.  A lot of that is down to playing this game with the OJT family where we all know each other well enough that we know each other strengths and weaknesses and work well together.  Very similar to Hint Hunt, this game will really put your team working skills to the test.

As well as the score, at the end of the game, you also get told what sort of team you make.  OJT are apparently “Pragmatists” that are “Masters of the physical and the tactile”.  Give it a go and find out what sort of team you all make!

Overall, this was really good fun.  Because it’s split into a number of different rooms, the puzzles were a bit simpler and less interconnected than those in Hint Hunt but were still pretty challenging. Not to sound too cocky but it could be made a bit harder (we did well but not sure we really deserved 95%!). It does look like our achievement as a team at Hint Hunt wasn’t a complete fluke though so maybe we are just that good at solving problems!! 

Time Run is located on Helmsley Place, London. To find out more, please visit their website