#cluequest

Imagine yourself in a locked room with your similarly clueless friends. A screen above you silently counts down your mission time, an hour, gone all too quickly, ratcheting up the pressure as you frantically glance around wondering where the hell to start. Your mission, entrusted to you by the mysterious Mr Q - destroy the satellite that Professor Blacksheep, Q’s nemesis, has targeted at Earth. And get out of the room (or rooms), faster than the other team by using the clues hidden around to unlock additional challenges. 

It’s a bleak, characterless space, devoid of much colour. Just a few items of beat up furniture, old magazines, some scratchy images of Professor Blacksheep staring down at you from the walls, and padlocks. Lots of those damn padlocks, on boxes, chests, doorways, hidden compartments..but that all adds to the atmosphere as you overturn chairs, plug in wires, break plastic globes (ok that was just me, getting a bit excited) trying desperately to find more keys, combinations and codes to keep you moving towards the target.

It’s all wonderfully - deceptively - simple, the kind of hands on, team experience that makes you stop and think “why the hell didn’t I come up with this?!” A bit of technology - not much, just the cameras in each room with which your guide nudges you with timely clues from the central control room - instead mostly relying on effective storytelling and ingenious puzzles. 

If you haven’t tried it, give it a go. It’s refreshingly different, gives your cerebral cortex an analog kick  and is a cracking example of new world meets old. There are a number in London and in most cities across the UK and worldwide.

Professor Blacksheep is waiting for you.