Today’s biggest news is that the 2014-15 edition of Pablo’s Armchair Treasure Hunt starts at noon, running for 3½ weeks. You don’t need to have figured out hidden clues from within, or even seen, the trailer poster or the trailer video in order to enjoy taking part and maybe even winning. There’s a cracking general-interest article in the Epsom Guardian about the event and the people who set it. (Turns out that a couple of the names are actually a little familiar, in a very good way.) The hunt is trying to expand from its corporate roots, so all are welcome to play, though familiarity with the UK would certainly help – especially if you’re trying to retrieve the hidden prize.
Or perhaps you might be searching for the hidden prize from Gold Hunt: London, which started two days ago! Buy the e-book for £4 and you might be able to follow its clues to find the hidden gold bar. The bar is valued at “over £5,000”, which seems honest because the price of gold fluctuates so much. (There would be some savage amusement in the price of gold following the price of oil down the pan, as it has done in the last month or two, and the value of the prize having to be reassessed.) Gold is so dense and valuable that a standard 250gram (seven-ounce) bar is currently priced at about £6,300, and is perhaps two inches by one inch by a little under half an inch. That’s perhaps the size of the erasers used at school, but worth a small fortune. Finding something that small will take the most eagle of eyes, as well as the sharpest of minds.
Straddling the boundary between puzzle hunt and exit game is Agent November, which does have the outdoor nature and the kinetic nature, but also a time limit familiar from exit games. Tip the right wink to The Man Who Knows in a pub near London’s Euston station and you can now play a choice of two different games. The new game, The Rainbow Syndicate, can feature a team of seven instead of six, with an intriguing story:
The Rainbow Syndicate have just robbed the Bank of England! You have to solve this case and bring them to justice. Dashing from location to location, try and stay one step ahead of the master criminal gang. Their weapons, their loot and their hideouts are all hidden somewhere in the streets of London, it’s up to you to find out where! You must solve fiendish clues in order to gather evidence on the gang’s activities. Your goal is to recover the stolen goods, but can you act quickly enough to prevent them from disappearing forever into the murky criminal underworld?
Playing The Rainbow Syndicate will see you cover a mile by foot. The Agent November team is expanding apace as demand has grown for their services; if you had twenty who wanted to play, it could be arranged to play two Rainbow Syndicate games and a Major X game at the same time so everyone was kept busy. The price of both games is the same, and early reviews for the Rainbow Syndicate are very strong. As the games are played outdoors, they are taking a break for the end of December and the start of January, but will surely come back with a bang. (At least, if the time limits run out…)
