You get three guesses as to how this news reached this site, and the first two don’t count, as well as any that don’t begin with “K” and rhyme with “Ben”. Thanks, as ever!
This site is happy to cover a multitude of related puzzle hobbies, on the grounds that if you enjoy one then perhaps you’re likely to enjoy (at least some of) the others as well. Puzzle fans in London have had their monthly meetings in the capital for some time; mechanical puzzle fans have had the London Puzzle Party, and puzzle hunt-style-puzzle fans have had Puzzled Pint. Both meet on the second Tuesday of each month, by tradition and unfortunate coincidence.
However, those who are more interested in exit games may well be very interested in the “Escape Rooms and Puzzle Rooms in and around London” meetup, launched virtually at the start of the year and hoping to have its first physical meeting in September. At one level, its goals are as simple as getting people who want to play an exit game together, even if they don’t have a regular team, or if they want to meet new people and play interesting games with them. If that’s all – “all”! – that this did, it would be a remarkably cool addition to the London scene indeed, with benefits both for players and for site operators alike.
At another level, it might turn out to be (if its attendees and principals want it to be) something more: a forum at which to find friends and collaborators, a sounding-box at which (actual and potential) site operators might survey the opinions of at least some exit game fans, a gathering to help plot the future. San Francisco has a remarkable Adventure Design Group that uses the same Meetup infrastructure to connect players with all sorts of exciting games. Their library has videos of some of the high-calibre speakers they have had, with the Spark of Resistance talk a particular masterclass in exit game design.
It’s hard to know how far this can go and how far people want it to go, but someone’s got to be the first person up onto the dancefloor, and the potential is practically limitless!
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Thank you! (And thank you, Iain!)