Timeless Room (Game duration 60 minutes)
Fury team: Georgi Georgiev, Jordan Danchev, Tsveta Dancheva, Dimitar Smilyanov, Nadezhda Danabasheva
Date: July 19, 2017
Our time: 41:00 minutes
Let’s start with the fact that part of our team has not watched the series or the movie, and we have no emotional attachment to the Twin Peaks story. Fortunately, after playing the room, we can confirm it is not a requirement. It helps, though, since a lot of things were just weird to me, after looking at some screens from the series afterwards, I understand that the room was actually intended to have a very close visual design and partially succeeded – the red curtains, Venus de Milo, the three armchairs and so on.
The location of the room is attractive, but with this, the list of attractive things about this room is ending. The site is slightly confusing, with short communication, I manage to make a reservation. We arrive at the appointed day and time, the door opens in a while (there is no doorbell, and the door is locked), and we are invited to the lobby.
The room was probably a bar in the late 1990s or a little later. The lobby hasn’t been touched since. The walls are covered with mirrors, some of them broken. They invited us to a fake leather sofa and encouraged us to fill in declarations on a peeling paint table. It wouldn’t be a problem, and I would even take it as an introduction to the game if all this weren’t covered in layers of dirt – from dust, years of smoking in the room (you know that sticky smell), and cobwebs. I already knew that the room was made with a minimal budget, and I sent a brief prayer if they didn’t try to clean the lobby, at least they did the room.
We started successfully and moved along the puzzles at a decent pace. At one time, I even found it interesting. Somewhere in the middle of the game, everything falls apart, and crazy puzzles and even crazier solutions appear, literally one after another. We stumble, we request hints, and all the time, we hear Windows sounds coming from somewhere outside the wall (obviously trying to moderate our game). I’m starting to get a little irritated; I sit on a chair and wait for the team to finish. At some point, the people who greeted us came in, and I realized that we were actually done, which made me burst into hysterical, prolonged, sincere laughter for at least 3 minutes. There is no music, no sign. There is nothing except “Welcome to the White Lodge” on the screen (and even now, I don’t know what the White Lodge is; it is obviously something fundamental and connected to the series).
I ask (since the last puzzle was pure nonsense) how we should associate Object A with Object B (for example a protractor with a bottle) and generally what should lead me to think that the puzzle is solved the way it did. the answer was, “Well, most people because there is NOTHING else to do, figure out that this is the only logical way, and this is the right action.” Well, thank you. I have to go now.
On the way out, I asked how many rooms they had played. One. That explains everything.
One last thing: If you think you’ve got a super business model but don’t have the money, don’t try to catch flies with vinegar or without honey. If you are in a hurry to make the big bucks, don’t have the time and desire to spend more than two months to launch the product, don’t know the competition, have no idea how the industry works and its rules, you don’t listen to advice (since I know they had some in the past, but the obvious solution was – there is no time for a change and it makes more sense to make money instead of fixing the gameplay and puzzles), please save us all the trouble and just don’t do it!
The Twin Lodges room no longer exists.