Plan 52 (Game duration 60 minutes)
Fury team: Venelin Gornishki, Hristo Tomov, Dimitar Smilyanov, Nadezhda Danabasheva
Date: April 12, 2019
Our time: 52:23 minutes
So, within the Red Bull Escape Room World Championship and our trip to London, the organizers’ program included a visit to 2 rooms. It should have served a bit like a warm-up for the final qualifiers. Each team was in a different location, we and our friends from India ended up playing 2 of the rooms at some huge escape centre, apparently designed to accommodate huge groups, the fact that they have 2-4 copies of each of their rooms astonished me. The center has four rooms (several times), and each of them traces the mysteries and adventures of Mr. Q and his eternal enemy, Professor BlackSheep. Their story is quite connected and interesting, after playing the first two rooms within their world, we returned before leaving London to play the last rooms.
To begin with, all the gamemasters at this centre are super fun, they all get into the role, explain and follow the story. Sometimes, a good introduction is enough to get your hopes up.
Honestly, this room was a little disappointing. I also shared my opinion with the people in charge of the escape center and learned that this is actually the first room they put on the market a while ago, and of course, it is full of padlocks and some confusing things. A classic first-generation room, a card puzzle, an old laptop, a puzzle with a camera in an inaccessible space … and a door with five padlocks (I have to admit, two of them were fake). An interesting puzzle related to the faces of clocks; I just didn’t think they could be used that way, and I was pleasantly surprised. The final puzzle to escape the room is actually meaningful and interesting, in 5 steps they take you back.
After the end of the game, while we were waiting for a break, the team of India came to talk to us, but they failed to escape. They asked for advice on what to do because … this was their first escape room. Oh, there were none in India. We were shocked but poured into them some general knowledge and set off to play Operation BlackSheep.
