We were locked in Lucy’s bedroom searching for clues and time was running out.
My team hastily assembled pieces of the puzzle and laid them out on the desk - looking for patterns and combinations.
There among the young girl’s possessions – her toys, trinkets and nursery rhymes -- were the codes and the keys to every lock.
Craig Maben and Tina Clark, co-owners of Exitus Escape Rooms, monitored our progress from the front desk with anxious amusement.
Watching how different teams and individuals work together to uncover and interpret the clues is both informative and entertaining for Clark.
“Sometimes it gets to a point where I just want to run in and tell them the answer,” she said. “The clues are there if you work together and take the time to look.”
Time, however, is a dwindling resource.
“If you are not out in 60 minutes we go in and get you,” she said.
Surveillance cameras in Lucy’s room and throughout the building allow Clark and others to keep an eye on things and ensure everyone is safe and following the rules. No one is permitted to use their cell phone or any other electronic devices to record what they find or to communicate with people outside the room.
“It is great for corporate team building exercises,” said Clark. “Facilitators can watch how employees work together under pressure and identify their strengths and weaknesses.”
I had lots of experience working with the members of my team. It included my girlfriend Mylene, my daughter Amber and my brother’s girlfriend Shelly – three Nancy Drews and one hardly, Hardy Boy.
I understood enough about our team dynamic to stay out of their way and assume my role as the wise old man.
Before we got started Clark gave us some background information about Lucy’s Puzzle Room.
“Lucy was a 12 year old girl that lived there at the end of the Second World War,” she said. “She has left messages and puzzles for family and friends throughout her room that contain clues to a mystery.”
Clark and her husband Bill became escape-room enthusiasts after visiting one in Cavendish, PEI. The decision to create their own escape-room business here in Guelph was a foregone conclusion.
“This is Bill’s dream job,” said Clark. “He is always coming up with new ideas.”
The doors into the Exitus Escape Rooms opened on Jan. 12 in what is, fittingly enough, the former location of G&A Lock & Security on Fountain Street.
They have two escape rooms in operation and another under construction.
Each room has a distinct theme with varying degrees of difficulty and requiring different types of puzzle solving skills.
“Bill is the puzzle master and I am in charge of construction,” said Maben. “Right now, we can manage as many as three teams of eight people at any time – a team in each of the two rooms and a team waiting and strategizing in the lobby.”
He gave me a sneak peak at the other rooms on condition I don’t reveal any clues. There is the Professor’s Study with its collection of books, mazes and scientific artefacts and The Basement, still under construction, for those who enjoy a darker escape-room experience.
“The Basement will be creepier and scarier,” Maben said.
They have plans to expand and open more rooms when adjacent space in the building becomes available.
Corporate team building is a significant part of their business but they are set up for birthday parties, school trips and any other groups that enjoy a fun challenge.
My team had been quick to locate a number of keys and decipher a few of the riddles but we wasted valuable time following red herrings and missed many signs we considered insignificant at first.
What we lacked in organization we made up for in sheer determination but with just 14 minutes left on the clock we felt compelled to ask for our first clue.
“People can ask for as many clues as they want but each clue is counted and factored in at the end,” said Clark.
Few teams get through the entire puzzle in less than 60 minutes without one or more clues.
“The fastest any group has got through on the first try was 56 minutes and two seconds,” said Maben. “That was with three clues.”
The clue got my team back on track and with less than 30 seconds left on the clock we located the key to the wardrobe.
My daughter raced to the door, slipped the key in the lock and turned just as the buzzer sounded and ended our session.
What, you may wonder, lies beyond the wardrobe doors – another clue, another room? I promised I wouldn’t tell.
