“A few years ago I had a team of a few forty to fifty year old men. I think it was someone’s birthday. They all came in wearing masks of different nineties British TV show game hosts. I think one had a mask of Dale Winton, there was Les Dennis, one of Bruce Forsyth, et cetera. They were all very excited to play! I grew up with all these people on TV and I have lots of memories of them, so I worked that into my brief. I addressed them as their character names, you know, ‘Agent Dale, you can be team scribe, Agent Les, you can be head of communications’, and they seemed to really take to that.
During the game they were very excitable, having a wonderful time. So I upped things a little by including some of the game show-isms into their radio hints. If they got something right, I’d say, ‘Great work Agent John, let’s go for that fortune!!’. If they were missing something, I’d say, “Good work Agent Bruce, but you don’t get anything for a pair.” Things like that. At one point Agent Les got a little too into things, and started to try to climb on top of furniture. So I kept my tone nice and light, and tried to work in some Family Fortunes gags in there - ‘Agent Les, our survey says it’s not up there, so please get down’. He found that very funny, but about ten minutes later he forgot the warning and tried to climb on something else.
At this point I radioed again to remind them that you don’t need to climb on anything to succeed in your mission. ‘Agent Les, if it’s up there, I’ll give you the money myself’. They fell about in helpless laughter for a good minute or so, and so did I! And this time he behaved himself. They seemed to really appreciate the jokes afterwards because they kept commenting on them. They also mentioned that they were surprised that I knew those shows, to which I shocked them by saying I was thirty-one!
That was a team I really gelled with - a real ‘90s throwback!”
When Rowen isn’t running games at clueQuest, she spends her time reviewing and writing articles about indie video games. If you would like to put yourself to the test, why not book one of our four escape rooms here.