The GCHQ Puzzle Book [Review]

Publisher: Penguin
Genre: Cryptic puzzles, decryption.
Year released: 2016
Difficulty: 7 to 10.

The British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is UK’s signals intelligence agency. They are also the proud inheritors of a legacy spanning all the way back to World War 2 when their predecessors from the Government Code & Cypher School, then located in Bletchley Park, spearheaded Allied efforts to break German military encryption enabled by Enigma machines.

The people in this field, as exemplified by those such as Alan Turing, were intelligent, driven, determined and sometimes considered misfits of their time. They certainly provided a juxtaposed archetype of the British Spy, who is normally stereotyped as a suave action hero (martinis shaken not stirred). It should perhaps be no surprise then that GCHQ would launch a puzzle book. Apparently their workforce loves solving puzzles. Who would’ve thought?

Last Christmas, Pa and I bought a copy to try out and see just how the brains of these people tick.

Escape One: Reféns [Review]

Location: Escape One, Corrego Grande district, Florianopolis, Brazil

Date completed:  December 2016 (5 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 7; Difficulty: 8; Atmosphere: 8; Fun: 8.

Requirements:

• Fluent Portuguese
• 3-8 players

The situation did not seem good. In the middle of our holidays in Florianopolis, we found ourselves cuffed in the dark. Kidnapped by a serial killer. He was not in the room, but we knew he would come back… with a chainsaw!

We played Reféns (“Hostages“, in Portuguese)  at Escape One in Florianopolis, Brazil, right after me (Pá) and my parents finished their first room, Bomb! As the challenge in Reféns would be bigger, we called on reinforcements and two cousins joined our group. I’m glad we did, because we needed everyone’s skills to escape from captivity!

Escape One: Bomb! [Review]

Location: Escape One, Corrego Grande district, Florianopolis, Brazil

Date completed:  December 2016 (3 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 5.5; Difficulty: 7.5; Atmosphere: 7; Fun: 7.5.

Requirements:

• Fluent Portuguese
• 3-8 players

Most people who have heard of the paradise city Florianopolis, an island in the South of Brazil, know for its amazing 42 beaches and great seafood. It is a popular destination for Brazilians and other South Americans, who crowd the place during summer. But what to do when it rains? For many years the obvious answer was to go to the shopping centres, but not anymore! “Floripa”, as it is called by the locals, got its own escape rooms in late 2016!

I (Pá) got together with the best escape parents in the world (my own! :D) to tackle the rooms in Escape One. In the first room, we had to enter a historical building closed for decades to disarm a Bomb! installed by the terrorist group F.A.T.O. Our mission followed an unsuccessful attempt by another agent, who perished but managed to leave some clues behind. Floripa is too pretty to explode, so we really had to work hard!

Riddle Room: The Dungeon [Beta test Review]

Location: Riddle Room, Mitchell (North side Canberra), ACT, Australia

Date completed: Jan 2017 (4 players). Succeeded escaping!

Creativity: 9; Difficulty: 8.5; Atmosphere: 8; Fun: 9.

Requirements:

• Fluent English.
• 2-6 players (we recommend at least 4)
• Family friendly

Twelve months ago, we started our escaping year on a high note playing the newly opened Riddle Room, Canberra’s first escape room venue. Almost exactly one year later, we had the pleasure to return to Riddle Room, which was no longer in a garage but relocated to a spacious commercial space in Mitchell. We were invited by Chris and Jesse to test their brand new game, The Dungeon, which happened to be our 100th room! We were certainly amazed, but not surprised, when the game turned out to be as good as its predecessor Nightmare Room. Riddle Room did it again.

In a far far away land, an old king taken by insanity decides only the worthy can live within his city walls. Therefore, he builds a dungeon full of challenges and locks his subjects inside. If you escape in one hour, you can go on with your life. If not, you will be banned forever. Sir Trapspringer and Pá Le Fay (myself! :D) faced this adventure with Lady Ruth and Sir Alastair, aka the Escape Room Explorers, and frantically finished it when the clock reached 60min! We hope the king will be merciful and allow us to remain within the city walls – not thrown over them into the moat!

BreakOut: The French Connection [Review]

Location: BreakOut, near Chinatown, Singapore

Date completed:  September 2016 (2 players). Failed to stop the bombing!

Creativity: 8; Difficulty: 9.5; Atmosphere: 4; Fun: 5.

Requirements:

• Fluent English
• 2-8 players (we recommend 4-5)

Following a series of what appear to be terrorist attacks on major cities around the world, the source of the mayhem has been tracked to a Paris-based organisation called the ‘White Society’. To investigate The French Connection, Pa and I infiltrated their hideout and had one hour to find out evidence of any wrongdoing and uncover where there next attack may be.

As escape rooms go, BreakOut certainly does a good job of developing hard puzzles and French Connection has a respectable sequence of intricate ones. At the same time, its intricacy highlighted how setting and game design have to be well balanced to maintain player engagement.