October
03
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Mysterious Minds – Gold Rush
Mysterious Minds is located on Bloor St near Spadina in Downtown Toronto. We decided to try this new entry in the city with Manda and Errol (who would join us for their second room). We actually booked them on their opening night, so we knew the game wouldn’t necessarily be polished.
Creativity and Design (aka its Fancy level): – Was it inventive ? Did it fit the theme?
Score : 4.0 of 5.0
The Gold Rush is loosely based on the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, prior to the win of Canadian Gold in Mens Hockey. Your job is to find the lucky loonie before the game ends. The room is well decorated with quality props and things that fit the theme well. There are interesting video and audio cues that help give you a sense of urgency while playing well with the story. There were some bits that disconnect from the main story and feel like they were added for the sakes of puzzles, however they were still fun elements.
Bells and Whistles: Was it just lockboxes throughout the Room?
Score: 3.5 of 5.0
There wasn’t much tech in the room, but they served the purpose for furthering the storytelling. The impressive moment was how the end was handled on such a simple yet meaningful use of tech (an example I would definitely use for future GMs in other facilities). Of course we would have loved to see more, but it was still somewhat satisfactory.
Intuitive (aka Frustration Level): Was it solvable? or Did you have to be inside the creators mind to solve it?
Score: 3.5 of 5.0
The puzzles needed a bit of polish. There were 1 or 2 puzzles where we felt more direction was needed, as we struggled with them for longer than normal. However given it was opening day it was completely acceptable and definitely easy to tweak. For both of these puzzles we needed a minor hint, however the rest of the room was relatively straightforward.
We went in with a team of 3, we would definitely not recommend a team any larger than 4 as the room is a bit crammed.
The hint system uses a walkie-talkie system, we had no issues with it.
Staff Support/Price : Were they friendly? Were they helpful? What was the Damage?
The Gamemasters and very accepting of our feedback, and we had a good time chatting with them.
The price is $20 / person, which felt fair for the experience they were providing.
Overall: The Gold Rush is a compact yet surprisingly well thought out (and original) room. Once the owners have polished their design a bit, i’m sure it will be a popular room.
For more information check out:
http://www.mysteriousminds.ca/
Toronto, ON
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