Picking up from yesterday –
There were things in the room we did that we actually didn’t even need to do. It was just some supplemental stuff.
(Of course, you don’t know that when you’re doing it. Better to just do it all if you have the time/human-power.)
There were conclusions we came to based on luck, when we were very close to them, because we happened to miss a simple part of a clue. (That’s embarrassing, But thank goodness they worked. As long as we got there, that’s what matters!)
Toward the very end, everyone was kind of crowded around the same guy’s puzzle. I learned it was pretty hard to jump into someone else’s puzzle, ’cause you don’t really know where it came from, how they got it, and the clues surrounding it to help you solve it. But we were trying.
It was stressful, ’cause you wanted to let people do their thing. But with less than 5 minutes remaining, and with it seeming like the rest of the puzzle pieces were done, everyone turned to that one.
The guy figured out what he’d need to do. And it would just take a few minutes to do it. So, as he worked on that, I walked around the room looking for any more puzzles and asking about people’s previous ones, trying to see if we could get ahead on anything else or if there was anything we missed.
Once our guy opened up his last puzzle, we had to work together (with clues we’d already had) to do one last thing. It was totally nerve-wracking. We were barely thinking straight. And thankfully we had a little luck when we missed something a little more simple right in front of our faces.
As we could see the clock ticking down, I heard some people in our group starting to give up. “We’re never gonna make it.” My feeling was we had to just keep trying until the door opened from the other side. There’s always a chance we’re gonna get out before the host opens it!
In the final moments of getting the last key, we heard chimes start to go off on the timer. Oh no! Does this mean it’s over?!
It was terrifying to watch our teammate unlocking the final thing and then putting the last key in the door. He was absolutely going as fast as he could – but would he be fast enough?
He was.
We asked if we’d really done it, or if since we’d heard chimes, did we fail? We learned that there are 12 chimes on the timer. Your time is done once the last one chimes. So we were in the final 12 seconds. It basically could not have been closer to absolute failure.
(If you don’t get out, it looks like they ask you to take a picture holding signs that say “so close.” And I would’ve hated that.)
I apologized afterward to my new friend teammate, saying I think it’s possible I may have yelled hurry right in his face toward the end, even though I know telling someone to hurry does nothing. He laughed, shrugging it off, saying he loved my enthusiasm.
He must’ve not been mad in real life, ’cause his group even asked for my info so we could maybe play something like this again. (Uh, yes please. This is too much fun!)
So, overall we succeeded. We could’ve definitely done it more efficiently. But we did it. So, I’m taking the win!
This is now on my list of one of my favorite things to do in LA. I love finding new stuff. Yay!