Time is of the essence in escape game
It was a ped day for 12-year-old Philippe Lavallée so he, mom Justine and dad Émile headed to the A/Maze facility at Fairview PointeClaire to play the escape game A Wrinkle in Time. The tween didn’t know anything about the science fantasy adventure A Wrinkle in Time, but he had triumphed at a number of escape games and was primed for action. “The electronic (problem solving) was my favourite part,” Philippe Lavallée said following a fiercely focused — and successful — game run. “You really have to work as a team to figure things out,” mom Justine said. “I think it would be great for businesses, for team building,” dad Émile said. Inspired by the Madeleine L’Engle science fantasy novel and the upcoming Disney film of the same name, the free game gives up to five players 25 minutes to solve a complex mystery. The film, starring Gugu MbathaRaw, Chris Pine, Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey, opens March 9. The multi-award-winning book was published in 1962 and has a remained a favourite read, especially in classrooms, over the decades. The protagonist is a 13-year-old girl who enters into a fantastical adventure featuring time travel and a classic struggle between good and evil. In 2012, the book was placed on the list of Top 100 Chapter Books of All Time by the School Library Journal. Federico Verdier-Diaz and fellow game masters Adrian Dennis and YuJian Dandurand-Hayashi welcomed a steady stream of players, including the Lavallée family, last Friday. Game masters trouble shoot any glitches in software, observe the progress of the game on a bank of monitors set up by the cash register and respond to a buzzer that indicates players need a game master to enter the room and give them a hint. One hint for free. Every consecutive hint knocks a minute of playing time. Unlike other escape games, A Wrinkle in Time does not involve finding your way out of a maze or a series of rooms. Instead, the action is contained within the “office” of long-disappeared physicist Dr. Alexander Murry. The suspicion is that his research into the possibility of five-dimensional time travel has something to do with his disappearance. Players must discover a series of clues that will ultimately lead to a reveal of a big secret. It’s not as easy as it might appear. Verdier-Diaz, Dandur and Hayashi and Dennis are all seasoned veterans of the escape game experience, yet they used up almost all their allotted time during a beta test of the game before it launched 10 days ago. The statistics showed that only 43 per cent of the 16 sessions over the first three days the game was in play were successful. “We thought a Disney game would be easy. It’s not,” VerdierDiaz said. “It takes a team with a mix of logic, observation and communication skills to solve it.” The popularity of the game resulted in its limited run being extended by two days, to Mar. 10. Most of the time slots are already booked, but because the schedule is broken down into 60-minute blocks and the game only lasts 25 minutes, A/ Maze game master Federico Verdier-Diaz said it is possible to squeeze extra sessions in, if requested. Children under the age of 13 must be accompanied by an adult. There are four A/Maze facilities in Greater Montreal. A/Maze Pointe-Claire is on the second floor of the mall near The Bay and has three games to choose from. For information, call 514-504-2139, email escape@amazemontreal.com or visit www.amazemontreal.com. kgreenaway@postmedia.com