Not a front for a secret organization.
Written by Rob Schultz (human).
I'm so happy.
The fourth game in the Room series is available today. I've already played about a third of it–as much as I could until my ipad needed a charge–and it's better than the last one.
The puzzles are just beautifully constructed. Their ability to create real feeling objects to interact with is second-to-none. What I'm trying to say is: Go. Get. It!
Company: 60Out
Room: Alice in Wonderland
Date Played: 1/21/18
Player Count: 6, which was too many.
Success: Success!
Premise: It’s a room escape with a bunch of Alice in Wonderland stuff! Alice has been accused of a crime, and if you can’t clear her name, well… then it’s off with her head!™
Immersion: I mean, I didn’t feel like I was in Wonderland. The production design of this game was of the typically good quality of 60Out, and falls pretty solidly into the ‘game show’ style. There are a couple of locks uncharacteristic of 60Out and unlikely to exist in Wonderland.
Highlights: The first section has the best interactions. Everyone in our group seemed pretty pleased with the process of making a cup of tea.
Lowlights: Our game had a show-stopping bug. We stood around through multiple reboots and ultimately had to end the game. Aside from that, there’s a section that seems to involve a surprising amount of random guessing and a lot of unsolicited advice from the GM. The flow of story events seems kind of clunky - I wonder if there were last-minute changes made after the game was built.
And Finally: Our group is lucky enough to have gained a couple of members recently, but this was not the right room to bring the whole family. It doesn’t have enough space or things to do to keep 6 people happy. Even without the room breaking down, I don’t think this would have ranked very highly for me among the 60 Out canon. Out of 43 games played, I’m ranking it at #34
How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.60out.com/los-angeles/rooms/alice-in-wonderland
Comedy Central offers the whole archive of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart online, which makes this as good a time as any to share with you one of my very favorite jokes, the second story in this segment.
I just read The Daily Show (The Book) and started visiting some of the clips referred to in the book like the Alphabet Game and this disastrous interview – I'm surprised that neither the publisher, nor their interns, nor an enterprising netizen* has put together a full list of links to everything referenced. Maybe it was on their already-lapsed website. I'm pretty sure that compiling such a list myself is not a good use of my time.
*I understand the modern term is probably "redditor."
The Post - ★★★☆☆
You know how in between Avengers movies, Joss Whedon ran off and made a little movie in his backyard? He got his friends together and they shot a Shakespeare play? This is that movie for Steven Spielberg. It’s timely, and interesting, and still looks for all the world like a Steven Spielberg movie, but it’s one he bashed out with his friends in between their day jobs of making huge blockbusters. You know, to relax.
All the President's Men - ★★★☆☆
The Post is like the Rogue One of Washington Post movies. So naturally we had to go home and put this on. Ed Bradlee really aged in those couple of years.
All the Money in the World - ★★★☆☆
I am wrong all the time about what movies awards show voters like, but I think I’d give this a nomination for cinematography in addition to the spite-noms for Christopher Plummer.
It would be so interesting for the original version of the movie to leak one day and do some comparisons.
Also, the movie sells itself short with that weird last chunk pasted in from a Taken movie.
This is my favorite part of World of Tomorrow part 2.