Race to Escape

By | July 25, 2015

racetoescapeOK, I’m out this evening so I’m not going to get to watch until tomorrow, but it looks like the first ep of Science Channel in the US’ Race to Escape is online. Although I’m just getting a black screen at the moment, regardless of using dark magic or not.

I’m hoping it will eventually start working because it’s Very Much The Sort Of Thing We Like – two teams trapped in two identical puzzle rooms and have to solve puzzles to unlock the doors and escape winning up to $25,000 in the process. It’s the sort of thing people thought would make for a good TV show for a while, so I’m excited to see if the reality of the thought matches the fantasy.

You should probably expect spoilers in the discussion in the comments, I would advise posting the “can I get it to work” questions in this post here.

And if this is the sort of thing you’d like to do in real life (without the $25,000 top prize normally), you should give the Exit Games UK blog a look.

74 thoughts on “Race to Escape

  1. Brig Bother Post author

    Of course the first pure Exit Game on television was surely The Haunted Dungeon on Ghost Train on Sunday, of which no footage is on Youtube 🙁

    Reply
  2. Scott John Harrison

    I always love an Escape Game – I going to try and get to it now. But thinking about this format – I would love to see Korean version by some of the same Scenario Producers as The Genius – I mean the safe in the second season could of very well been a puzzle from an Escape Game.

    Reply
  3. Clive of Legend

    Really, really enjoyed this. Didn’t fall into any of the usual traps US game shows do. No spoiler-filled “coming up” bit or overblown voiceover! Hooray! I thought it did a pretty good job of adapting the room escape concept to a TV format. For a second when they started giving them clues I thought it might turn into the pop-culture disaster that was the “Exit” end game, but thankfully it wound up being nothing of the sort.

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  4. Brig Bother Post author

    This was really good! The puzzles made good logical sense, were fun to watch and there was no very tedious confessional bits which would have been an obvious road to go down. Basically the show could have been made by the British.

    Jimmy Pardo rather more Bernard Falk than anticipated.

    The game makes sense, although what happens if they take enough clues that their money runs out before the hour is up? For me that’s the only question mark thus far.

    Reply
    1. Chris

      Well they could only get one clue per puzzle, and not for the last puzzle, so I guess you get 10 minutes free, then another 10 minutes for those last $5,000, but as seen from this first episode, it’s not a very optimal way to play. I guess you have to think of it as losing 10 minutes to know the answer, which is quite a long time.

      Reply
      1. Brig Bother Post author

        They seemed to make it pretty clear that every minute after the twentieth costs $500, and every clue costs $5,000, so if they took every clue they’d be out of money in half an hour effectively.

        Saying this, it wouldn’t have been possible to take a clue for the first puzzle (chained to the table!) and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the first two puzzles were pretty obvious it wouldn’t be an issue.

        I think the scales puzzle was my favourite, although I also enjoyed the pointing pictures.

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  5. xr

    I suspect I will enjoy in the future the educational fig leaves getting more and more far-fetched.

    I had some fun watching it, and the format works (1). And yet, it doesn’t do well any of the things I usually watch gameshows for:

    *Play-along is limited. It doesn’t often allow viewers time or views to work on solving along. You had something like 3 seconds between the reveal of the floor slider and a graphic solving it for you (2). The first clear shot of some objects was when a contestant announced them as the solution to a riddle I had just heard. And so on.

    *Rooting for contestants was difficult. Firstly, because they were cynically indistinct (3). Second, because despite hyperactive intros, little of their personality or skills came through. At the very least, they could have created teams more primed for conflict.

    *Spectacle: The shooting angles are just bad, and miss so much of the action. And so much B-roll. In an age of microcameras and GoPros relying on tiny one way glass windows doesn’t cut it. The rotatey intro was cute though.
    They did provide a memorable finish sequence, but this show will probably need more than a steaming radiator to get a big visual reaction.

    *Tension: The see-sawing battle was nice, and the progress blackouts were great, but between the constant commercial interruptions and the contestants clearly addressing production like half a dozen times, it fell flat.

    (1) Until Season 2, when everybody uses four assists and gets out with five grand in ten minutes.
    (2) Incidentally, Crystal Maze taught me that four piece jigsaws and sliders are impossible in studios, so I was shocked one team got it.
    (3)Central Casting doubled up on Target Demo, Objectification Fodder and Token Minority.

    Reply
    1. Matt Clemson

      Regarding (1): Bear in mind you can’t use an assist until five minutes have elapsed since getting the clue. That, the actual time for execution, should mean you’ll be starting playing ‘properly’ at the 40-minute mark on the fifth clue, with $5k in the pot that’s ticking down straight away – and *that’s* assuming that it takes no time to execute the solutions, when some (such as the typewriter) did take a couple of minutes. Chances are you’d end up with nothing to win.

      As an aside, given that the codes were fairly explicitly revealed when they were found – there were no real ‘from these clues deduce the final number’ moments – I’m not sure the keypad lockout is that big a danger. If you’re on the wrong track to the solution, it’ll probably take you more than two minutes to shift onto the right track anyway.

      Reply
      1. Matt Clemson

        And that’s what I get for trying to rearrange my thoughts on the fly. Ignore the first “The actual time for the execution”

        Reply
      2. xr

        Thanks. I missed the “give it a go” period in the rules explanation. The format does seem rock-solid.

        Reply
  6. Alex S

    Really enjoyed this, didn’t fall into any of the typical American production traps that make this kind of show frustrating to watch. The puzzles seemed to be pitched at just about the right difficulty as well which I can’t imagine is an easy feat. Will be very interested to see how much they can keep it going over the series (will every episode feature a floor slider puzzle if it’s built into the floor of the set like that?) but so far it’s Hall of Fame material for me.

    Reply
  7. Chris

    I really enjoyed this! The puzzles made sense, explanation for the audience wasn’t too over the top (although they shouldn’t reveal the solutions) and the editing didn’t come across as obnoxiously creating tension when there was none.

    The host was better when he was doing his science bits than his joke bits. Those were cringing, but I guess that’s American TV for you. The contestants were also a little gung-ho, and perhaps it’s a bit of a shame there isn’t host-contestant interaction at the start.

    A British version would be fantastic. Do the introductions with a decent host, let them loose in the rooms and then have a nice ending with everyone congratulating/commiserating each other in one place.

    Reply
  8. David B

    This was great! The idea of splitting it up into 5 discrete parts is subtle but very clever from a formatting point of view. You knew where you were in the horse race, and also knew how far you were from the end.

    All the puzzles were excellent – I’d have been really pleased to devise any of those. The paintings one was particularly brilliant. The way they hid the clues so that it was unlikely you’d fall across them by accident was very good.

    The scripting was a tiny bit clunky, but in general they did a good job of leading you in the right direction without giving the game away. I know people complain about “playalong” but to be honest this was REALLY well done here, considering. Even Crystal Maze wasn’t as playalong as all that.

    A few production errors slightly annoyed me – the red team were mainly dressed in blue (duh) and the use of flashing lights at the end spoiled your reaction shots: we couldn’t see. Yes, the camera angles could have been a bit better. And blimey, can’t you brief your contestants not to swear?

    Interesting point that I would love to know the answer to: did they REALLY build two rooms? I thought they were going to do the old trick of filming the same room twice (a la Now Get Out of That) but those lights over the door – and the contestant reactions – meant that it really looks like they did have two rooms. If so, that’s a hell of a lot of effort to go to. It’s a shame they didn’t have time to bring everyone back together at the end.

    But hey, this was a superb TV adaptation of a tricky concept. Count me in as a regular viewer.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Playalong is a greatly misunderstood and overplayed concept, there is little to no playalong in many shows that have done very well (Gladiators! Crystal Maze! Fort Boyard! Any sort of sport!) but where you can absolutely appreciate the spectacle and drama that the situations throw up. None of these shows lack content.

      Similarly I was pretty pleased that they didn’t bang on about the contestants. Nobody is going to be watching for the contestants, they’re just pretty anonymous lab rats necessary to bring the show to life, the rooms and the puzzles are the stars.

      If this was put on BBC1 Saturday early evening it’d do great business. As I said on Twitter, This Sort Of Thing is prime UK territory, and for shame we’ve let Americans do it first – and very well to boot.

      Human Lab Rats is a very underutilized idea I think.

      Reply
      1. Alex S

        I’d have thought it would affect the game if they filmed them separately, the first team wouldn’t have the lighting cues about the other team and therefore might not have used a code breaker to get ahead as they wouldn’t know they were behind.

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        1. David B

          Yes, the lighting cues make it impossible to film one room twice. I do like the race aspect. My slight fear is that doubling up the build cost puts the game out of reach of most budgets – even many UK channels.

          Reply
          1. Brig Bother Post author

            I’d be intrigued to find out what the budget for the show is, I can’t say I’d even heard of The Science Channel before so it can’t be top tier. I suspect quite good use of wide-angle lens to make the rooms look bigger than they are.

  9. Matt Clemson

    I rather liked that, although I did get to wondering what they’d do if a team actually got the $25000. That’s forty minutes of footage at most – which in a forty-fiveish minute show means there’s not a lot of scope to cut the boring stuff, which may well be much of what the losing team does in that space of time.

    Maybe that should be taken as an indication that they never intend the full prize to be won, of course.

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    1. David B

      Yeah… don’t care. They had to make a number of changes to make the game work for television: make it more linear, more team-based, more strategic and more “big scale” so that viewers could see the objects. On all those fronts, they succeeded. Four people scouring a room independently for tiny keys would just not have worked.

      Also, their complaints about lack of story are plain wrong. For one, most European escape rooms don’t have a story. But actually the puzzles *were* very consistent with the location. And frankly, there’s no time for a storyline. If anything, the race between the two rooms is the storyline.

      And the thing about the destruction is what made the final puzzle so great. Normally you wouldn’t dare to do that in a room, or even a TV studio. The solution was both lateral and slightly anarchic, and made a great finish.

      Reply
      1. Brig Bother Post author

        The interesting thing I hadn’t considered is that in using similar puzzles to existing escape rooms, it treads on their business.

        In these instances, being more “for television” is probably a very good thing, even if it does set a certain expectation for real life rooms.

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  10. Greg

    I was gripped from start to finish. Thought this was really good. Something like this would do well here on the right channel. The show reminded me a lot of the Mystery games on The Crystal Maze and i thought maybe a whole show of this would be boring, oh how wrong i was.

    I get the feeling that the rooms are going to have different themes each week and i can already think about 10 different things they could do with this.

    Reply
  11. Brig Bother Post author

    Episode 2 in the Chinese Restaurant. I’ll just copy and past David B’s post from another thread so it’s all in one place:

    “If you don’t mind refreshing occasionally and closing some ads, ep 2 of Race to Escape is here: https://1tube.to/f/Race.to.Escape.S01E02.The.Chinese.Restaurant.720p.HDTV.x264-DHD.mkv.mp4-Pbiw1n12.html

    Again, some very clever puzzles (maybe a bit too clever) and funny moments though there are some annoyingly small pieces of information that are impossible for the viewer to know about. Traditionally, TV companies put their worst episode out in the second slot, so if that’s the case here then it’s still going to be a fine series.”

    And I’ll leave some spoiler space now so I will discuss a few specifics:

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    The first puzzle is actually kind of incredible, not least because it lasts about ten-fifteen minutes, most of which is watching two groups of people miss something incredibly obvious, I expect an average producer would be terrified but it’s the most I’ve shouted at something in quite some time.

    Enjoyable again, although it’s a shame there were a few more places that “do X then unrelated Y happens” for telly – I’d always try and choose ingenious mechanicisms if possible rather than “put things in a certain place then a man will push a button to make something happen”, but there we are.

    Reply
    1. David B

      I get the feeling they were petrified the contestants were going to stumble across certain things too early, so having “release mechanisms” like that makes that kind of discovery impossible.

      Reply
      1. xr

        I expect that is the purpose of the clue drawer (along with serialisation of puzzles). But I understand the fear, and it also helps the budget.

        Reply
  12. xr

    The third puzzle was very hard indeed. Data in something that IRL is always random, small enough that you needed to handle the props to notice, and also a modifier to a complete-looking process! No wonder that by the time they got to the fourth problem they were frazzled. The final puzzle was a bit of a let down. Too brief, too easy, and operating on dragon magic rather than mechanisms; coming right after the inspired visuals of episode one’s final puzzle isn’t helping its cause either.

    I wanted the blue team to do well just to avoid the constant cries of “Balls!” On the other hand, poison gas was amusing.

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    1. David B

      I have a feeling this one was one of the earlier rooms, especially the thing with the “own worst enemy” solution. Given that (from what I’ve read) their production cycle was devise-build-test-film for each room, they should have had the opportunity to calm it down in later weeks.

      That said, I thought the editing on this episode was better in that it gave you a chance to spot the relevant objects before they were mentioned. Whereas on Ep 1, things like the typewriter and the paintings came a bit out of the blue.

      Reply
  13. Matt Clemson

    Out of interest, what sort of considerations went into the ‘murder mystery’ rooms in The Crystal Maze? There’s a world of difference between here, where they have an hour to reason things out, and there, where I believe it was usually a three-minute game?

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Interesting question, I would suggest that the murder mystery rooms only had quite quick minor puzzles, fewer points of interest (and fewer steps) and crucially a host and director who could point the team in the right direction if it looked like they were going nowhere.

      With Race to Escape you’re looking at five individual elements each you could probably get an entire Crystal Maze game out of.

      Reply
      1. David B

        (Spoilers)

        Ouch, rough episode. The editing went back to the episode 1 style where key objects are introduced just before the contestants need them, and their appears to be too many red herrings around that distract the players.

        I thought the first puzzle was going to use the principle of sliding the beer down the bar to the other player, which would have been more fun if messy.

        Relying on a lighting change is an error. Contestants are not going to notice that. When I devised a Crystal Maze game that relied on a sundial, we told them that an effect would happen.

        Reply
        1. David B

          Apparently the beer WAS supposed to be slid down the bar. They just both found another way.

          Reply
    1. Michael

      (SPOILERS)

      What a ridiculous episode. Wonder what will happen if neither team escapes.

      Reply
      1. Brig Bother Post author

        Well at least we know now what happens when the money runs out: the money runs out.

        Might be inclined to make the prize a grand each plus $25k bonus money next series.

        Reply
        1. David B

          Well, the simpler thing would be for the money to just stop draining once it hits $1000.

          Reply
        2. xr

          But “Congratulations, you’ve escaped … with nothing. Now let me throw out the losers still working on Puzzle 5 with $20000 remaining” sounds like a catchphrase to me.

          Reply
  14. xr

    This was just plain bad. The teams looked very promising, and then one devolved into arithmancy, while the other one badly failed the so-called puzzles.

    1: Really? One guy is just supposed to stand there and eat peanuts while others work?
    2: Why did the guy decide that the only marks that matter are the circled Xs again?
    3: To begin with, the only people that can be expected to know what black lights are are ravers, toilet attendants and grannies big on CSI:Boise. And they are still likely to miss it if they don’t know they are looking for it. Even if you don’t put it inside a metal cone and make sure the closest person looks elsewhere when it turns on. I didn’t appreciate the host’s attitude either.
    4: By all means, let’s have another puzzle where out-of-the-box thinking means engaging your inner sociopath – if you somehow figure out the wires beneath / shaved felt / whatever. Escape room owners are loving this series, I can just feel it.
    5: A game of skill – nice! A game you could half-solve while poking about for your key, and then immediately complete when free though? Risky.

    Special inks are not puzzles. Once we do the UV ink / film in the dark trick can we call it quits? Also, what’s up with the Double Dare-level of filth and destruction?

    Reply
    1. Chris M. Dickson

      There’s one part I’d definitely disagree with; blacklights are very frequent in these sorts of games (e.g. 54% of 175 rooms surveyed listed them in Dr. Scott Nicholson’s survey of the genre) to the point where they’re almost clich&ecaute; – see also (without criticism!) the sensational Treasure Hunt within Schlag den Brig. I would imagine, not least using the general reasonably high level of play (no, seriously!) as evidence, that at least most of the players have played at least one or two examples of the genre already in practice for the show, and would be surprised if blacklights hadn’t cropped up somewhere along the line.

      Reply
      1. xr

        Blacklights are of course standard fare for the genre, but, unlike you, I see very little genre savvy in the contestants. Even accepting the premise, spotting a violet highlight on a blue wall when your eyes are tiny pinholes due to studio-level lighting seems tricky to me.

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    1. David B

      (spoilers)

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      A fun episode. When someone says they are a puzzle expert you know they’re toast. That said, the thing with the tacks behind the balloons wasn’t that obvious.

      None of the episodes so far have matched the simple brilliance of the first episode’s final puzzle. Finding a balloon on the floor wasn’t something we could join in with, or even guess at. But it’s been a fun show so far and you can tell there’s been a lot of thought put into it.

      Reply
  15. xr

    I was grinning like an idiot from halfway through to the end. When the winning team is good, there is less footage to choose from, thus less gaps and more flow. You really got to sense their excitement and follow their trains of thought. I suppose it helps when there is no competing storyline, which may say something about the format.

    I am sure the video will go viral in the blue-shirted “expert”‘s workplace.

    I find that I consistently enjoy puzzle 1. While initially splitting up the team is a genre trope, whoever thought of always using it is a genius. It allows us to form impressions for each contestant individually before they blur into a ball of motion and nerves. Not always favorable ones though :). And it makes for a puzzle where using the CB would be an unlikely but shocking occurrence, which is just a bonus.

    Puzzle two was just solid through and through, with lots of steps smoothly flowing into each other.

    I loved puzzle three. Hands on and well integrated to the “location”, with consistent small payoffs. I expected something like crickets in the tanks, but I suppose writing on a cricket is tricky, and US studios apparently buy large cockroaches in bulk anyways.

    Puzzle four is of a tricky kind, though fixed orientation helps. With so many unmatched edges, one needs some very careful observation / trial and error. Having multiple people working on it is a big disadvantage, and so is working it up on a wall, where a quick overview of loose pieces is tricky. And then you’ve got three more steps to go. I was very impressed with team’s speed there.

    Puzzle five brought the visual ideas of the episode full circle. The detention slips were so endearing. Well, all the puzzles (but 4) really felt natural for the “location”, and I appreciated that. When the final clue came up, I feared that they would just have to go through all that mess that dropped looking at the red balls, while the solution would be bursting the basketball. They were nice enough to make it a different red object that fell, and it was a balloon to replace the ones they burst and got lines for! So neat.

    Reply
  16. Scott

    Episode 3 and 4 Together really show why I like the show – You can win closely and go home with Nothing if you play things too slow and use too many clues – and you can literally Steam roller another team if you are good.

    i did skip a bit of the Blue team while they were still tied down – knew where the key was but were still looking for other keys somewhere else.

    Like Daniel above – Damn ripping the stuffing out of the animals.

    Reply
    1. Daniel Peake

      I love the fact that it was a solution to a later puzzle – some of the producers will have been getting a bit nervous at that!

      It would be almost as enjoyable a programme watching the gallery go utterly mental during the escape. “Race To Escape: Birds Eye View” anyone??

      Reply
    1. Michael

      Another dominant performance from one team there! Nice to see basically Chambre Froide from Fort Boyard make an appearance as a clue.

      Reply
      1. Brig Bother Post author

        Or indeed any of the menote bassed games of the last five years, and I fully expect them to do “menotte but now WITH TOOLS” next year now.

        I wonder if there was a solution the producers had in mind for that that might have been more efficient then the one actually used?

        I quite like it when the solution to the last puzzle ties in with the first. I would have totally gone straight for those keys on the wall in puzzle one, however.

        Reply
        1. Michael

          I was worried on the producers’ behalf that some of that piping looked a bit flimsy in parts! I bet they triple-secured it!

          I’m assuming there was a tool hidden somewhere that would have made it really easy – either that or the stepladder had a way to be released.

          Reply
  17. Michael

    Well, that kind of had to happen but did suck the life out of the episode!

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      I’m mildly surprised there isn’t a codebreaker for Clue 1 in a “just in case” capacity such as this for the bit after they release themselves, because if BOTH teams were completely useless you’ve completely wasted a show!

      Reply
      1. David B

        I suspect that might be something they change in series 2. It does seem a bit odd, especially as the code effectively had a three step solution – get out, spell LAMP, turn the lamp on.

        As the article linked to above implies, clearly they were very afraid that people would see information too soon. But there’s no need to do that on clue 1.

        Reply
        1. Matt C

          I think the problem with a Clue 1 codebreaker is that, in principle, getting free is meant to be the challenging part – and you can’t actually claim a codebreaker until you’ve done that anyway. The actual ‘finding the number’ is generally fairly direct. I suspect that’s why the producers didn’t include one for that.

          I wonder if it’s not a bad idea to make the round 1 codebreaker cheaper accordingly. In principle it shouldn’t take you two minutes to find it, so $1k?

          That said, I wonder how much of the issue is the fact that since it’s the first series, people aren’t going in with the benefit of what to expect – that is, the code, when you find it, is obviously the code, not just something that happens to be a four-digit number in the room.

          Reply
          1. Brig Bother Post author

            In principle it shouldn’t but in reality twice this season the first code has eluded our teams for fifteen-twenty minutes – let’s not forget the maze in the chinese restaurant (which was in plain sight in four ft high writing), that’s a 1 in 3 miss rate. I think the reaction the contestants would have when they realise they spent $5k on something so obvious would be worth it in itself.

            If you’ve built the puzzles, you want to make sure they get used.

          2. xr

            I presume the contestants are given some sort of briefing beforehand. Things like don’t be acrobatic and don’t try to pick or force the studio door. I can’t figure out if the constant calls to production to the tune of “May I break this?” is decent hesitation or due to instruction.

            It really should include “codes are going to be either individually circled characters or truly BLATANT”. But they seem to want it both ways with this; on one hand, they taped over the lock serials, but on the other, they sprinkled 4 digit numbers for the “aren’t they desperate” lulz. Although finding one in the Puzzle 1 instructions was the highlight of the episode for me, so what do I know?

            It’s casting process dependent whether viewers would be likely contestants, so there may not be any discernible difference in behaviour.

  18. xr

    Why would you forbid teams from CBing their 1st clue? Spending money when you’ve already almost-solved the puzzle is more dramatic, and avoids instances like this one.

    Apparently, one bad team doesn’t hurt the format, but two make the episode barely watchable. This isn’t the first time they flirted with this particular disaster either, so either casting and/or puzzle setters need to change something. My guess is that, while casting geniuses or people into the escaping past-time would be a bad idea, casting needs to go looking for people with better qualifications than 1) conveniently unemployed 2) sober 3) not scarred. Well, if they get another season that is.

    It didn’t help that the puzzles weren’t all that fun. Their binding puzzle failed to properly work for both teams, their chess puzzle was out-of-place, too complex AND easily bypassed, their fan puzzle was probably better handled by just going on someone’s shoulders, and the final puzzle was both solvable out-of-order and less than a thrilling climax.

    The series as a whole was pretty fun though, and I hope their numbers allow them a second season.

    Reply
    1. Alex S

      Barbershop episode spoilers.

      I suspect the lack of a code breaker on puzzle 1 is less ‘forbidding’ and more the production team not thinking even for a second that it could take anyone 40+ minutes to work it out. In their defence, the team did find the LAMP clue eventually, but then didn’t take it any further.

      This one did feel like the weakest unfortunately. As you said, I don’t fully understand how the binding puzzle with the winding cord was supposed to be correctly solved. Really good series as a whole though, does anyone know how well it’s been doing numbers-wise?

      Reply
    2. David B

      I think you’re being hard on this episode. I think it might have been my second-favourite (favorite?) of the series.

      Ok, it wasn’t a close race, but it was fun… and funny. Pardo’s single shrug at the camera was a classic, although they’re in danger of running out of arrows in the graphics department. I thought the end puzzle was a good one.

      Given that one team did solve all the steps within the time, you have to say that it was calibrated pretty well. The “Will they win any money?” aspect pretty much solves the issue of when it’s not close.

      Reply
      1. Alex S

        I was pleased to see that the arrow from Finders Keepers is still getting work.

        Reply
  19. David

    I believe the rope puzzle was basically one of those “get from one end of the rope to the other” obstacle courses Survivor keeps insisting on using.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      I was thinking about this today, suspecting that it probably never did get picked up for a second season as nobody seems to have mentioned one. Pity.

      Reply

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