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CaN You eScaPe 2016
BY MOHAMMAD ZAKI BIN IBRAHIM
There is a non-exhaustive list of fun activities to partake with friends. Well, how about being trapped in the laboratory of a mad scientist? Honestly, that sounds like an average day of a CN Yang Scholar. Yet I omitted a crucial element – the available puzzles are actually solvable!
Last Tuesday, helmed by the Special Projects team, the CN Yang Scholars Club held its first event -“CaN You eScaPe?” (abberant casing theirs, not mine). Held in Xcape, Singapore’s first reality escape room, each team of scholars was assigned into a scenario-based room and needed to escape within an hour. Obstacles in each room consisted of puzzles of various levels of encryptions, and stages of the room were often behind lock and key, requiring progressive stages of solving. The rooms also utilised interesting equipment, such as lasers, directional locks, letter locks and UV torches.
Before I move on, I would like to courteously highlight a spoiler alert, where I would be sharing on two rooms that my team attended. It’s just a minor spoiler alert, so need not you worry too much!
In the online registration form, we were instructed to pick levels of difficulty and scare factor. Personally I felt like I was up for a challenge and reckoned that I could stand a little scare (Oh the woes of signing up late at night!). Thus, we were sorted into groups according to those two levels. My team comprised of generally freshmen, with a fellow sophomore and a wacky senior for the thrill of it.
On the day itself, we met up for registration and brought in dinner to the CresPion hall, where dinner was conducted sitting in a circle, reminiscent of the recent Orientation Camps. Soon, the buses arrived and we ended up in the middle of Bugis. Too bad there wasn’t any time for shopping as we were shuttled to our respective assigned rooms.
My team’s first Escape Room was “Resident Evil”, where we were trapped in a lab of a crazy scientist. Due to overthinking, we were stuck for 15 minutes in the first stage and had to call for assistance. In it, we were given a row of dichromatic test tubes and needed to use their colours to decipher a number lock with a table chart written on the wall. However, we only noticed a single colour and decided to use a colourful periodic table, which was actually meant for a more advanced stage of the room. It was quite hilarious when the staff betrayed a sense of disbelief when we were told that there were two colours – “You know there’s two colours, right?”
In another stage, we had to obtain a metal bicycle chain, given a short rope, a spanner and magnet. Thus, to lengthen the rope, we used one of the lab coats, that was meant to be a décor! Very resourceful indeed! In fact, we were very close to completing the first room, but time was lacking (Didn’t manage to email for extension).
Licking our wounds, my team was off for the second room, “Whisper of the Dead”. Apparently, it was a series of rooms with a lot of artworks integrated into the puzzles. As for me, the only scary part was the painting of Plato and Aristotle from my Ethics class reappearing in the room!
Raphael’s School of Athens
Resolving our steel from our previous defeat, we cleared the puzzles quickly until the last stage where we had to decipher a code from a looped soundtrack. In the end, we completed the room within 38 minutes! That’s faster than the time I take to finish a tutorial.
After a bus trip back, the Special Projects team even had prizes for the fastest team in the different scenario rooms! Lastly, before we ended off the event, we had a mandatory group shot.
Overall, it was time well-spent solving these puzzles with friends. Although most of us had lessons before this (recorded or live), we still had much energy to spare, approaching the rooms with zest and enthusiasm. Moreover, it was heartening to see the maiden event of the Ninth Executive Committee well-attended by all batches, particularly the senior batch.
While we did escape, we are nonetheless lucky to be stuck with each other towards the bigger challenge which is this academic year. To another crazy year ahead!