The Escape Artist - A Wonderfool Dream Review

DISCLAIMER: This post is spoiler-free. Any spoilers will be clearly demarcated and be in WHITE text. There are no answers given about how to solve any of the puzzles, just general hints, which the gamemasters may also give to you anyway when you play. If you want an entirely spoiler-free experience, just don't read the review/tips!

Brief Intro: If you have played any online room escape games, you would surely be keen on The Escape Artist, a real-life room escape game at the somewhat obscure Bukit Timah Shopping Centre. They have 4 rooms in total, which you can check out on their official website here. The room sizes allow anywhere from 2 - 8 people, depending on the particular room. Each room has a unique theme and a set of puzzles which you have to solve to unlock the door to get out of the room. The success rates are pretty low, probably below 50%, so be prepared for a challenge.
It costs $15 per person for 50 minutes (and an additional $15 for the entire room for a 10(?) minute extension), $12 if you are a student. Pretty reasonable rates for a really great time!

Many puzzles in every room are what I call 'general lateral thinking puzzles', where you have to think creatively and figure out how to derive the code from whatever clues you have.

This blog post will be my review of one of their rooms, A Wonderfool Dream (Version 2)

Homemade burgers!

I've been wanting to make burgers for a long time and finally got about to doing it!

Alan's Burger and Fries

Ingredients: (makes 4 patties)

200g minced pork
200g minced beef
1 cup bread crumbs
1 small onion
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 egg + 2 tablespoons water
1 slice of cheese
optional: 
4 slices of cheese
BBQ/tomato/chilli sauce
1 apple, sliced
4 hamburger buns

Preparation

1) Dice up the onion into small bits. You can vary the amount of onion you want but do have some as it adds to the taste very well.

2) Put all the ingredients except the cheese into a bowl, and mix well with your hands.
You can add more mustard/salt/pepper to your liking. I'm going to try to mix in BBQ sauce at this stage the next time, as well as some thyme.

3) Divide into 4 flat patties. Try to make them flat, about 1.5inch thick should be the most, otherwise it won't cook well. (Mine were 1 inch) Enclose 1/4 slice of cheese in each patty (optional)

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="614"] Raw patties[/caption]

 

4) Put in fridge for 20-30 minutes. This is to help the patties firm up so it won't fall apart when you cook them.

5) Heat up frying pan with just a bit of oil, then put in patties when the oil sizzles (just sprinkle a drop of water or something to tell)

6) Depending on your heat, leave on each side for 2-4 minutes. I tried 3 minutes for the first batch on medium-high flame and it turned out slightly burnt:



For the next batch I used a medium flame, and only about 2 minutes on each side. Turned out perfect:



If you enclosed the small piece of cheese inside, you can get something like:



7) After removing the patty from the pan, it may be good to put on top of a kitchen roll to let the oil drain out a bit.

8) Serve with buns and side dish of your choice.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="614"] Those are apple slices, sliced to look like chips. Healthier choice! When serving, you can add some BBQ/chilli sauce to the bun, and a slice of cheese too if you like. I added cheese and a slice of apple in the bun for fun. Tasted really good.[/caption]

That's it!

Simple to make, really tasty, and healthy (use less oil)!

Stretching myself thin

I've always had a lot of free time. Since secondary school, I was never very much involved in any CCA or any outside activity, which meant a lot of time at home. All these years, I've been using that time to play computer games, or watch TV shows online, etc. I'm not used to being out often or till late. I don't like to.

This coming semester though, seems like it's going to be the toughest 3 months of my life, in terms of activity overload.

The following is not a rank order, but just in random order of whatever comes to mind.

1) IRO PAL

I am working part time at the NUS International Relations Office, as a Peer Advising Leader. The commitment level is roughly 8-10 hours a week, so that's quite a bit of time gone. I'm hoping the events stop coming and I don't have to go in much.

2) Honors Thesis

Part of my thesis project involves data collection. Data collection means hours spent in the lab, both running the study as well as data entry as well as analyzing the data. I don't look forward to this, especially if I get a null result which will suck.

Apart from data collection, there's still the thousands of articles I have to dive through to try to form some coherent story in my thesis which I guess I can only write in semester 2 or late semester 1, since I won't know how to proceed without my results.

3) IFG - Tchoukball

I'm playing Tchoukball for my faculty (go Arts!) at the Inter-Faculty Games, so there's gonna be trainings about twice a week until the end of August when the IFG occurs. Time time time.

4) NUS - Tchoukball ? 

I'm planning to try out for the NUS Tchoukball team, and if I get in, that means practice twice a week. That is not including time spent for competitions or IVP training (if I get in). The best thing that can happen is for me to fail at trials and not get selected, would take a burden off my chest. But if I can, I definitely will go la haha. Best thing as in best for my problematic workload.

5) RT

Because I failed my IPPT by 16s (yes fml. stupid 2.4km run), I have to go for 20 sessions of Remedial Training by Nov 5th. Hooray that's 20 evenings gone. (RT is about 6-8PM, total time about 4 hours including travelling time)

6) Gym

I still plan to go to the gym 3 times a week, Mon, Wed, Fri. If it gets too tough with both IFG and NUS trainings then I'll reduce it to 1-2 times a week for August, and resume the full schedule once IFG is over.

7) Two heavy lv4000 modules

Somehow, this semester, the two Psych honors-level modules I picked are both very intensive. Both have 3-5 readings each week, and one of them has a very intensive CA (project, presentation, regular essays, thought questions). GL HF. Need to hold on to my second upper honors

8) Church

Recently, my gf has been attending church regularly and I'm very very glad about that. Last sem/year I've been kinda slacking on my church attendance, often sacrificing Saturday or sometimes even Sundays to take a 'study break' (as in, break from church to study instead). I can't and I shouldn't do that anymore, as I want to attend church with her. So that's Sat evenings +Sun mornings.

9) Relationships

I'll still want to spend time with my gf of course, having gone through a harsh lesson about how important spending quality time with each other regularly is. I also have other friends that I want to meet up with, have a meal here and there, etc. Where do I dig up the time? How do sports people make dinner appointments when trainings are all at dinner-inappropriate times? (e.g. 6-9pm)

10) Entertainment

Ok, the actual heading is 'League of Legends'. I've been stuck in Silver1 forever and I really want to climb to Gold league. Though looking at things, I'll probably be too tired when I get home everyday and just play one game for my free win. Apart from games, TV shows generally come back when school starts for some reason, so that's more time gone there. How to study?

~

Wow. Almost (didn't have #10 before edit) 10 facets to juggle. This is so daunting.

Dear Lord, please give me the strength and ability and wisdom to manage all of these commitments. Help me to know how to manage my time well, and prioritize things well. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.