Yesterday we played the Home Game across London. The boundary was Greater London, with any station on the tube map being a valid hiding station. We had two teams of two playing. We strictly set a time limit of 4 hours for each run, which was ambitious but necessary to allow for travelling back home, and for having a little break in between runs to have a chat.
We tossed a coin to see who would go first. My girlfriend and I lost the toss and our opponents chose to hide first.
As Kings Cross was the starting point, we added a handicap that the the first team to hide only had 50mins to hide, and also that our first question was free.
Run 1: Using matching airport, walking a 1/2 mile thermometer, and then the 10 mile radius being a miss, we got the map down to a very small area very quickly. Notwithstanding a brief detour from the Mediocre Travel Agent who sent us off to the SOAS Gallery in Russell Square, we had our first difficult decision to make - the map was split in two, a chunk in Northernmost London, and a chunk around Romford, in far East London. Our gut, (and a bit of mapwork) told us they went east but we had to be sure.
For our game, we introduced 'London Sub-Region' as one of the Administrative Tiers. This essentially divides the city into North, South, East, West and Central and functions the same way as the Borough question for New York. So we decided to take the Piccadilly Line up to Manor House, walk into Finsbury Park (the southernmost point of 'North London' and ask if our sub-region matched. It didn't.
We headed off to East London, and from the map it looked like they were on one of 4 stations on the District line, or one of 2 stations on the Elizabeth line. We boarded a District Line train at Aldgate East and asked if our train would stop at their station. It would not. At Whitechapel we boarded an Elizabeth Line station and asked the same question (for double!). Our service once again would not stop at their station.
At this point we felt pretty confused and low on energy so we divided into a Burger King outside or Stratford Station. We mygot hit with Curse of the Ransom Note and also the Unguided Tourist in quick succession but as these coincided with a tactical break from travelling we didn't lose too much time. My girlfriend suggested I reset the map and put in everything again. It was worth a go, I guess? Strangely enough this time, the town of Fairlop on the Central line was in play. We sent a custom radar which just included Fairlop and it was a hit. We then asked for a Place of Worship photo as we knew there wasn't one in their area and it returned a null answer. On arriving at the station we matched station platform and tallest building photos we saw earlier. We were on to them! But
...there was only 20minutes left and they hit us with Lemon Phalactery. We went to the one grocery store within walking distance of the station. Did they sell lemons? They did not. At this point we conceded we wouldn't find them and met up in the local Spoons. They had 27mins of time bonuses meaning 4hr 27m was the time to beat.
Run 2: We didn't know where we wanted to hide, thankfully we made it to Fairlop station just as a train was pulling into the platform. We looked at a few options and decided on changing at Stratford and riding the Mildmay (Overground) line as far enough as we wanted to. Slightly because it's unintuitive but secondly because our hiding station would probably be in a nice bit of North-Central London with lots of cafes and pubs. We settled on Caledonian Road & Barnsby. We were quite happy with our choice, although I was concerned about the Station Platform question as I think it was very obvious we were outside, and more likely than not, on the Overground.
Our friends strangely decided not to set off straightaway but ask their first few questions from the comfort of the pub. They confirmed we were no longer in the East London sub-region, after which we drew Curse of the Drained Brain! Unfortunately they hit us with the 10mile radar before we could ban it but we banned the 1/4 mile radar, 1/2 mile thermometer and photo of the station platform without having to discard anything! The 10 mile was a hit, by the barest of margins and with hindsight we wondered if we should have stayed on for one more station...on the plus side, we drew a 18min time bonus (equivalent of 30min in the long game). As good a start as you can get for the hiders!
The seekers got caught up in delays to the Central line which forced them to alight at Leytonstone and walk to the Leytonstone Overground station. Suddenly our happiness at the delays turned into a slight concern. They made a bee-line for South Tottenham to confirm we weren't in the Northern Sub-Region. They then hit us with a 3 mile radar. It was a miss by a matter of yards! We both agreed if they'd asked a 5 mile radar they would have smelt blood. After a brief Unguided Tourist stint where they found a basketball court pretty quickly, they took the Victoria Line down to King's Cross and narrowed us down with both a 2 and a 1 mile radar. By this point we'd picked up some more time bonuses, including a duplicate we planned to use on the 18min. They were so close but had to try and waste their time. The Medicore Travel Guide sent them to Camden Town Hall, at which point they fell into the trap of using Tentacles - when only 1 mile away why not? The problem is this gave us now 1hr 3min of time bonuses. 3hr 25min into their run we declared we had won but said we could carry on if they wanted to. They asked if we were in the endgame and when I confirmed we weren't, we all agreed to end the run and head to the Wetherspoons in St Pancras.
Some thoughts!
- The game really needs a proper mapping app. The https://taibeled.github.io/JetLagHideAndSeek/ one worked really well for most things but it's still clunky and hard to add/takeaway things like local authority areas.
- I do feel measuring from where you are at any moment compared with the station location is unfair. I know our opponents eliminated our station because it was in the 3 mile radar but we weren't at the time.
- It's exhausting but in the absolute best way. We only allowed ourselves 10hours for the only game out of practical necessity but if we play again next time I'll try to see if we can allow for 12 hours.
- Finally, would recommend!