After we got the call saying there had been a murder, me and my sidekick, Minty, hot-tailed it to 1920s Millingham, a city remarkably like Stirling in look and location. Unfortunately, two of our team had to pull out. Wheels Tyler claimed he had blown a casket en route and Boaby the Hut reported he'd lost his stomach for investigation. Had Millingham's Scarlett Street Cutters got to them first?
Millingham's cops were getting nowhere fast. We were tasked with stalking the streets, tracking down virtual witnesses and eliminating suspects, along the way identifying the murder weapon. Luckily, the skies were sunny and the streets warm so this was one job that was going to be a pleasure.
We discovered we were not alone in our task. The cops had thrown the event wide open to a hundred teams, all with the same aim - to have a fun day out in the city centre glued to their phones.
After we loaded up the game onto our app, we hit our first glitch: only 198 out of 201 images loaded with no recourse to retry. We prayed it would have no bearing on the end result (Spoiler: it didn't). Minty logged in too and we watched the intro video. After we'd clicked onto 'Find Witnesses', the map opened and the clock started, the timer ticking away with a deadline 5pm finish. Plenty of time for a team as intelligent, gifted and bright as us.
As we began our investigation, with icons indicating the required GPS locations, we quickly realised it was not going to be that easy, not with prizes at stake. We needed to solve clues at each location before we could interview our witness (if they didn't hot foot it away, giving us five minutes to find them again). Some clues involved breaking codes while others were based on location trivia questions or simple riddles. As we had my detective skills and Minty's brains (and Google) we got most of the questions right. We managed to talk to everyone (with only three time penalties for incorrect answers), even finding a secret witness not indicated on the map.
We did pause midway through the investigation for a lunchtime repaste at an Indian restaurant, The Maharaja. We were surprised to learn the waiting staff hadn't heard about the murder or even the town of Millingham. Someone must have bought their silence. We didn't push it by using up our additional witness questions and tipped nicely for our delicious curry. We hoped it wasn't secretly poisoned.
Continuing the search, we looped around the hill up to the castle to find the remaining witnesses, locating the final one fittingly on Baker Street. With all the witness statements in the bag (or app), we retired to a local hostelry, The Mint Cafe (at Minty's request - she had a mint-chocolate ice cream milkshake while I chowed down on a coconut slice and glugged a breakfast tea). There, we perused our clues and eliminated suspects and murder weapons until we were sure we had our method and killer.
Of course, we got it right first time. Justice was served.
We rated the experience five stars and viewed the finale - the murderer's confession. The phone charge was already down at 25% so we were glad we hadn't watched all the witness statement videos, instead choosing to read them along the way.
We didn't top the leaderboard but we didn't expect to due to our long lunch break. Still, it felt good to see the company name up there. Maybe next time we'll do better (unless, of course, a mealtime gets in the way).
Thank you, Buddy.
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| Call the police there's a madman around - see below. |
