Having come so close, we were invited to be guests at the Bottleyard Studios to test the new games coming through the next series!
So, April 16th, 2018, we make our way to the Bottleyard and Steph Hopgood, Casting Assistant Producer is there at the gate to bring us in, show us to our Green Room and we settle down, and fill in the paperwork. Non-disclosure agreements and so on! Also, we meet Oz, the safety guy for the show who is about if anyone has an incident.
It was finally time – WE HAD GAINED ENTRY TO THE CRYSTAL MAZE!
We enter the studio door, take a right and walk up the corridor a little bit and then a quick left, and there we were, at the gates to the industrial zone!
Of all the zones, this is probably where we played most games. We’re recognising faces from the auditions day and everyone is having a laugh as well as building the maze right around us! The maze was coming to life around us! (Literally, they were putting the set up around us!)
We’re split into two groups so we can test two different games and alternate around. I’m off to play “AIRMAZE” first of all. Remember the new game cell with 4 doors, that had the pipe the contestants had to pull the crystal around? Yep, brand new game. We were briefed on the instructions for the game, and in dives our player!
Here’s the thing folks – you know that nice top-down view you get as a home viewer? We don’t get that. We have literally got the view through the upper set of doors and we can’t see the top down view of the layout used in AIRMAZE.
My Industrial Game – well, this didn’t go too well for me. I had the 10 Buttons / 10 Seconds game. Unfortunately, I’m a pretty heavy guy, and not the fittest, nor the strongest. So swinging around on a rope swing trying to hit the buttons meant I was top-heavy and was not going to win the game, as I would not be able to hold onto the swing. As this was an ALIS game, I wound up putting a foot on the floor – but as it was debug day we had free buyouts!
There was also the Donkey Kong Gutter Ball game which I exposed a fault on, due to crystals getting stuck in the tubes, and a connect the pipes puzzle with an awesome smoke effect that they were testing that day.
After Industrial, we’re off to the next zone – however, we take the “non-official route”
Neil, wearing an original 90's Crystal Maze jacket, in the new revived Crystal Maze!
We only get to play one game here, I’ve called it Minecraft – I get to work behind the scenes, and play with an expensive fog generator machine – yes, I made a foggy bog! So I'm around the rear of the set, and as I'm walking around, I spot bits from the previous series! (The access code doors from Industrial!) – I’m waiting on my cue as I watch one of my teammates play the game. The idea being that the 3 gems of each colour need to be mined from the coal pile, loaded to the cart, then the player has to heave themselves up the ramp in the cart to load the main wagon. Once all 9 gems are loaded, The Crystal is released! And that is what I was waiting on.
When I come back around, we have a surprise! James Dillon, the man himself, is there signing our books of the new series! We get to chat about the sets, see some Zone set models and then James asks if we have had a go at getting in the maze. So Steph takes us around to the main gates of Medieval, and we’re told – away you go!
We open the doors to find a closed portcullis! there are also 5 chains dangling from the ceiling – yes! The old style entry was back! So we work out which chain is the good one, open the gate, and I start to crawl under to have my next great fail…. yup. I stuffed up gaining entry…
I had a wardrobe malfunction and got snagged by the spikey bits on the portcullis – so I couldn’t stand. So I had to lay flat on my belly and pull myself forward under the gate – which then meant I slid down the steps. Yup, I belly slid into Medieval zone!
We came back and the gate was reset after 3 of us got in, the rest of the gang laughing at my failure. I didn’t care, I’d done it and it was fun =)
However, our time in the zone was over. We were off to FUTURISTIC ZONE!
Taken moments before my belly slide into the zone….
COLOURED BALLS DROP
My Future Zone Game – BALLS! Lot’s of them! If I had been playing this on TV I would’ve not lived it down. I walked into this empty room, to find 6 empty tubes, colour coded. I read the sign. “Sort all the balls by colour to release the crystal” – then I hear this noise over the set wall. I catch this black plastic bin being heaved up, sneezing out a chroma burst of plastic ball pit balls at me! So I’ve to shove all the balls up the vacuum tubes to be collected. Unfortunately, my health beats me on this one. I’ve got to stop after about a minute as I've nearly exhausted myself and need to breathe! I miss my team playing the game afterwards as I’m sat in the airlock getting my breath back and some oxygen in my blood. Neil was able to win the Crystal in this game.
**Just in case anyone is worried, I am addressing my general health issues. It’s not going to be an immediate fix issue, but I am working on it, and I hope to be a bit better for applying in the next series.
Lottery Machine
Only a couple of us played this due to the reset time needed, but this was our second encounter with the new “Red Crystals” being used in Series 2 of filming. On one side of the room is a cylinder with 5 changeable tumblers – it has a 6th which is locked in place. On the opposite side of the room is the machine, which starts up just after you enter the room. In the machine, you can see a single capsule to begin with (The Real Crystal!) – and every few seconds, another capsule enters the machine through another tube. The longer you take to solve the tumbler puzzle, the more capsules with red crystals enter the machine, making it harder to find the genuine crystal!
Crystal Lettering
This game is yet to air at the time I write this, but it’s a play on the “Extinguish all the lights game” – the contestant has a console of buttons, which light up or turn off depending on the state – They control some edge-lit acrylic hanging off the rear wall, which spells “CRYSTAL” and has the Crystal Icon on the end. The objective was to turn the word from Blue to White!
Space Invaders
Although we didn’t get to test the game (it was partially built at the time) only I and one of the other team members got to see this area. This was where the infamous “Planet Spinning” incident of Team Cosplay occurred! (Little did I know that the planets were to come back later on!) – But it also gave us a chance to see how the ‘airlock’ of future zone worked, which allowed the cell to stand free from the actual Future Zone set itself!
AZTEC ZONE
The guys all came through absolutely beaming, and happy they’d done it. As for me – maybe another time should it come up!
Whilst we’re here, we see the sand being readied to spread out over the floor, and we discover the middle game's cell across from the tunnel into the zone is actually empty and not populated with a game! We also see the new ramp that’s been built especially for Aztec zone, which was seen in the celebrity episode featuring a wheelchair-bound contestant!
So Neil R & 2 other teammates go to play the anagram game that’s set up for the time being, and myself and Adam are chatting with Steph whilst they do so. It’s nearly time up in the zones, as the only other game we get to play means Neil gets very, very wet indeed. He played a 'gated' water game which involved climbing over gates, as well as swimming underwater underneath them, with a series of Aztec Symbols on floats. They all need to match a corresponding pattern. Neil got stuck in one corner of the cell and didn't realise at one point that he had to swim under one of the gates. Funnily, in a recorded episode, a red arrow was added to remind contestants to swim underneath!
Team Superfans & a soggy Neil!
THE CRYSTAL DOME
Just a few of the Crystal Crew needed to put together this show – we cannot thank them enough for making our day so memorable!
We were not originally meant to be going to the crystal dome, however, the guys had been working on the lighting throughout the day whilst we had been debugging the games, and for this, we were off to a separate studio. Since Tipping Point had moved in and pinched the Dome’s previous studio, it had relocated. We walk in…. and there it is, white LEDs sparkling away and the dome looking absolutely amazing – I literally stopped in my footsteps when I saw it in person. My jaw almost fell off!!
We walked around the front, and get a close up of the control console where the crystals sit, and then we get gathered up. “Guys, you’re going in the dome. 10 crystals for your score!” – WHA! We got a full complement of 50 seconds to collect tokens!! The guys in charge of the dome give us the long-winded rules of the Dome (Health and Safety, y’know how it goes.) – and then whip off a bit of Richard’s script before saying the final words — “I now invite you, to enter the Dome!”
Was this happening? Was I dreaming? I couldn’t believe it! I duck slightly as I enter the dome itself through the door frame, and then take my place, absorbing my environment…. “Good luck guys, I’m locking you in now!” – The door was sealed, and we were standing by to play. We could see the tokens down the perimeter of the play area….
then, we hear the magic words….
WE CRACKED THE CRYSTAL MAZE!!
“WILL YOU START THE FANS PLEASE!”
Soon, we were in a blizzard of airstreams and golden and silver tokens! A few moments pass to let us adjust to the stream,
and then
“GO!!!”
It was game on! 50 seconds, you wouldn’t believe how quickly it goes inside the dome itself – A lot of people think it’s difficult to tell which colour the tokens are – but they are very easy to differentiate. So as we run in a circular fashion around the perimeter, grabbing tokens, some fly in my face and I dump them in the collection point.
Then, just as I catch a golden token from the air – “STOP!!!” and the fans power down. Our time was up. As the debris of the token storm comes to rest, the door opens and we are allowed to exit. Now, it was just waiting on the results….
We collected 30 gold overall! Now – you might be reading this and thinking – “50 seconds! what were you doing!? Picking your nose?” In fact, the dome hadn’t been fully reloaded with tokens, and had considerably fewer tokens in it, compared to the TV airing! This was due to the relocation of the dome to the new studio. We were told that if we were to take it in scale, then we probably had a winning run of 100+ gold tokens!
With that, our day was done – We had cracked the Crystal Maze, and just before we say our farewells to the Dome and its team, Steph gifts us all a special memento – a golden token from the dome itself! One each, and then it was photo time, with us as a team, and then the WHOLE production crew!
After that, it was back to the green room, thank Oz for his care and then say farewell to Steph and the guys from Bottleyard.
We all piled into the car, and it was back to normality… well, for 2 days for me anyway, I had to do more time travelling, as I was off to the USA for a wedding and to meet a friend!
I had a great time, and all of us were on a high – we were very privileged to have been invited to test the Crystal Maze. I’ll be honest, I think the maze cracked me with some of the goofs I made, but it was part of a special memory I would cherish for all time.
My advice for anyone who wants to enter the Crystal Maze – Be Honest. Be Yourself. Leave your inhibitions at the door and enjoy being part of a bigger family of crystal maze fans and geeks – once you’re in the maze, you never really leave it
Can you crack it? Good luck! - Jonathan Harris.
