Escaping The Last Pyramid with The Sands Of Time!!

For the purposes of this review, we should say that Charlie Wheeler, the games creator and owner of Ultimate Quest, provided me with the game session free of charge.

On Sunday April 4th, when most people are enjoying their easter eggs, myself and two friends left earth behind to enter a strange and mysterious world known as The Last Pyramid.

Arriving into the Zoom Meeting, we are met with the games title card and the 3 minute sandtimer ticks down warming us up into the game and our host, Seraphinia, welcomes us to the Pyramid and it's rules and objectives.

A Puzzle Book Kickstarter We Want You To Support

 If you've read our stuff, you probably know the name Charlie Wheeler. We've interviewed him, we've gushed about his CG rendering (below), and we've plugged his puzzle books which it just so happens are still available on Amazon.

A Message From Mumsey

Thanks to Charlie Wheeler, there's a video that's just gone up on Twitter with a message from Mumsey (Sandra Caron) 

A special message from a very special someone... ❤️ #CrystalMaze pic.twitter.com/cRYRy9qLl9

— Charlie (@Wheeler____) August 15, 2020

So, as a thank you to Charlie for sorting that out, everyone go buy a puzzle book. Go on, you know you want to.

The Marvellous Work of Charlie Wheeler

We've all been finding ways of passing time whilst in lockdown, I myself have been perfecting my juggling, standing on my head and polishing off some PS4 games (My PSN ID is Spudgun20 if you want to add it, let me know you came from here). However that pales in comparison to what Charlie Wheeler has been doing with his time.

Couldn't sleep, so I finished off the #crystalmaze Industrial Zone! Fairly happy with this, could just do with being a bit dirtier. Modelled entirely in Cinema 4D :) pic.twitter.com/C3tNiuD9ox

— Charlie (@Wheeler____) March 31, 2020

The Paper Labyrinth: Got A Puzzle Lover In The Family? Get This Book Under Their Tree Next Month

Following on from his releases 'Make Puzzles Great Again' and "Not Another Crossword", friend of the blog Charle Wheeler has released another puzzle book ideally timed to get it in amongst your puzzle-loving loved one's pile of presents next month.

"The Paper Labyrinth" is a book-wide adventure across 157 pages of puzzles and riddles.

Available from Amazon for £6.99

Are you in the market for a new puzzle book whilst you jet off for the summer?

Friend of the blog, previous interviewee and live experience game designer Charlie Wheeler has added puzzle book writer to his CV.

Interview with the games designer of the new West End Live Experience Maze - Charlie Wheeler

Designing games for the Crystal Maze must be a very rewarding process, and while Anna Kidd designs fantastic games for the new TV Series, today we interview Charlie Wheeler, who is only 22 years old and was not even born when the Crystal Maze originally aired. Yet the Maze still captivated him enough to design all 32 games in the brand new West End London Live Experience maze.

When did you start coming up with ideas for the West End Maze games? Did you design games for the previous experiences? How many have you devised?

I guess "to devise" is not really a singular task as so many elements make a Crystal Maze game a reality. The whole design and development process is quite huge and involves loads of people! The rough process of getting a game from start to finish began with the Crystal Maze directors, we would talk (about a year ago now) about ideas, often having an old favourite from the TV show or maybe someone might have seen something out and about and thought ‘that would make a cracking game!’, and from this the directors’ treatments would be created. Each treatment would be totally different: some just a sting of an idea or a sketch or for others much more of a solid vision for a game. This is where I joined the ‘production line’ as it were, attaching this idea to reality (and the space it would soon inhabit) and turning an idea or a brief into a full size digital 3D representation of how the game and room would turn out like, fully dressed and decorated and lit as it would turn out in the end. This - I guess fairly unique - prototyping method really helped everyone get a feel for just how immersive each idea could become. From me the designs were passed onto the production team or the games manufacturers to make the physical products. In terms of numbers, there were 32 games used but almost double that number designed.