The Crystal Maze Live IN YOUR LIVING ROOM!/BATHROOM!/CUPBOARD UNDER THE STAIRS!

 Well, the world's not getting any less weird. We seem to be going backward in terms of progress and supermarkets are apparently rationing stuff again.

So before you get roped back into another endless routine of Zoom quizzes, how about something different? Those delightful people behind the Crystal Maze (Hi Charlie!) have come up with a fun alternative to the same stuff you've been doing since March - A play at home Crystal Maze team challenge. 

For £15 a head, your team of at least 8 will be guided through 16 all-new puzzles and tasks. Sign up here and you'll be led by an experienced Maze Master where you can still shout at one another through smaller digital windows. Meaning you get to question your friend's choice of putting Argos catalogues on their bookshelves. 

Been working on this for an age and it's finally available! You can now play a Virtual @CrystalMazeHQ from home, 16 new games and the new Crystal Dome round - hosted by your own personal Maze Master! It's £15 a head and you can book here!https://t.co/a8pTuxwo6G

(1/2) pic.twitter.com/hjBbcTwFTK

— Charlie (@Wheeler____) September 25, 2020

There's also a free offering for 4 players to download without a mazemaster that includes 8 games to play along with. Sign up free and download the necessary PDF files HERE

To play, you'll need some form of video conferencing software (eg Zoom), pen and paper to make notes with, and access to Youtube.

Get your team together, tell them you're sick of quizzes, and do something different together: booking a mazemaster and yelling at each other's ineptitude online.

Don't forget, The Crystal Maze is on TV over on Nickelodeon every Friday at 7pm. Adam Conover is mazemastering with all new (to the UK) episodes of the US version of the show.

Stay safe people.

Competition: Fancy a Sleepover In the London Live Experience Venue?

The Crystal Maze Live Experience London, Wayfair and Tripadvisor.com have teamed up to offer one lucky winner a night for two in a specially built pop up bedroom in the Aztec Zone of the London live venue.

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.

Live Experience plugged on Radio X

This morning, the old tablet I use as a radio alarm clock woke me up to the sound of Chris Moyles talking about visiting the Live Experience at its now month old venue in Piccadilly, London. He always spends the first half hour just chatting with his producers and newsreader and after an obligatory chat about Avengers: Endgame (Go see it, if you haven't yet, stop reading and just go. Don't let the internet have a chance to spoil it, go watch it now.) the topic came up about a visit to our favourite London attraction.

A good helping of the original end credits theme to set up a really good, enthusiastic chat about their visit to the LE yesterday afternoon. Chris, his producers James, Matt and Pippa and her other half/the 10am host on Radio X/Chris Tarrant's son Toby.

Matt, Toby, Chris, Pippa, James

Cheapshow podcast visited the new Live Experience venue/Cheapshow cheap plug

Last week, as my podcast subscriptions updated, one of them started off with a brief description of one of a visit to the Trocadero on opening day.
'Cheapshow', hosted by Gamesmaster alumnus Paul and his pet gremlin Eli, is an unusual mix of Bottom, The Price is Right and Bargain Hunt.
I won't get too far into what was said as I'd rather leave you to find it and listen yourself. Although I will say if you aren't a fan of adult humour, foul language or charity shops, then the economy comedy podcast 'Cheapshow' isn't for you. It's got 'Explicit' on it for a reason, one of those reasons being I was once listening on an overnight coach and the point my Bluetooth headphones decided to disconnect was the moment one of them started repeatedly shouting the one word you can't say on TV until after 10pm. So if you don't want to listen, I'll sum his experience up with 'teething problems'.

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.

First review of the BRAND NEW Crystal Maze Live Experience - West End, London

A critique of the new Maze Live Experience Venue on Opening Day

Just hours after our lucky involvement once again with the best show ever made, (that's all I can say for now), we had another Maze to attend to, and that's one I'm allowed to currently talk about - that's right, the brand new Crystal Maze Live Experience venue that recently relocated from Angel, to the heart of London's West End in the Trocadero. 

Our slot was booked for 3.15pm and we were the very first team to go through on opening day today, 29th March 2019. We walked in and were greeted by staff who were stood behind a very lavish mirrored Crystal desk. There was also a rather cool looking neon light fixed to the wall behind, with the immortal words 'Will you Start the Fans, Please".  We were told that they were still rushing upstairs to get the bar finished in time, and that the lift was not currently working. We were led up a lot of stairs into a briefing room, before entering the Maze. Unfortunately, teething problems were expected due to being the first team into the new Maze. This was the case in fact, at one point, some of us were left alone in the briefing area for a good five minutes, before eventually being led into the Medieval Zone. Two players had already started without us, and we were there before them! Not quite sure how that confusion had come about. It wasn't the best of starts for me and Adam. We had missed two games in Medieval. Our host was 'Enzo'. 

The Crystal Maze - Another Evolution for its history

This week, we have seen impressive mock up artist impressions of what the new Crystal Maze West End Venue could look like, once finished. The London Maze in Angel - originally crowd funded on Indiegogo back in 2015 - is shutting down next year and relocating to London Trocadero - a prime location in Shaftesbury avenue, near Piccadilly Circus. As a massive fan of the original show in the 90s, (well, after all, I do run this fan blog), I never could have envisaged such a grand project could lift off two decades later, especially in the heart of London like this.

Since 1990, The Crystal Maze has had SIX Physical locations! (3x for TV sets - Shepperton, North Weald and Bottleyard, 4x if you include SU2C Special filmed at Angel) and now 3x for the Live Experience - (London Angel, Manchester and now London's West End). That's before counting all the Cyberdrome Crystal Maze interactive attractions from the 1990s, and even the Maze that was in a Dubai Shopping Mall. Who can think of a TV programme which has been so popular and has spawned in so many different forms? (TV Show, Board Games, Pub Machines, LCD Game, Puzzle Books, Jigsaw Puzzles and Live Experience Venues). It is incredible, and another reason why I love The Crystal Maze so much - maybe it is here forever now? Let's hope so.

It just comes to show how enduring the show still is. The new Maze will host 32 brand new games, a Maze bar and will be bigger than the existing Angel and Manchester Mazes. Finally, we will get a full scale Live Experience Maze. The Mock up drawing below does show two Zones and the Crystal Dome on the ground floor. The other two Zones will be upstairs. The question on a lot of Crystal Maze fan's lips is - Is Ocean Zone returning? I would love to see it back, because Industrial has been done to death, and it was replaced for a reason in the Original TV series. Obviously we cannot expect Water tanks and such like in an era of Health and Safety madness, but a lot of the Ocean Zone games didn't actually involve water at all. Ocean Zone was one of my favourite Zones. I cannot see Ocean coming back anytime soon, but we should be grateful for this awesome new venue. I cannot wait to visit in Spring 2019. Tickets are already on sale.

In other news, Little Lion Entertainment have also promised a Top Secret Live Immersive Experience for the United States. Could this mean that The Crystal Maze could possibly go transatlantic?  My guesses are that it could be a Live Experience form of Legends of the Hidden Temple, an American format similar to the UK's The Crystal Maze, but that's just a wild guess. I look forward to visiting the West End Maze in 2019. Keep tuned into this blog for more news on this exciting development.

Head to The Crystal Maze Live Experience Website to book tickets for the new West End Maze. The Angel Maze will be closing as of 27th January 2019. Myself and Adam have snapped up our tickets for the Opening Day of the West End Maze, 29th March 2019.

We will be one of the first guinea pigs once again to test this Maze. We have already tested Manchester, Angel and the real Studio Maze. We look forward to testing this West End one and blogging all about it here with a first review! Next month is Christmas, and that means another Crystal Maze Christmas Special as well. It's a good time to be alive.