Most of you know how much I love popping down to London. I reckon I must go at least twice a month, for a jolly, a blogger event or even just for pizza – see my previous post Living Large in London

This time however, I was going down on the invitation of my sister and brother in law. Just before Christmas I had seen something that I thought would make a great Present for them. Advertised on the Time Out website, was an interactive adventure called “Moriartys Game”

If you have never heard of this, it is the latest in a series of games by Hidden City

Basically you purchase the hunt you wish to take part in, and you are told where to go to start the game off. Once there clues are sent to your mobile phone. Once you have solved the clue, you text the answer back and if correct, you get the next clue!

        (PLEASE NOTE THIS IMAGE IS AN EXAMPLE AND NOT ONE OF THE CLUES FROM                     MORIARTY’S GAME)

The hunts have between 12 and 20 clues to solve and involve walking around London, visiting everything from Georgian public houses, examining 15th century art and the best part of all, some of the people you meet along the way are part of the game! Only by interacting with them, will you get the answers and information you need to move on in the mystery.

I chose Moriartys Game as the hunt for them, as it was the latest adventure, and one for over 18s only. I assumed this may be because of the pubs you need to visit, and thought it sounded like a good idea for a great day out.

There are currently 10 games you can play, some being evening ones, and also not all are London based. Manchester and Brighton also have a game each.

(PLEASE NOTE THIS IMAGE IS AN EXAMPLE AND NOT ONE OF THE CLUES FROM

MORIARTY’S GAME)

Once purchased, you get welcome emails and texts, and your hunt ID. You can log into the website at any time and add things like extra mobile numbers of the players taking part. This is certainly a good thing to do in advance!

Upon buying the game, I certainly didn’t expect them to ask us to take part in it with them. Of course, we were honoured to have been asked and agreed to meet up on Monday 15th February to spend the day being Sherlock Holmes’.

Getting the train from Northampton first thing in the morning, we arrived in London at approximately 1030 and headed to meet up with Angela and Gordon.

I had decided that my Pin Up Girl Clothing Alice in Wonderland dress was the way to go, along with a little pink cardigan and sensible flat shoes. Topping it all off with a vintage patent handbag, I was ready for the City.

We headed to Great Portland Street, and a pub called The Albany. A beautiful old fashioned building, with a new feel. A proper pub as my Dad would have said. We met up with Angela and Gordon and off we set.

The starting place for Moriartys Game was the ground floor of the Royal Institure of British Architects. We duly texted the start message, and the game was afoot!

The game has strict timings, with the first clue being available at 1130am, and the last time you can start the game is 2pm. Playing takes between 3 and 4 hours, including a couple of breaks, and covers quite a lot of mileage.

Whilst I won’t give any clues away, or tell you too much about the game, suffice to say it was absolutely amazing! The clues were not impossible to work out, with a bit of logical thinking, but we did have to work for it.

I am not going to share any of the clues, nor the locations of where we ended visiting/street names. However, I will share a couple of our experiences.

One of the best ones was finding a pub where we had to solve a puzzle. Whilst pondering over the clues, it would have been rude not to have a cocktail.  I ordered one called the Fappening, which had a toasted top much like a creme brulee! It was made with toffee apple Bourbon, and  It was absolutely lovely. My sister had a Passion fruit Vodka based one, which came with half a passion fruit floating in it.

We decided that instead of another cocktail, we would have try their infusions – Shots to you and me. Leaving my sister to go and put the order in, we ended up with Wild berry gin, Caramel Tequila, White Chocolate Vodka, Chilli and Nutella Cognac and MARMITE Vodka!

I have to say I wasn’t a fan of the Marmite vodka, but Gordon drank it down, and we were off on the hunt again!

The one striking thing we learnt about Hidden City, is that London Really is a Hidden City. We ended up in places that I thought I knew pretty well, with a good knowledge, however ended up in Galleries we had never heard of, down back streets in pubs that were amazing, and in gardens. All in areas that I thought I knew pretty well!

I have memorised these places for future knowledge, as I certainly want to revisit one or two of them!

We stopped at a fantastic Olde Worlde pub for a spot of lunch – Sausage Sandwiches and French Onion Soup. Absolutely delicious and so filling. More alcoholic beverages were consumed, and off we went.

The end of the game was as clever as the very first clue. We took great satisfaction in having found Moriarty’s safe house, and celebrated with another beverage.

Let’s face it, we used it as a very large walking tour pub crawl of London. On a Monday afternoon! Terrible behaviour for 4 grown adults!

The game was worth every penny, and the experience was one that all of us said we would love to do again, and with Hidden City offering several different games in London, one that we plan to do again soon.

I was so glad I had added several telephone numbers to the hunt as at one point, I had no signal at all, We could still play however as the texted clues were coming to Gordons’s phone, thankfully. You can also go back onto the website to look up your game stats – How long it took to complete each clue, and your final time of completion.

I thought we had done pretty well, with a time of 2 hours, 40 minutes and 31 seconds. This however, put us on the leaderboard in position number 315!

That does sound terrible until you realise there are 765 teams on the leaderboard! We were quite pleased to be in the top 50%

Once we had completed the game, we had another walk around some of the areas we had already visited, did a little shopping and Oh, ended up in a pub having more cocktails before it was time to head back to train station.

The only down side to the day was that our train was delayed by 20 minutes. Of course, this meant popping into the local pub “The Doric Arch” and having one final drink.

Finally returning home around 1030pm, I was glad to crash into my bed!

If you are looking to do something in London that is a little different, I  can heartily recommend this Hidden City game. It would be even more fun doing it in teams and challenging each other to see which team could come out the victor.

Have you done any of the other Hidden City challenges? If so, which one and what did you think?

Are you a fan of mysteries and think this is something you would like to do?

Love to hear all your thoughts
Tx