Behind the Scenes: Episode 9
The final third!
The home stretch!
Episode 9 was the beginning of the end for Season 1 of Escape Mail… and we were going out with a BANG!
We spent twice as long developing this episode than any of the others before it (for those with us since Day 1, thank you for your patience!)
We kept hearing “more video” and “more JJ” so we turned up the dial on the narrative quite a bit, including a dramatic cliffhanger.
What happens in Episode 9?
Storyline
Well, after successfully finding the Hunter Safehouse in Episode 8, JJ is now ready to break into the house and take the Joro key back. Svetlana joins him for this escapade and assists with getting into the house itself, while you must guide JJ the rest of the way through locked doors, trap doors and… model pirate ships?
We filmed this episode at the Lougheed House, a historic museum in downtown Calgary. The house, in real life, doesn’t have puzzles and locks and tricks and what-not, but with some suspension of disbelief, we tried to create that atmosphere.
One thing we did differently in this episode was to create a secondary game interface online. This is always a challenge for us as game developer… how do we ask you - the player - to tell us what you know? What’s the best way for you to input information in order to receive validation and progress through the game? Tricky, tricky..
Our hope was that this would both make the situation more believable and also make it easier for players to enter their codes and conclusions.
Speaking of conlcusions, its in this episode that we suddenly and clearly learn about Svetlana’s true allegiance.
Da-da-da-daaaa….
Puzzle Components
The envelope contains a clue, as always, and the contents feature some variety: plastic, paper, and fabric (a throwback to Episode 1).
For the paper portion (Hunter Docs), we tried out a “soak and crinkle” method that we had not done before, which was a lot of fun!
We also delved into a new kind of maze that we’d not seen before.
Mazes have always been something that fascinate Paul and I. As little kids we would draw mazes. Here’s one of Paul’s that his mom had kept:
In Episode 9, the maze function is a little more complex in that it involves rotation. I (Eric) get a kick out of shifting the plane or field of view. A new perspective can accomplish so much!
Reflections
Looking back, there’s a bunch of stuff we really love about Episode 9:
We think the setting was really neat, and we’re super grateful for Caroline at Lougheed House putting up with our late night antics.
Speaking of antics, there were so many hilarious parts to the shoot, we cannot wait to share the bloopers with you.
We felt like the “real world” integration of the ship was cool, and a few of you reached out to say you appreciated that too.
Of course a little cliff hanger never hurts too ;)
Would we have done anything differently? Yes! Better photos. Mine all turned out grainy :(
Also, one of the most avid Escape Mail players - Donna - reached out asking for help to explain the rotating rug maze, so we made this video for her.
Other than that, we were super happy to see how this one turned out, and loved getting all your reviews :)
Thanks for journeying with us! And happy puzzling!