please empty your brain below
Couldn’t they have given out the clues and information another way?
We got to Mansion House around 3 or so, with a theory about how to find the location of the new heart, and went to a local coffee shop to try to turn our theory into an answer. An hour's noodling later, we couldn't really do so. We joined the end of the queue at about 4 and finally got in at about 5, but it was a pretty long queue even by that point and there were a lot of people who didn't get the chance to have the "saying where our guess was" interaction - they just had to write their guess on a card, which was much less spectacular.
The big reveal took place in an upstairs gallery at the Old Bailey. After another very long queue as people had to be security-checked on the way in, there was another long wait inside, before the final reveal. The location looked stunning but the acoustics were poor, so I could barely hear what Clessa (in human form) said and am still none the wiser as to why the location was what it was. I don't think any of the three or four people who guessed the location (or, at least, were closest) got the final form of the heart correct, so they just awarded the key to the people they deemed to be the closest.
I think they weren't expecting nearly the number of participants to the hunt that they had in practice and the experience would have been rather smoother with fewer players, but - as much as there was to like about it - it did feel rather underbaked, especially towards the end.
My theory is that four places round the trail were described as ‘hearts’, and if you joined them up the location was in the centre of the shape, but I didn’t have all the right info. It was a proper high-end puzzle.
Started at St Paul's, which had fewer stalls than I was expecting from the description. My boys liked the big puppets quite a lot.
At Guildhall we wrote secrets for the magpie puppets to collect, and then went into the Home Sweet Home event, largely because I wanted to show them the main hall. My boys ended up spending about 45 minutes redecorationg a large cardboard St Paul's into a sports centre, which they really enjoyed, and the helpers were wonderfully enthusiastic and got the boys thinking about building uses, neighbourhoods etc. We went round the other spaces in the Guildhall but our timing meant we just missed the end of things, or got somewhere in time for an event that then appeared to be starting late.
Fancying some fresh air we went on the Artful Dodger red door adventure which was aimed at kids, but it was a bit overwritten for my boys' tastes - with a dragon who was in the shape of a pigeon (I think) introducing an Artful Dodger who talked too much about not a lot, with a strong modern street accent. We did a few of the challenges (like imitate your parents' walk) but my boys were hoping for something more about history and interesting places. After stopping for a drink they asked if we could just skip to the end.
We decided best thing to was just wander back to our station via a few points of interest. We did wonder why the Old Bailey was open on a Saturday. What really made the day was stumbling on the Fire Brigade using a ladder truck to remove a large pub parasol from high up in a tree in Blackfriars.
Overall, I wasn't expecting much, and we had a nice enough day, but wouldn't be surprised if some people found it was oversold. Was genuinely surprised at how busy the City seemed to be - and lots of people seemed to be there for Golden Key events.
The place of the new Heart was the Forgotten Streams of the Walbrook, on the northern side.
The form of the new Heart, a song.
A more detailed explainer to be posted on Wednesday.
Got about 50% of it!
I'm dead impressed you unravelled 50%... sadly you needed to unravel about 90% to home in on the solution.
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