Donald
Teuma-Castelletti
OTTER LAKE Dec. 17, 2017
The Pontiac will soon have a new form of entertainment, one that will see visitors solving puzzles, riddles and lots more as they work to escape an abandoned motel room in Otter Lake.
Opening in early January, the new escape room Intrigue tasks groups of four to eight with deciphering upwards of 20 clues, all within the time limit of an hour.
“For this first one, the theme is a haunted motel, with guests trying to find the treasure,” said Crystal Dubeau, one of the owners.
Starting in the hallway of the motel, challenge seekers must analyze the various items in front of them so they can first enter the motel room. Once inside the room, further mysteries will play out as they seek to understand what happened to a previous guest.
“It looks like there’s not a lot of things in the room, until you have to start searching,” said Dubeau. “Groups will have to do it step-by-step to get it done, and may need to retrace steps in order to finish.”
Adventurers will have three chances to ask for clues, using walkie talkies as they’re monitored via video system from the front desk. After one clue is administered, the group will have to wait 10 minutes until they can ask another.
“For this one we’ve done a lot of research, looking into general puzzles that anyone can do,” said Dubeau. “Our goal is to appeal to ages nine to 99, so that with a big group they’ll have ideas about approaching [puzzles] differently.”
While testing is still ongoing with the single escape room, Dubeau and her family have big plans for the rest of the building at 381 Martineau Avenue. They’re looking to add at least one more escape room, keep one section of the building for hosting birthday parties or other events, and even move their restaurant, Rumours Resto-Café, from up the street to the new location.
The building used to be the Dew Drop Inn Motel, dating back 60 or 70 years, Dubeau and co-owner, Richard Lance, believe. While out of commission for a few years now, it has a complete, old-school diner setup out front, that with a little bit of tidying and some minor renovations will make for a great, all-in-one building.
Of course, all of that will come in time, and having purchased the building just two weeks ago, the progress they’ve made in preparing for the escape room opening has been tremendous. Especially since there are some catches to hosting a bilingual escape room.
“In the puzzles, everything has to be bilingual,” said Dubeau. “Tapes [and audio clues] have to be one side English, one side French.”
This means that using traditional phrases in one language is pretty much ruled out in their clues, as they generally don’t translate well between the languages.
As they gear up for the official opening in early January, special promotions are ongoing and advance tickets are being sold already, with all adventures being booked ahead of time, by appointment.
“It’s nice to have more things to do here [in Otter Lake] so that families won’t have to go far,” said Dubeau.
