Downtown Toronto on foot: a 3 km route with a mystery attached

People ask us the same question before they book: what is it actually like? Not the pitch, the afternoon. So here is the afternoon, from the first pin to the finish, for the current Toronto game, Memorazin.

Before you start

Everyone on your team installs the City Sleuth app and enters the same ticket code. That is the whole setup. Your start location is revealed in the app, downtown, easy to reach from Union Station or any streetcar into the core. You do not need to arrive at an exact minute; you need to arrive within the start window you picked at checkout.

The first pin

When everyone has tapped in, the first pin drops on your map and a briefing video plays. From this moment the clock is running. The route is roughly three kilometres in total, laid out as a loop through the downtown core, so you will not be marched to the suburbs and left there.

Arriving at a stop

The app watches your GPS. When you are close enough to a stop, the puzzle scene unlocks. Scenes vary: some are codes hidden in the real world around you, some are logic puzzles that only make sense once you can see the place, a few split your team so different people see different halves of the same clue. Nothing needs you to enter a venue, buy anything, or touch anything that is not yours.

The pace

Eight to ten stops in two to three hours is the honest range. Fast teams finish in under two. Teams with a strong opinion about every clue finish closer to three. Both are having a good time; only one of them is going to medal.

Hints, and the cost of them

Stuck? Every scene has hints. Some are free, and past that each one costs time on your clock, so a team that solves cleanly beats a team that hints its way through. There is also an option to solve outright if a puzzle has beaten you, which keeps the route moving but is not free either.

The finish

The last scene resolves the story, your time locks, and your team lands on the leaderboard. In a Premiere event the top three teams get gold, silver and bronze medals mailed to them after the window closes. In Open Play you are ranked against the other Open Play teams.

What to bring

• A charged phone per player. The app is map, decoder and timer.
• Shoes you can stand in. Three kilometres is easy; standing and staring at things is where the time goes.
• Water in summer, gloves in winter. The game runs in both.
• One person who refuses to accept the first plausible answer.

That is the afternoon. If it sounds like yours, pick a date, or read the full Toronto page first.