DCD ’25

About two weeks ago I drove down to London to meet up with Ali and Lily and Steve (who’d landed back in the UK from his post-IPP trip late the night before). We transferred a chunk of brass from my boot and Ali’s garage into the back of the truck and then headed south for Le Shuttle and a relatively painless drive up the coast to The Hague. 

We’d been dreading the inevitable traffic around Antwerp but the sat-nav had better ideas this time around.

While we were checking in Wil bounded over and officially welcomed us to his neck of the woods. We ditched our bags and met Wil in the restaurant for some dinner and a little gentle introductory puzzling: Kondo-san’s exchange and a pyramid assembly from Osanori… the puzzles remained victorious in that session.

We had a few drinks after dinner, did a bit more puzzling and then headed off to bed at a reaonsably sensible hour having been travelling all day, although Ali who’d done pretty much all of the driving was flagging a lot less than the rest of us… and Nicholls had a really good excuse having travelled from NZ – JPN – UK – NETH in about five days.

Next morning we grabbed the hotel breakfast with Frank who’d arrived after I’d given up on things the previous night, before finding Louis and heading off to Pray in Katwijk – which if you don’t recognise the name, is one of the best escape rooms in the Netherlands and was in fact the 13^th best Escape Room in the world last year on Terpeca…

We head into the room at the appropriate time and things get pretty dark almost immediately – and we proceed from the literal to the figurative darkness as we’re drawn into some wonderful theatre and story-telling – all set among an absolutely cracking escape room. I really appreciated the fact that there wasn’t a single clock or countdown timer in the whole experience, and there was only one single numeric padlock… we completed the room in 78 minutes which was apparently quite handy, having not had a single hint along the way… we then sit down in the town square and chat to our gamemaster over a nice cup of coffee and get the background on the development of the game and the tech behind it all… he’s clearly very proud of what they’ve done and ends up showing us around a little behind-the-scenes and it’s incredible just how much those guys have managed to cram into that site… if you’re going to be in the neighbourhood, book ahead if you want to try this room – it’s booked up many months in advance and there’s a good reason why!

We grab lunch at a great little eatery just up the road from St Maartens and of course the puzzles come out and it doesn't take Louis long to deduce something interesting and then solve Kondo-san's exchange - I'm well and truly gob-smacked, again. 

We swing by the school to offload all the brass in the back of the truck and say a few hellos to others also offloading. From there we head off to Rob’s place for the traditional pre-DCD PP… there’s already a whole bunch of puzzlers there so we settle into a comfy spot and pull up a puzzle or two…

I’ve taken my copy of Leisure Luke’s Spyglass and Louis makes pretty good progress through the many stages of the solve but can’t quite get the final opening to work… I try and help and manage even less, although I’m sure that exactly what we’re trying now has worked before and opened the puzzle… a little closer examination shows that something internally has come adrift so I may need to reach out to Luke for some advice…

I end up spending many hours playing with Louis’ copy of Castle Emberlock – there is SO MUCH to be discovered, manipulated and explored and even with some pretty direct hints at some points I must still have spent several hours taking it all apart – only to realise there was yet more to be discovered. It is an epic puzzle from Benno and I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to play around with a copy. Thanks Louis!

There’s another traditional feasting on pizza before heading back to the hotel for a drink or three at the bar… and of course some more puzzling. We actually end up doing something vaguely useful and christen the Monkeys latest creation (Making Love Easier) and then QCing the batch available for sale at DCD. 

After all that, in the lift on the way up to the rooms, Frank decides to get revenge on the Monkeys who’d pressed all the buttons leading up to his floor the evening before and goes full-on rabid teenager pressing every single floor beyond his own in order to doom the rest of us to a long slow ride upstairs… Steve tries manfully to fend him off, but fails, largely… until Frank with a look of absolute horror on his face spots a civilian in the corner of the lift just looking at him with the sort of expression that says “What the heck, old bean?” – or something similar. At this point Frank becomes instantly super apologetic as he gets out at his floor… and we all apologise for our friend that we’re now referring to as little Richard… Steve duly turns off all of the in-between floors and we aren’t delayed by much in the end… but the look on Frank’s face will go down in DCD road-trip legends.

We meet at breakfast the next morning before heading across to the school for DCD-proper where our entry fee gets us a name tag and a copy of Oskar’s Heptagon Temple.

I track down Jan Willem to offload a few boxes of chocolate (so I’ll have space for puzzles!) and dump my bag behind Wil’s extensive row of crates of treasure and then start wending my way around the various tables saying hello to old friends and chatting to new ones. 

I can’t resist the urge to pick up a couple of new Coffin tray packers from Jack (Thanks Jack!) and Michel shoves a couple of laser-cut Grabarchucks in my hand. Jan Willem insists on gifting me a lovely cherry toothpick safe from one of his Hakone Puzzle Parties (Thank you Jan Willem!). The Monkeys give me a special mini-BM2 and Phil insists I take a copy of his new Slide Away fresh off the machines just in time for DCD. I realise I already have a wonderful haul and I’ve hardly spent any money yet!

I have a long chat with Arie about his escapades now that he’s properly retired and he shows me a bunch of pics of his own designs and displays – I’m drawn to his various wooden balls and decide that I should relieve him of a 12-way Pentagon tangle in walnut for the princely sum of EUR 30 – he’s doing what he loves and giving some lovely reclaimed wood a new purpose in life… everyone wins!

The lunch is the usual spread-of-plenty and after lunch there are lectures on Complexity, an update from the World Puzzle Centre and a canter through some of the exchange puzzles courtesy of Rob (with Steve standing in for Diniar who couldn’t make it this year). (Once again Rob’s done a great job of pulling together a presentation between us leaving the night before and getting himself to the school for DCD! I must offer to let him have some pics next year to save him at least some of that effort!)

Things wind up slowly after the lectures and we spend a while chatting and moving tables and chairs into their more normal canteen setup while some folks hold a bored meeting next door. When that’s all done, we head off to the local Chinese for a buffet dinner… there are quite a few more of us than we’ve anticipated (and booked for) but the staff do a grand job of getting us all sitting within shouting distance of one another so nobody feels left out.

After dinner we all head off our separate ways, with the hotel gang meeting up (again!) in the bar, (well I had to spend my free drink tokens didn’t I!?).

Next morning Ali takes the four of us down to Calais where we grab Le Shuttle for our underwater time-travelling adventure (we forget to place bets on an imminent sporting event, sadly) before grabbing a burger back in Blighty more or less around lunch time. The traffic up to London is pretty darned reasonable, as is the drive back to Barnt Green from London – which is a lovely way to top off a fantastic weekend away with the Monkeys and a whole bunch of our European puzzling mates.

Thanks a million to Ali for driving us over and back and to Steve for the entertainment en route. Hopefully Lily wasn’t too scarred by the experience.