Fifteen-minute host training Read-along illustrated walkthrough, with no audio narration. Host answers are included. Pause each minute to practise. This is not a recorded human session or proof of independent host acceptance.
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1. Understand the activity Three crews share incomplete evidence. They cooperate as one team, rather than racing against each other. The six stages tell a fictional story. No real room locking, navigation or electrical assembly is involved. The 12–30 adult group size and 30–45 minute schedule are design targets, not results from a human trial. Practice: explain the activity without promising a measured completion time.
2. Prepare the right files Keep index.html, host-guide.html and the answer checker on the host device. The full ZIP includes solutions. Give Signal, Stores and Floor crews only their matching player packet. Use player-display.html for shared goals. Download and open the local kit first. Print crew pages if your session may lose its network connection. Practice: identify which file goes to each crew. Do not hand out the host guide.
3. Choose a mode and scope Standard uses ordinary goals and separately held cards. Guided adds scaffolding and an initial hint. Challenge uses shorter goals and a verbal information exchange first. Accessibility needs override that rule. Choose the one-stage taster for an approximately eight-minute preparation exercise, or all six stages. Timing is advisory. Practice: choose Standard and the one-stage taster, then press Start.
4. Use the host controls Start begins the active clock. Pause freezes active time and prevents answer actions. Resume continues it. Read the current goal and input format. One host enters the answer after the crews explain their method. The three crews do not have synchronised online accounts. The host console holds the authoritative local progress. Practice: pause for ten seconds, resume, then check that the paused time was excluded.
5. Make hints predictable Each solved stage starts at 100 points. Standard deducts 10 per shown hint; Challenge deducts 15. Guided starts with one hint and deducts zero. Wrong answers have no point penalty. A revealed answer earns zero. There are three ordered hints per stage. Compare scores only within the same mode; completion time is advisory. Practice: request one hint in Standard. A subsequently solved stage should earn 90 points.
6. Stage 1: select the room Each crew has a different part of the room criteria. A strong result in one criterion cannot cancel a failure in another. Ask the crews to combine the required conditions and rule out rooms that fail any one condition. GALLERY is the confirmed room. Record the result: the next stage selects its route slip using this exact room. Practice: ask for the evidence that rules out one alternative, rather than announcing the answer.
7. Stage 2: follow the route Use the GALLERY slip: KITE, WAVE, BELL, LEAF. Start at B4 on the Floor Crew grid. Move north two to B2, east two to D2, south one to D3, then west one to C3. Do not wrap around the grid. Record only the endpoint after each full move. The endpoint letters T, I, D, E produce TIDE. Practice: explain why the starting cell and cells passed through are not recorded.
8. Stage 3: order the crates TIDE selects the note that puts crate 2 last. Crate 3 must come before crate 1. Crate 4 must be immediately after crate 1. Treat 1 and 4 as a consecutive pair, in that order. Only 3, 1, 4, 2 satisfies every condition. Record dispatch positions separately from crate labels. Practice: distinguish “before” from “immediately before” when answering a crew question.
9. Stage 4: choose modules Use crates in dispatch positions first and third: crates 3 and 4. Their values 12 and 7 give a target of 19. A + E and C + D both total 19, but C and D both have square connectors. A is round and E is square. Exactly one of each is required, so AE is the valid pair. EA is also accepted. Practice: explain why a correct sum alone does not satisfy all of this puzzle’s rules.
10. Stage 5: restore the message AE selects NNLETXAR. Split it into NN / LE / TX / AR, preserving each pair’s letter order. Place those pairs into columns 3 / 1 / 4 / 2, top letter then bottom letter. Columns 1–4 become LE / AR / NN / TX. Read the top row left to right, then the bottom row: LANTERNX. Remove exactly the final padding X. Practice: draw four numbered columns and show why the transmission order is not the reading order.
11. Stage 6: check the final code GALLERY supplies 6 and TIDE supplies 4. Dispatch check: 1×3 + 2×1 + 3×4 + 4×2 = 25; 2 + 5 = 7. AE totals 19, so the module check is 9. The first four digits are 6, 4, 7, 9. LANTERN selects the sum procedure. Their sum is 26, so append its ones digit: the code is 64796. Practice: derive the fifth digit independently. Preserve a leading zero in any future five-digit code.
12. Save progress deliberately Use Save session before closing or switching devices. The saved JSON is paused and bound to this theme version. Restore only a session you intentionally saved. A different theme version, invalid state or file over 50 KB is rejected. Keep the latest save with the host files. A browser refresh without a saved file is not a reliable backup. Practice: save after stage 2, restore that file and verify the two recorded results before continuing.
13. Recover without inventing progress For a lost network, use the already downloaded local kit and printed packets. There is no cloud multiplayer session to reconnect. For an answer problem, check the displayed format and the crews’ reasoning. A reveal is recorded and scores zero. For invalid saved state or a clock error, use a known valid save or reset. Do not edit the JSON to pretend a stage was solved. Practice: explain the fallback before the event. Escalate a repeatable defect with version and steps.
14. Close, debrief and reset At completion, read the ending and ask which detail became useful only after another crew explained it. Record actual timing, hints, accessibility issues and host interventions in human-test-form.html. Save any needed record before Reset. Reset creates a fresh session with the same mode and scope; check zero progress before a new group. Practice: reset a finished taster, verify Stage 1 and zero earned points, then start again.
15. Run an independent rehearsal Without help from the designer, prepare the packets, open the taster, request a hint, pause, save, restore, finish and reset. Ask a second consenting adult to observe whether the instructions are clear. Record actual failures and help requests. Only a real session can test the suggested group size, pacing and host independence. This video is a read-along walkthrough, not that evidence. Next: use the test form, fix reproducible defects, and retain the actual result rather than a claimed pass.