Ever had a desire to be a tomb raider? Think you'd be better at solving puzzles than Lara Croft or Indiana Jones? Wish you could take a break from playing games on your console and actually DO something? Or... just tired of me asking questions?This is your chance to test your wits, your problem solving ability and your teamwork skills under pressure. 5W!TS Boston's Tomb. Much like a video game (or real life, for that matter) success is NOT ensured. If you don't keep your wits about you, pay attention to details and work as a team, there's a good chance you won't make it to the end. Unlike real life, however, you can simply buy another ticket and try again if you fail. Twenty dollars (USD) gets you in - perhaps less, if you go on the right day or find a coupon - check out their website for more information on pricing.
When I went, I was on a business trip to attend TechEd, a Microsoft programming conference which was held in Boston this year. After the conference was over, I had a free evening to hit the town, since my flight back to Baton Rouge wasn't until the next day. As I was sight-seeing alone that evening, I found myself grouped with four other people whom I had never met before - two guys and two girls (well, two couples, specifically). The time to begin rolled around and we were the ones waiting to play, so the five of us were grouped together as an unlikely party of adventurers gathered to explore a newly discovered ancient Egyptian tomb; five people who didn't know more than one other person in the group. That made me a little nervous. Idle chatter with the staff at 5W!TS had revealed that about three other groups ahead of us had failed to make it through alive. Even after having that discussion, a group of around eight people that had gone right before us had failed. Miserably. Their time in the tomb was a time that would have been quite impressive - but only had they actually made it through alive. I was starting to doubt myself. I was known to be the "gamer guy" by a lot of people in Baton Rouge and around the net. Would I ever live down the shame if I didn't make it through this? 
After an entertaining debriefing call to the director of the excavation (who was, unfortunately, in London, and unable to be with us for our journey into the tomb), we walked over to the tomb's entrance. Our first task was to determine how to open the entrance to the tomb. We tried a few old familiar ways as well as some things that seemed to make sense, but it was one of the guys who was hanging a bit further back than the rest of us whose observation skills saved the day. Again, it worried me a bit that we seemed to have problems simply getting into the tomb.