I found the strangest storefront in Portland, a city that likes to “keep it weird.”

Ripped from the 80s, it provides VHS tape rentals. And it seems to be intentionally misleading with its name:

That’s one letter away from Blockbuster, the movie store that’s down to a single location (also in Oregon).

Even stranger, I came here on purpose.

In the back room of this place are two of the best escape rooms I’ve done.

One of my kids wants to go back to try it again, even though we beat it the first time.

We took a good crew there: grandparents, an aunt, and both parents. I think he wants to take his friends. Escape rooms are fun (and sometimes stressful) collaboration opportunities. There’s a reason they’re used for team building.

Before our trip there, the fine print on the website got me thinking:

In case you can’t read that, it says:

(*A minimum of 4 players is recommended, although the game can technically be completed with 2 players)

Operation Gryaznayavoda takes place across multiple rooms. There are enough puzzles that you could easily have four going at once.

But as we raced to save Portland’s water supply (gryaznayavoda means “dirty water” in Russian), I realized the reason for that line on the website.

Part of the room requires navigating a maze from opposite sides of a table. Participants pass items back and forth. It would be impossible on your own, not to mention a whole lot less fun.

That reminds me of using puzzles to engage developers—Neil told me all about how he collaborated with his Mashery teammates to make his event challenge more successful.

Could he have done it entirely on his own? Probably.

Would the puzzles have been as good, would they have engaged as many developers? Likely not.

And it absolutely would not have been as much fun. For Neil or the audience he reached at conference after conference. Heck, I’m still talking about it 10 years later!

I’d like to go back there, just like my son wants to take everybody to Operation Gryaznayavoda.

Bring on the collaboration, with others in your company, and with outside contributors like EveryDeveloper. Take a look at what it’s like to work with us and reach out if you think we can help.