Though we spent most of Saturday tracking Talisman, as well as looking over our shoulders, the weekend also allowed room for relaxation and one-on-one time. When we arrived at our snug room at a historic inn near the coast, we were greeted with a picnic box of wine and chocolate and a handwritten invitation to snuggle up and enjoy the misty view of San Francisco from the beach. Over a cozy dinner (and yes, another bottle of wine), we temporarily forgot the Gamble’s intrigue, and our lurking workday worries, and focused instead on one other.
Still, my mind kept turning back to the mystery. Time was ticking down. As we weighed each character’s motives and opportunity, sifted through countless theories and scenarios, how much could we trust what we’d been told? How involved was the shadowy sheik, where was Herb’s ailing wife, and what were we to make of the damning evidence we’d collected?
I‘ll stow what we learned about Talisman’s fate—and the dramatic climactic scene in which all was laid bare—in the “Confidential” file, for the sake of future participants. But as it turned out, the experience proved to be less about figuring out whodunit and more about wandering inside the world’s most assiduously designed movie or multiplayer video game, complete with all the sharpness and dimensionality of real life.
For those with less funds or time on their hands, First Person Travel is plotting new single-evening experiences in San Francisco that, according to Bhabha, will “take you out of your regular path to interesting, diverse locations and still have a tight narrative through-line.”
They’ll have the same spirit as The Headlands Gamble, says Smedresman: “Living a movie that heightens the world around you with the narrative, and where you have an impact on how things play out.”
The Headlands Gamble runs select weekends in San Francisco Bay Area. Bookings available now through September.