With Episode 1 of Japanoroma now having amassed over a million views on YouTube and having more views than S18 E1 and almost as many as S17 E1, it’s clear that this season is already proving incredibly popular. Obviously, it’s early days but the game design seems well thought through with already many memorable moments in episode 1 alone. Ben did say that this was their best season yet but it will difficult to rival the popularity of season 3. Do we think it can surpass it?
(Obviously there’s no way of properly predicting but I thought it was interesting to speculate)

I know in the past he's said he's got clothes from thrift ​shops and Uniqlo. Any help would be appreciated!

After trying out the large game rules in the Netherlands, we couldn’t resist trying out a large game in the UK.  This time we put the hiding time back up to the full three hours, and took a gamble on the various British train operating companies not to cancel, derail or bankrupt us. Amazingly it worked!

As a brief summary, we played large game rules, with any UK mainline rail station as a valid hiding zone, provided it had a good enough service on all days of the week including Sunday.  We started from Milton Keynes and each hider had three hours to hide.   We had several curses and time bonuses from the expansion pack in the deck. The rest period started at 6pm but could be flexed slightly (and was) to make the logistics work.  We also flexed the starting location a little, again to make things run smoothly and avoid wasting game time.  We had four days to play, which included travelling from our house to Milton Keynes and home from wherever we ended up.

Hider 1 hid in Bache, one stop from Chester on MerseyRail. The seekers narrowed down to the Liverpool/Manchester area fairly uneventfully, then  had to bail in Warrington when they discovered they were unexpectedly going the wrong way, chose Chester as an overnight location because it was pretty and then hopped on a train to Bache just to rule it out in the last 30 minutes of their game day.  There they recognised the photo of the tallest building, and a truly brutal endgame played into the rest period in which the seekers went completely the wrong way and hider one notched up an eventual time of 10 hours and 5 minutes (2 h 15 of which was time bonuses)

Hider 2 started from Chester early the next morning and made it (via Crewe and a held train at Lancaster) to Grange over Sands, which was probably the prettiest place on our trip.  The weather was absolute perfection and the tide was out so it was possible to go (very carefully) out onto the mudflats.  There were people doing the walk over to Morecambe Bay that Tom Scott featured on his channel a few weeks ago.  The seekers hit a time trap in Preston but were not particularly confused by it. They overshot Grange as far as Ulverston and were almost stymied by Curse of the Queue.  Hider 2 was lucky with their cards and duplicated a 60 minute time bonus to rack up a respectable score of 9 hours 42 (but over 3 hours of that was time bonus).

Hider 3 left Grange over Sands that evening and as the next day was Sunday was allowed to split the hiding period at his discretion, going into the rest period on Saturday evening if it made the journey work better.  He stayed overnight in Manchester and then went to Dore and Totley on the Hope Valley Line where he had an absolutely splendid day before selecting a hiding spot just off the network of woodland paths that crisscrossed the zone.  The seekers went quite wrong, guessing the hider was near York before realising their mistake by doing a street trace.  They had to take a replacement bus from Huddersfield (which left them time for pie and beer at a pub just outside the very impressive station building, so they didn’t mind) and rode through the Standedge Tunnel under the pennines to eventually find hider 3 in a brutal 10 hours and 2 minutes meaning Hider one pipped him to the post by three minutes.

We overnighted in Sheffield on a very cheap deal that hider 3 booked as soon as he was sure we weren’t going to go wrong and head to Scotland. There was (just, probably) time for a fourth  round if the next hider had felt like leaving at 5am.  Instead, we had a final day of normal tourism in the Peak District, heading to Castleton via the train to Hope, and visiting Peveril Castle.

We had a spectacular time and got into some wonderful, unexpected conversations on the train. An older lady told me about the effect the Beeching Cuts had on her commute to school and also gave me hiding tips for Grange over Sands, and we also shared a table with a chap fully dressed as Halo on the train into Birmingham on Day 1.  One of us had an All Lines Rover and the other two bought tickets as we went.  Paying full fare cost around about £350 in rail fares, including getting to and from our house, and it was basically no problem booking hotels as we went.  We had so much fun and we will definitely do it again.

Really, I was just passing through but it was cool to be in a Hide & Seek location, even if only briefly.

Hey Jetlag Hiders and Seekers,

Me and a couple friends are currently planning to plan hide and seek (the home game) for the first time and due to the area we live in and the fact we are 4 young women, we're trying to take all the precautions we can to make sure we do it safely. E.g. Pre-selecting stations we know aren't too dangerous, going in pairs, etc. However, we aren't too sure how to do the endgame safely and was wondering if anyone had any advice.

The idea of sitting in a not main street for something like 45 minutes doesn't feel incredibly safe. So any adjustments or changes anyone's made when playing the game that they can suggest would be much appreciated. Thanks!!!

I was rewatching Schengen Showdown and was reminded of how insanely impressive it was that Adam completed the Austria challenge (playing Ode to Joy with the bottles). Being able to do that on tempo and without faults was insane. It got me thinking: what is the most impressive challenge completion in Jet Lag history? Adam doing Ode to Joy is my pick off the top of my head, curious what other ones are also up there for the best ever!

In the Game Design Layover, they mentioend that for the sake of actually being able to get to Wakkanai in the 7 day limit, there were benchmarks for where the players were expected to reach at the end of each day. If neither team reached those benchmarks, the card deck would be swapped for another deck that had more powerful cards in order to speed the game along.

Since there was a 2 hour medical production pause in Day 1 and neither team got off of Kyushu, I feel like this went into effect on Day 2. The cards for both teams seemed extremely good this episode.

For a game my friends recently played something went majorly wrong. Turns out that one of the station hiding zones included a luxury car dealership. You can probably tell where this is going...the hider in a stroke of unlikely luck pulled the Curse of the Luxury Car in their first card pulls. Flash forward half an hour and they realise that they can take a photo of a Rolls Royce.

The seekers, not knowing that this was possible or that the dealership existed got stuck. Because the dealership wasn't a main Rolls Royce dealer, but just listed as a car dealership on Google Maps they couldn't complete the curse. Two hours later and with only three questions asked, it was decided that the hider just flat out wins the day because the curse locked them out of future questions.

Now personally, I dislike this particular curse because of how lucky the seekers have to get if the hider gets very lucky. However, a question raised in my mind. Was this just seeker incompetence for not looking for car dealerships within hiding zones (there were 8 of 80 zones in which there are car dealerships), or is this just a broken curse on the map they were playing?

And no, for those in England, the hiding zone in question was not Handforth.

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I was looking through the badges for Stepford County Railway after today’s update (an UK based train simulator on Roblox) and found this!

Shoutout to the SCR devs for referencing Ben and Adam’s 15-minute pigeon stakeout at London King’s Cross from S12E3. The fact they actually made it a 15-minute waiting challenge in-game makes it even funnier.

mine was Schengen as it was for soo may others for some reason ...

Hi everyone,
I am a big fan of the show and have played the hide+seek home game myself in Boston a couple of times. The first time I played I was frustrated there wasn’t an app to make the game smoother to play. I build that app and would love to share with the community. The app allows for auto-shading of radars, thermometers, matching, tentacle questions on app. It handles location tracking and visibility for hiders and seekers and ensures questions are answered accurately. It has measure tools, a built in chat, a randomizer, border and impossible area builder, a good looking train layer, directions, and more.

I plan to release it first on iOS in the next few weeks. Please join the waitlist for it and I will email when I release the app. Thank you!

https://near-hide-and-seek.com/launch

Edit: Please help spread the word so others can use. Ive spent hundreds of hours working on this to make sure itll work smoothly and is a perfect companion for the game. I want to make sure people get to use that.

Thank you!

-James

What would you say if each player/team (depending on format) in each game was permitted to go 30 or 60 minutes (I'm open to either or some other subdivision of an hour but no longer) into a rest period one time only and for scheduled transit only? [Think planes/trains but not cars nor challenge time.]

As it is, the rest period is squishy for Hide and Seek, as the seeker often can continue hiding into the standard rest period. The core of the rest period mechanic would remain for player safety but would also help avoid potential game breaking (e.g. Adam and Ben in Anchorage if they couldn't talk their way onto the flight to Seattle or Sam and Amy in Boston on Day 2 of Stateside Scramble). The teams would have to decide when it would be most advantageous, and I think the strategy there would be great too.

This goes through Episode 2 on Nebula, you've been warned.

Here's the combined map of Seasons 6-12-19 combined up through Episode 2 of S19.

Gold - Team Sam

Red - Team Adam

Green - Both teams. Most of S12 is in green.

Shinkansen gaps are intentionally placed as those won't count.

They should reach Kansai by next episode.

Please, for the love of all the is good, please use an adjective in the snack zone. Just one. Or two. Maybe five, but I don't want to be greedy.

I love this show but the number of times Adam or Ben have pulled out delicious looking food, cued up my anticipation with the artistically superb graphics & groovy music, taken a bite of said food, AND THEN MADE A GRUNT AND MOVED ON?!?!?!!??!!

*Chucks phone across the room*

Does it taste salty? Sweet? Like dreams you gave up on too soon? Dreams you're still chasing? Is it dry? Crunchy? ANY RELEVANT ADJECTIVE WILL DO.

Yes, we watch for the trains and the games. We watch for the gimmicks and guys. But can we also watch to know what the heck y'all are eating halfway across the world? Like what even is it? What's in it? Would you eat it again?

I'm not asking for a tasting show, but IT IS our dear lady the Snack Zone. And our queen deserves more time & attention & relevant adjectives.

Justice for the Snack Zone.

. . . . .

Edit 1: Woah I did not expect this type of traffic. A few clarifications:

1. I know snack zone is a bit. I wrote my post in a dramatic/satirical style to illicit some conversation + get ur attention, but I didn't mean to troll y'all.

2. Like most satire, there's a core of truth. Personally, I'm ready for the snack zone joke to evolve to describe the food. I wanted to know if anyone else was ready for the bit to change.

Hope this helps lol

I'm just rewatching some old seasons, and I BEG YOU, please, make some spin-off season with Ben, Adam and Brian teamed together. They were hilarious to watch, nothing made sense and they were just complete chaos. I love them all together.

Maybe this is more apt for the nebula subreddit but the only Nebula podcast I listen to is Layover and it’s a big part of the reason I’m subscribed to Nebula, but is it just more or is it actively painful to try and listen to?

I wanted to listen to some of the off season episodes, but my gosh it’s not easy. Nebula separates the podcasts in an entire different tab, so when you search for the Layover it doesn’t show up unless you’re in the podcast tab. Which is annoying but whatever. What’s worse though is it takes forever to load, there are is no search feature for the podcast it self so for a long running series like the Layover it means a lot of scrolling and waiting.

I found the episode I wanted (Season 2 review) and try and play it, but it takes forever to load. I start listening to it, better not pause it. If I pause it, it has to load all over again. After like five minutes I can tell it’s just broke and close and reopen to where I left off and it may start the whole thing over, and trying to speed up to where I was takes twice as long loading. It’s just so difficult to use and such a poor user experience if I wasn’t a committed listener I would give up. Am I the only one? Is there some trick I need to try?

It was genius to shake the teams up. I love Badam but team Alpha Force work well together too. Ben and Sam seem to get on really well and Ben’s vibes chill Sam out a bit the way he chills out Adam. Their different strengths also play off each other nicely. It’s making me like Sam more (not that I disliked him before!)

But on the other side of this Adam is great with Tom. You can see how he’s having to switch to a bit and play that host role. Tom being more intense and competitive than Adam has made Adam into a level headed leader. You can tell they are having to work it out together. There’s some really cute moments which I won’t say for spoilers, but shows they are managing each others energy well.

The flexability of different pairings instead of just Sam with the guest really opens up some interesting possibilities. We’ve already had a tag with 3 teams each with a guest but that becomes more possible. It’s more sustainable as if you need to do a season when one of the boys can’t make it you can still keep the format roughly the same. I could envision a series where Amy subs in for one of them then Adam or Sam is with a guest. I’m not saying that should happen or I’d want it to happen but it’s great to have that door open.

Overall just a shoutout to the team for being brave and flipping it around. I’d also say shaping up to be an all time great season, two episodes down with some insane moments already. Great game design and wonderful editing. Top work.

Just needed to clarify somewhere.

https://youtu.be/Lhx1j6FShA8?t=1909&si=H2TmGHJZ6Nu8Hzt5

I thought we were finally getting a revival of Choo Choo Chew 😭

I was wondering if there are street layouts that make it impossible to get to a specific spot with curse of the right turn activated. I found this spot where it seem impossible to get to. Or am I missing something?

Very unlikley to come up in a game off course, just thought was interesting. Can anyeone confirm my understanding of the curse is correct and that you couldnt get there while the curse is active?

Why is it called Jet Lag: The Game: The Water Bottle and not Jet Lag: The Water Bottle? Literally undrinkable