Boda Borg brings real-life gaming experience to Malden

Downtown Malden, just a short way northeast of campus, is going through something of a revitalization, but the newest arrival in the district is far from what one might expect to find in a city planner’s toolkit. This addition, Boda Borg, is a reality gaming experience that challenges participants -- “questers,” in Boda Borg lingo -- to keep their minds and bodies flexible in more ways than one as they confront various challenges.

While unorthodox, Boda Borg fits into the vision Mayor Gary Christenson’s administration has for the city’s downtown area.

“It couldn’t have come at a better time, because we’re in the midst of revitalizing our downtown, so we think this could be one of the ways to do it," Christenson said. "You know, we have the restaurants, we have the employers and now, to have something like Boda Borg, it could help us to complete the puzzle…no pun intended.”

Kevin Duffy, Malden’s business development officer, echoed the mayor’s sentiments and expounded on the family appeal that the new business brings to the district.

“It’s one of those things where you really don’t have to hold back when you’re playing with your kids,” said Duffy. “You know, if you’re playing soccer, you’re always going three-quarter speed. I was questing with my eight-year-old last night and was like, ‘Come on, let me do it.’ It’s really a good time in that regard. So it’s a family thing, but you can also come with a group of friends. You can come with people after dinner, drinks.”

Boda Borg, however, has a saying that “you can Quest and then drink, but not drink and then Quest.” 

Boda Borg bills itself as an activity for ages seven and up. While one might not expect septuagenarians to be enticed by this attraction, the launch event on Oct. 1 included teams with more than a few grey hairs between them. These teams were even taking on some of the more physically challenging quests and approaching them with the same verve and determination as more spry questers.

“It’s a little bit of everything,” said Mayor Christenson. “It can be used for corporate training … I think based on [a Sept. 30] article [in the Boston Globe] generating over 10,000 shares, views, likes, we just can’t wait to see what happens here in the ensuing weeks and months.”

Founded in Sweden, Boda Borg has eight locations in its mother country, seven of which contributed quests to the new Malden location. In fact, Boda Borg Boston, as the location is known, is the first of the company’s facilities outside Europe.

Boda Borg Boston Founder and CEO Chad Ellis first learned about the questing experience through a business school classmate. When this friend sent Ellis an email to gauge his interest in starting a venture with the Swedish company, Ellis flew across the pond to kick the tires, so to speak, and signed onto the project to bring the idiosyncratic organization to an American audience.

“It’s been a long, torturous process,” said Duffy in regard to Malden’s involvement in bringing Boda Borg stateside.

According to Duffy, the process started just under a year before the opening.

“To be able to watch all of Kevin’s hard work and dedication translate into this tonight, I couldn’t be more excited or pleased for Malden,” Christenson said at the launch event.

Even at the launch event, however, there were signs that the setup process was not yet complete. Some quests smelled of fresh paint, others took place in spaces marked by painter’s tape to indicate gaps in their construction and a couple of others were still not open to the public. Most of the quests, however -- 16 of the 19 that will eventually be available -- were fully operational, providing questers with shockingly engrossing, challenging and addicting experiences.

The promotional video on Boda Borg’s website and YouTube channel walks viewers through the basic mechanics of a quest, and the staff on site provide questers with a brief orientation that provides slightly more detail. In essence, a quest is a sequence of two to five challenges that often build on each other, and are attempted by questers grouped into teams of three to five. A quest’s structure is similar to the level design of Nintendo’s Mario games (1981 – present), wherein the designers introduce an easily comprehensible concept in one space before proceeding to expand and modify that concept in the next space. As a result, the original concept is molded into something recognizable, but far more challenging. The only way to continue to a new challenge is to complete the ones that precede it, and failing a challenge forces the entire team to start from the beginning. Most challenges require a team effort to succeed, making a mental exercise out of even the most physically arduous quests. Each quest ends at a box sealed by a magnetic mechanism, which is unlocked upon the quest's completion to reveal a stamp.

Collecting stamps may sound a little lame, but it is far more engaging than one would expect; there’s something cathartic about punching a stamp after doing mental and physical contortions. Teams often compare which stamps they have obtained, which become status symbols and indicators of questing cred. Some stamps confer more prestige than others, but a full stamp card is always a source of envy.

Questers will want advice about how to complete the quests, but that well is often dry.

“Our mentality here is, 'Screw you, figure it out,'" Ellis said when asked for advice on how to approach a particular quest.

A group camaraderie emerged at the launch event, with teams offering cryptic recommendations to each other. This crowdsourced approach to solving a quest is perhaps the best indication of how genuinely difficult the Boda Borg challenges are; these are not your summer camp’s low ropes challenges. Even a skeptic’s skeptic will be charmed, frustrated and astounded by the cleverness built into each quest.

After a few hours of playing, questers may feel like they’ve competed in an actual Hunger Games. Indeed, the landscapes of the quests are as variable as the arenas and scenarios in which that series is framed: one quest resembles "Dance Dance Revolution" (1998-2014), one is modeled after a prison break and one takes influence from a haunted house, to name only a few examples.

A portion of Boda Borg Boston’s quests come from seven of the eight locations in Sweden, with whole modules shipped across the Atlantic to the new space. Some of the other quests are design collaborations between Boda Borg Boston and 5 Wits, another reality gaming outfit with a location in Foxboro, Mass. The 19th quest will be designed wholly in-house at Malden and will be built upon approval from the parent organization. According to Ellis, quests will be swapped out over time to keep the material fresh and to entice experienced questers to come back for new adventures.

For the time being, staff from Sweden are assisting at the new facility to help make sure the activity translates smoothly. All staff, Swedish and American, were excited by the activity at the opening event, running around with questers and encouraging teams to try the most challenging courses. When this writer’s team became the first to complete one of the challenges (even before some of the employees at Boda Borg), the staff seemed genuinely impressed. Staff encourage questers to push themselves, and their attitude goes a long way toward making Boda Borg an engaging activity.

“Have so much fun, try them all and just go,” Erika Smeds, one of the Swedish transplants in Boston for the first three weeks of operation, said.

When asked whether she had attempted all of the quests at the Malden space, Smeds responded enthusiastically that she had -- but she was far less forthcoming about her success on each quest.

The dining hall located on the first floor of the Boda Borg Boston facility will also house the wall of fame. Teams that complete all the quests in under four hours will get a permanent spot on this wall, and the first three of them will receive gold, silver and bronze placements, as well as shirts signed by the whole staff.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Boda Borg is its universal appeal. This is the kind of experience that young children, teenagers, college students, young professionals, parents and even grandparents can all share and enjoy side by side without one group detracting from the enjoyment of the others.

“This is going to bring so many people in and it’s going to be huge for the city," Duffy said.

Boda Borg very well could be exactly what its promoters make it out to be. Be sure to set aside an afternoon, or even a whole day, to tackle all that Boda Borg Boston has to offer -- once you've started, it’s hard to stop.

Boda Borg is open Sunday through Thursday, 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. and Friday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - midnight. Two hours in the facility cost $18, and $28 grants all-day access. Reservations can be made on Boda Borg's website. Boda Borg also takes large-group reservations. The grand opening ceremony will take place on Oct. 10, but the facility is already open to the public.