I was just about to leave the house this morning on a weekend home improvement trek to IKEA when I had one of those marvellous moments when the web presents an answer to a problem you weren't even aware of. My final 'reload' before tearing myself away revealed this: The IKEA WALKTHROUGH v2.3.1 - an hilarious survival guide to the a trip to IKEA by treating it as a real life RPG:
"IKEA is a fully immersive, 3D environmental adventure that allows you to role-play the character of someone who gives a shit about home furnishings...Your goal is to successfully traverse the five awesome worlds of IKEA before your patience runs out. On your first few tries this may seem like an impossible task, but with practice (and this IKEA Walkthrough!) you will soon be able to muster the sense of numb resignation necessary for victory."
Needless to say, I quickly printed it and read it to Susan in the car. Thanks to this we were able to successfully complete the game in a single afternooon, including the extra 'restaurant' sub-level.
Thanks to Susan's new cameraphone, I snapped this great example of Ikea's shameless naming scheme, above.
The IKEA Walkthrough 2.3.1 [via The Morning News]