Ye have summoned me!MYTH: The Short Cut was invented at the last minute and pushed the last few teams through to Level 3.
TRUTH: I recall hearing somewhere that all teams in Series 8 were told of a potential shortcut (although that may be a urban myth too - clarify, Alan?) before play. In any case, it wasn't "the last few teams" - only Dunstan and Oliver actually used it, and they were both forced.
From memory (I really have to see if I can dig all this out, it'd probably be of interest to people), our adventurer's code that we received at the beginning of filming told us about a rumoured shortcut. I would assume that all teams were given the same sheet of paper containing the same information.
I should also clarify the term "forced". It was implied, if not outright stated, that we had to take the shortcut or "run for fun", i.e. have no chance of winning. However, we were asked whether we wanted to take the shortcut or not, before the relevant room appeared.
It could be that previous teams had a more realistic choice, but elected not to take the shortcut. For us, it was a no-brainer.