Quest Reality Games - Room Escape — Attraction in Victoria

Update, April 2022: We have finally completed our final two rooms here, Sorcerer's Lair & Abduction.

Abduction was fun but short. When we escaped we actually thought we were walking into another area of the room, rather than the exit. That's how short it was. It's a linear experience, and the set decor is quite sparse, but we enjoyed ourselves.

Sorcerer's Lair is set in the old "Medieval Prison" space from when the facility was "Trapped" instead of Quest Reality Games. Many elements were similar to that room. The set and props are excellent, with one puzzle in particular that you won't find in many other rooms. It gives you that "ohh, that was cool" feeling. Like abduction, it felt short -- we escaped with plenty of time to spare. But the overall experience was fun, and with four people, it felt like there was something that each person could contribute. Normally we're just a team of two, but this room requires a minimum of three. They will not let you into this room with less than three people, so keep that in mind. I'd say this is my favourite of the rooms at this location.

We also tried their non-escape room, Case Solving Investigators. It has the best set of all of their rooms, really enjoyable. I hope that future rooms here are of the same quality! You have to investigate and solve a crime, and then you call your game master in to report your findings. We solved this room within the first ten minutes, and then spent the rest of the time second-guessing ourselves and investigating deep into the rabbit hole. Which in retrospect, was hilarious. But it's a cool escape room spinoff, and we would play another of this type if they made one.

Overall, it's a fun facility with excellent game masters, definitely come out and play their rooms!

Original review: As of March 2020, we have completed three out of four room escapes here -- Zombie Apocalypse, Rosewood Manor, and Secrets of the Great Pyramid. Definitely a special shout-out to our most recent game master, Shea -- he was entertaining, put up with our ridiculous sense of humour, and made our experience even more enjoyable.

Rosewood Manor has a disappointing puzzle near the endgame that I won't spoil, but takes you out of the experience to the point where the game itself is not fun. (In our opinion of course, as veterans of many escape games. You may disagree!) One of the major props is in dire need of replacement as well. Secrets of the Great Pyramid is well balanced, fair, and entertaining with a varied amount of puzzles. Of the three rooms, this is by far the best theme, with excellent props. Zombie Apocalypse felt like a shorter experience to us, but we enjoyed it the most. It is more cerebral than the others.

All of the staff at the facility are warm, welcoming, and excellent game masters. One feature we especially like is the option to set your "difficulty" for the game. Easy/Medium/Hard. If you're struggling to move forward, easy mode will provide more direct hints from the game master without being asked. Hard mode, the hints are both limited and vague.

We have not yet played their outdoor games, but they are less appealing to us -- we prefer the escape experience. One final note: Before being called "Quest Reality Games", the facility was known as "Trapped Victoria". We completed three rooms there as well, Medieval Prison, Contaminated Hospital and Death Note. The current Rosewood Manor is very similar to Death Note, so if you completed that experience, we wouldn't recommend doing this room again.

If you haven't yet played Zombie Apocalypse, it is soon to be replaced by a new theme, "Abduction". So if you've been planning a trip to Quest, get in before it's too late. We will definitely be back to play the...

Well we did our first escape room in our new hometown and it was very disappointing. It was our first Trapped Victoria room (Contaminated Hospital) and while we "escaped" I didn't feel like it should have counted, but the mediocre experience didn't start there. First when we arrived and checked in we were asked to wait while the staff member checked in a group that had arrived before us, no problem! She then says "I can give you 10% off if you like us on Facebook and share our video. I let her know that I already did months ago, so she tells me I have to prove it (this was not mentioned in the ad) so I have to scroll through my feed to find the shared video and when I do she only gives me 9% off (not a big deal, but strange). Once the first group checks in we are asked to sign the waiver (which we did online before going because the directions tell you to before you hit confirm), I let her know we already did. She gives us our membership card (for sharing the video) and then again asks us to fill out the waiver (honest mistake, no big deal). She then hands us a receipt (why you can't track who has paid without a receipt, I don't get; but again not a huge deal) and points us in the direction of the "waiting room" (an all black room with two benches and a tv playing photos of past groups. Nothing to read, play with, anything). 5 min past our scheduled start time our Game Master comes to tell us she just needs another 5 min to set up (not a huge deal). 5 min later we are brought to our room, given a radio, and BLINDFOLDED (really did not enjoy)!!!! She then walks us into the room conga style (I made Jer go first) and then reads us the rules and gives us the story while we are standing BLINDFOLDED in a room we haven't seen (this diatribe could have been conducted in the hallway without the blindfolds, then you could open the door and throw us in - no blindfolds needed). The room itself was nicely decorated and the puzzles were interesting but there were soooooooo many red herrings and re-using the same gimmick over and over (and over) again that I found it completely frustrating! I don't want to spoil things for others, but a lot of things did not make sense. There is no countdown timer/indicator in the room so you have no idea if you are a spending too much time on a clue, if you should be asking for hint, or if you are going to be trapped forever (a recorded voice does give you a 30 min and 10 min warning). Plus watching videos to get clues feels like you are just wasting time. Also, the room is for 2-6 people and there is very little concurrent activity to be done so there would be a lot of standing around.... So in a nutshell, I did not enjoy the experience (and I had such high-hopes). There were too many little issues that added up to it being frustrating and unsatisfying. I don't know if I want to go back, but I feel like I should give them a second chance. We'll see what my...

I love escape rooms and I very much wanted to enjoy this one. The ambiance was good -- nice intro, good sfx and creepy music. However, the puzzles were both poorly conceived and executed.

In all cases, they required information to solve which was not included in the room or puzzle itself (for example, without giving spoilers, giving you a multi-digit code that required precision entry, but not providing any way to see from the room itself the order it was supposed to be entered in, so it was impossible to tell if you were just guessing wrong out of the 24 possible combinations, or if the precision of your input was off) and in all cases, the only way to get this additional information was either through trial and error, or to use up one of your two clues.

As well, even if you knew the exact method to find the answer to some of these puzzles, it required an incredibly time-consuming process that only one person could do at a time -- not difficult steps, simply rote. There were only 2 of us, and I can't imagine how the room could support 6, as the puzzles were linear, so generally one of us was standing around idle while the other did the steps required to move on to the next stage.

To top it off, when we completed the last puzzle and succeeded in escaping (with plenty of time to spare), there was no closing narration or story elements, and we exited into an empty lobby. We had to call out for someone and then a different host than the one we started with emerged. He didn't greet us, or congratulate us; his first words were demanding to know how we solved the last puzzle, and when we told him, he said we had done it wrong (apparently, again it was a thing that required an order that wasn't shown in the puzzle itself, and we'd accidentally entered the right order on our first attempt at trying to do a different one). He then claimed the puzzle was broken, but that he'd 'give us' the win.

It more or less killed the bit of pleasure we'd got out of escaping. I hope that as Quest establishes themselves more, they take this into consideration and make sure that all the elements that are required for the solution are included in the...