Quest Zone: Laboratory

Most of Almaty’s escape venues appeared to be either horror houses or no longer operating. Quest Zone was the only exception I managed to find, and they even seemed to be happy to run a game in English. For once, the room was more than theoretically playable in English – our host spoke decent English and all written elements in the game had been translated.

The story was that we’d been trapped by a mad scientist who planned to turn us into cockroaches if we couldn’t solve his puzzles. This was their excuse for including a box of live roaches in the game; while I don’t have welfare concerns for insects in quite the way I would for other live animals, I’d sooner they removed that from the room.

Other than that it was a traditional style of room, with some interesting elements used; the designer clearly tried hard to build tasks and puzzles that don’t simply use locks and codes or pen and paper.

At the same time, the flow was very stop-start. Over and again, it felt like the game was pointing us towards a dead end. I think at multiple points it was doing the opposite of signposting, with the structure actively trying to throw us off the scent, whether intentionally or accidentally. If you play this room, then my advice would be to be wary of what seems like the obvious next thing to do, and to instead keep looking for things you might have missed.

We finished with less than thirty seconds left, which hasn’t happened for a long time. Still, the host told us that it’s rare for a team to finish within the hour and that she normally allows up to an extra thirty minutes.

Of the games we played in this part of the world, it was the smallest, most traditional and least ambitious in terms of presentation – but it also had the most solid puzzle content and worked best as a game. It’s a long way from a must play, but if you’re looking for a room to do in Kazakhstan, it should tick the box.