A quickie but a goodie.

EDMONTON (YEG) > Sidequests

• Website: Sidequests
• Address: 10190 104 Street NW, Basement, Edmonton, AB T5J 1A7
• Private Booking: Yes
• Price: $8
• Duration: 15 minutes
• Linearity: Nonlinear

Premise

You and your group have volunteered (or been voluntold) to clean up the storage room at Sidequests. Amidst the boxes, you find a lost time traveler who seems to be stuck in our time period.

Luckily, their time machine is nearby! Unluckily, the machine is broken, and it only has 15 minutes of battery power left before it shuts off and becomes completely unusable.

The chrononaut herself is present in the room to help you navigate the foreign technologies. This is Edmonton’s first and–at the time of this writing–only hosted room in Edmonton. They wisely combine a typical gamemaster’s roles of narrating the backstory and giving hints and compact them into this new role.

We’ve experienced hosted rooms in Calgary before at Escape Capers. While initially awkward, you eventually get immersed enough in solving the puzzles that the host/hostess becomes a part of the experience too. As perks of Chrononaut being a hosted room, the clues and cautions came quickly and the story was repeatedly reinforced.

This room first appeared as part of Telus Edmonton’s Dark Matters exhibit. Now it’s available at Sidequests’s main location.

Puzzles

You and your team are tasked to man three stations, each featuring a different puzzle. The puzzles here were all visual, which was in line with other puzzles we’ve come to experience at Sidequests. This is where they thrive. They love puzzles that involve finding patterns and discerning details. Personally, we love these too.

You are not bombarded with irrelevant diary snippets to read, or rigid instructions to follow. You are given a station, a simple graphic with a hint for how to solve a puzzle, and the rest is up to you to figure out.

Admittedly it can be pretty intimidating to just be presented with a puzzle apparatus with nothing else to go by. We stood there confused, manipulating puzzle parts and not knowing what to do. However, instinct kicked in and we were able to figure it out.

Our hostess in the room was also there to nudge us in the right direction whenever we started going down the rabbit hole.

Should I play this room?

Absolutely! This room only requires $8 and 15 minutes of your time. This is the first room in Edmonton to feature an actual host inside the room with you. It’s quick, cheap, and fun.

This room is only available until Feb 20 (Family Day) so try it out while you can! After this, a staff member mentioned that they will be making some changes to the puzzles to make them more customizable for future customers. As examples, there may be easier options for younger children, as well as opportunities to tailor the puzzles towards someone celebrating a birthday!

If you enjoy solving visual puzzles, want to kill 15 minutes before your next appointment, or just want something quick and fun, we definitely recommend that you do this room.

• Completed: February 11, 2017
• Escaped? ~25% battery left (3 people)