EDITOR’S NOTE – JULY 2020: Since publication of this review, it has come to our attention that the owner of Quest Room has posted a multitude of racist remarks and disparaging comments about the Black Lives Matter movement to their Facebook page, and doubled down on them when called out on it. Here at HorrorBuzz, we do not stand for discrimination of any kind. While you are entitled to your own opinion on the matter, we cannot in good faith recommend their rooms any longer. We will leave the review as originally published below, but recommend you instead spend your money elsewhere. Thank you.

 

Yesterday, I talked about how Team HorrorBuzz made a day out of visiting Quest Room, and doing all of their rooms. While the first half of this review focused on the S Western Avenue location, this second half will look at their Santa Monica Boulevard. For reference, the two locations are about a 7-minute drive away from each other, making them incredibly easy to get to both. This location also has their own dedicated parking area, at the rear of the building, near the main entrance. So convenient!

CANNIBAL’S DEN

I’m going to work backward here, and talk about our final game of the day, Cannibal’s Den, first. For this one, a famed cannibalistic doctor has taken you and your friends hostage, and brought you back to his kill room. In a fun little show scene, before he is able to begin his task, his batteries die, and he leaves us alone. From there, we had sixty minutes to escape his clutches.

Much like the two rooms from yesterday, Cannibal’s Den separates your team, and forces you to work together to help get each other out, AND escape from the cannibal’s clutches. This tactic is both helpful AND detrimental to the room’s fun factor in some ways. While Da Vinci’s Challenge had enough to do for everyone to partake in, Cannibal’s Den has its progress slowed down, as you are often relying on one person to do one thing, while waiting for your own turn. I spent the opening 15 minutes or so watching one member of my team at a time do something, while the others looked on. While the opening puzzles to escape our confines were clever, I did feel like it was a lot of sitting around waiting before the room really opened up.

That said, after we escaped that situation and moved onto the next, the room improved. Puzzles were clever once again, and employed some non-traditional ways of solving things.

The gross, grimy set felt like a place a sadistic cannibal doctor would inhabit and kill. Each room got progressively grosser, and feed right into the overall story. There was one moment where I touched something and was incredibly grossed out by how authentic it felt. Kudos for that, Quest Room!

In all escape rooms, you have the general danger of only have that 60 minute period to escape. However, Cannibal’s Den adds an extra element of danger, where you can “die” if you don’t complete certain tasks on time. It was a nice touch, and added a little more urgency to what we were doing.

The in-theme hint system this time around was a fellow captive who spoke to us when we needed her via the vents system.

While not a bad room, this was my least favorite of the four. I’m not 100% certain, but this felt like this was Quest Room’s first effort at making an escape room, because their creativity and ingenuity only expanded further beyond this one in all their others. Still a fun, creepy time, and definitely one to try out if you enjoy the threat of being someone else’s dinner!

RED GIANT

And now, from the crème de la crème of all Quest Room has to offer: Red Giant. Their latest game, Red Giant takes everything you know and love about escape rooms, and turns it on their collective heads. From start to finish, Red Giant wowed us with the theming, sets, puzzles, and immersive elements. This is, by far, the best escape room I have ever been in. The bar has been raised, and others are going to have a tough time beating it.

The story is simple: an Egyptian tomb has been opened, and we are looking for the famed Red Giant ruby, which is worth more than our wildest dreams. Of course, finding the jewel is easier said than done…

I don’t even know how to talk about this one without spoiling, but I will do my best. This room definitely does an amazing job of feeling authentic. I FELT like we were trying to break into a tomb, and steal a precious jewel. I FELT like we were in an ancient pharaoh’s final resting place. I FELT like we were all going to die at one point when we triggered a booby trap. I FELT like we were on an epic adventure, which made our successful completion of it all the more satisfying.

Red Giant is a room that gives, and gives, and then gives some more, even when you thought it was done giving. The room, and the world, opens up more and more, allowing for big surprises and wow moments throughout the entire game.

It’s obvious that they upped their puzzle game for this room, because it was so unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. They were beyond clever and innovative…they were amazing. It felt like stuff that Indiana Jones had to do in order to find the Ark. It was incredible.

One of my favorite moments was in the beginning, when we had to actually get INTO the tomb. The way we went about it was so clever and so fun…and it was such a rewarding payoff when it worked. And when it DID happen, I have no idea how the hell they pulled off the effect, but it was exhilarating. I won’t say anything more, because I don’t want to spoil it, but it was a really cool thing to really bring us into the world more.

But again, the entire room was filled with little moments like this. There was certainly enough for all of us to do in order to keep busy, and for all of us to have our own “aha” moments as well.

The set itself was unbelievable, and featured some wonderful pieces that made it authentic. Every time we uncovered a new area, we were in awe. Very fun, and very exciting.

The in-theme hint system was our fellow explorer outside, relaying us messages from his findings. Thanks, Bernie!

Like I mentioned before, this was incredibly immersive from top to bottom. As a small example of this, let me take a second to talk about the lighting. Of course, being a tomb, there isn’t natural or electric lights in there, just torches. Before venturing in, you are giving a single torch for your journey, but once inside, you discover others adorn the walls. And like any sensible people, we tried to light the other torches, by touching our ‘lit’ one to the others in the room…and sure enough, that ‘lit’ the other torches as well! It is such a small touch, but it was such a cool little extra bit they added to the room. It was wonderful. But the entire room was so incredibly well done, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This will satisfy even the most hardened of escape room veterans, and blow your mind. This is definitely a room you need to get to as soon as possible. I know, I know, I do a lot of escape rooms, but seriously, Red Giant is the best.

All in all, I am highly impressed with ALL of Quest Room’s offerings. The team there have created something really special, and know how to make sure their guests leave satisfied. I know they are currently hard at work on three more games, and I cannot wait for them to be ready.

Quest Room is great. Really, truly fantastic. Go visit them. You can thank us later.

A big thank you to Quest Room for inviting us out to play the games!

For more information, and to book your visit, you can find them online at https://questroom.com

About the Author

Jeff Heimbuch writes. A lot. On a variety of things and in different mediums. He also created the fiction podcasts LIGHT HOUSE and RETURN HOME (of which you can find both on all podcasting platforms), loves all things horror, works in social media, and is probably writing something right now. You can find him on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at @jeffheimbuch.