Expedition – retired

We actually found out about Sidequests from another escape room in their vicinity and decided the next time we head to Edmonton we’d try them out. We weren’t aware the Expedition room was an Egyptian based room (a fairly common theme) but it was really different from other ones we had done previously. The staff went into a role playing mode (which confused us at first) as we entered the room and our team split into two sides of an excavation of a tomb. After solving each puzzle a “bah-nah~!” type of sound effect would sound to allow us to know that we were successful. The room had a diagram of sort to show us the order to process as well a guide for us to know how far we were progressing. Again, with 45 minutes, we felt a little pressured to finish in time, but somehow we pulled it off. The room had no traditional locks (key, combo, directional, etc) and it was all switches and placement of items and mechanisms of sorts. It was quite surprising the amount of work put into the build. While it had the temple type of Indiana Jones feel it, it didn’t feel too (specifically) Egyptian temple to me. Their last puzzle is something really neat and better executed to a similar puzzle to a similar theme to a room in Calgary, so that was nice to see. The staff were nice and we had a couple of cool pens to take home with us as well!

Sidequests is a bit of a newcomer to the escape scene in Edmonton, and a welcome change to the usual fare. The first thing I noticed about how they do rooms is the initial story giving by staff. This was really well done and well acted. One of the staff “went to go prepare the room” and returned as a grad student studying ancient Egypt and needed help with one of the tombs. This set up the story really well and she stayed in character the whole time through the use of the walky-talky which doubled as a way to get hints as well. Kudos to her. The room itself was really well done. The decorations were intricate and really gave off the feel of an Egyptian tomb with stones and all. The puzzles were great, never using any simple locks. There was a lot of puzzles for us to do as well, allowing us all to split off and work on multiple things at one time. Everything worked really well in the room with all the technology used and made for a smooth experience. This room also required a lot of teamwork with your team being split into two and only being able to communicate through a very small window for the majority of the time. This was a genuinely fun room, and being an Egypt buff like myself, I really enjoyed it.