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QUEST ROOM – Red Giant [Review]

 

Lisa Spira
2–3 minutes

It’s a ruby, not a distant star.

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Date Played: August 23, 2018

Team size: 2-6; we recommend 3-5

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: from $119 for teams of 2 to $219 for teams of 6

Ticketing: Private

REA Reaction

Red Giant was an exciting puzzle-driven adventure through a detailed Egyptian tomb set. It’s an escape room with a majestic look, filled with exciting reveals and wow moments. QUEST ROOM could transform this into a world-class escape room by refining their tech to make sure each moment hits with the power that it deserves. This was an entertaining puzzle adventure.

If you’re in Los Angeles, we strongly recommend a visit to Red Giant.

In-game: a large torch-lit stature of Anubis with glowing green eyes.

Who is this for?

  • Adventure seekers
  • Puzzle lovers
  • Scenery snobs
  • Any experience level

Why play?

  • Exciting interactions
  • Fun puzzles

Story

We’d always wanted to find The Red Giant, a valuable ruby hidden deep within an ancient tomb. We believed our team of archaeologists could succeed where previous teams had failed, never to return from the depths of the tomb. With limited oxygen, we had only 60 minutes to retrieve this gem.

In-game: the torch-lit walls of an Egyptian tomb with carvings and hieroglyphics.

Setting

A dim tunnel leading to the tomb’s entrance gave way to a majestic Pharaoh’s burial chamber with high ceilings and Egyptian wall art.

In-game: a small sphinx.

Gameplay

QUEST ROOM’s Red Giant was a standard escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around searching, observing, making connections, and puzzling.

In-game: a wall of sandstone hieroglyphics tiles.

Analysis

+ The Egyptian tomb set looked great. The high ceilings gave it a majestic feel. It was an exciting space to explore.

+ The opening interaction started Red Giant with a bang.

+ We enjoyed the puzzles in the later sections of Red Giant. QUEST ROOM integrated these well with the set pieces in the tomb. They were tangible, interesting solves.

– One substantial early puzzle felt like filler.

– The tech-driven interactions needed additional in-game feedback. Without this feedback, our gamemaster was continually coming through the walkie-talkie to tell us we had released something. It would have been far cooler if this was self-evident.

+/- Red Giant had an unorthodox late-game interaction. This was a fun concept and could have been a truly wow moment. However, this was not clued forcefully enough. With more clear in-game cluing… and maybe some infrastructure to facilitate the moment, this interaction would be more powerful and exciting.

+ Our gamemaster’s introduction set the tone for an exciting, high-stakes exploration. This, combined with the exploration gear, upped our energy level before we even entered the gamespace.

+ Red Giant was at its best during its impressive tech-driven events. There were some incredible moments in this escape room.

Tips for Visiting

  • QUEST ROOM has two locations. Red Giant is at the 5517 Santa Monica Blvd location.
  • There is a parking lot.
  • At least one player needs to be pretty tall.

Book your hour with QUEST ROOM’s Red Giant, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: QUEST ROOM provided media discounted tickets for this game.

9 responses to “QUEST ROOM – Red Giant [Review]”

  1. Joel Avatar
    Joel

    We played the “Red Giant” in August 2018 and had an overall fun experience in an amazing set with a nice gamemaster. Just one thing we wished would have been handled diffrently:
    No spoilers but there’s a part with a potential split up of the group, at least that’s what happend to us. So as we got split up our other half of the team slid some very important game pieces through a slit at the door because they thought it would help us on the other side. It clearly was not of limits and the pieces seemed to slide through easly. Well behind the door, there was something going on with, let’s say, “a moving part”. And one of those important pieces that got slid through the door ended up being stuck behind this automatically moving part. We told the gamemaster but he said we should just leave it stuck behind the moving part.
    We were almost out of time and had like 1 minute left, when there was just one more step to do. But we ultimately couldn’t escape, because of the last piece that got stuck behind the moving part. The gamemaster let us just wait in there the last few minutes, until our timer ran out. And then he didn’t even let us finish the final step after he saw that the last important piece was stuck.
    We would have appriciated the ending more, if the gamemaster would have told us the missing step during the game so we could at least finish, or open up the last step manualy so we could finish or let the moving part move again so we could get the stuck piece or at least let us finish the last step after the game was over or even if the gamemaster would have actually stepped in to get the missing piece out of there.
    All those reactions we would have appriciated more than just not doing something about it, let us wait the last few minutes and then let us lose with the words “next time don’t slide somthing underneath the door.” That was a big bummer for us with an otherwise awesome game.

    Reply
    1. David Spira Avatar
      David Spira

      I know exactly what part you’re discussing, and I can understand why that happened. That’s an unfortunate set of circumstances that I’d hope to see Quest Rooms prevent in the future, both with some set augmentation and gamemaster training.

      Reply
    2. Amanda Avatar
      Amanda

      I’ve seen this exact review of this room posted elsewhere (yelp, maybe), and it was before August…. do you work for a rival escape room or something? 😂

      Reply
  2. Paul Ralph Avatar
    Paul Ralph

    I’m sure it’s just a weird angle, but in the third picture it looks to me like the sarcophagus is holding a gun.

    Reply
    1. David Spira Avatar
      David Spira

      In addition to inventing the first known lock, the ancient Egyptians also made the first guns!

      Or… it’s the head of a pickaxe. 🙂

      It’s not my finest photo.

      Reply
  3. no one Avatar
    no one

    What would you say is the strongest game being offered by QUEST ROOM?

    Reply
  4. Lisa Spira Avatar
    Lisa Spira

    I think that depends what you seek in a game. Red Giant is probably the most impressive and most adventurous. If you like puzzles, you might prefer Da Vinci’s Challenge. Bloody Elbow is a good game too, but we preferred those others.

    Reply
    1. no one Avatar
      no one

      Can this game be done by two experienced enthusiasts?

      Reply
      1. Lisa Spira Avatar
        Lisa Spira

        Yes, definitely do-able.

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