Room Escape Artist

Puzzle Hard

Location:  at home

Date Played: April 4, 2021

Team size: we recommend 2-3

Duration: ~ 60 minutes

Price: £15 (about $21)

REA Reaction

We’re gonna get weird today.

We’ve played every game that Komnata Quest opened in New York City, as has our friend and Hivemind reviewer Fro. When they released the play-at-home Sinful Pleasures, she promptly shoved her credit card into Komnata’s website… and then nothing happened:

• No game was delivered
• No communication was sent
• Attempts to contact Komnata were met with a full inbox

With no response from Komnata, Fro eventually cancelled the charges. However, driven by hilarious memories of the real-life version, 7 Sinful Pleasures, as well as a casual disregard for credit card safety, she reordered the game. This second attempt worked. The game showed up in her inbox.

Fro brought this bundle of puzzling pleasure to our home. We poured ourselves some wine, established a safeword, and let the experience unfold.

… And the first thing we encountered was an entire print-and-play game formatted for metric paper that we didn’t %^&*ing have. Once we figured out how to handle that nonsense (more on that later), we got things started.

What we witnessed was a fairly competent, if unremarkable puzzle game blended with a strange mix of sexual imagery. From moment to moment Sinful Pleasures bounced between cheeky teasing and hardcore imagery, never really committing to one or the other… which was off-putting. Were we supposed to laugh with this game or be aroused by it? I have no idea. Both were acceptable options as this game was clearly labeled for adults, but at some point you have to pick one and commit.

In the end, Sinful Pleasures felt like the game equivalent of a person who thinks that if they crack enough sex jokes, their crush will sleep with them.

Who is this for?

• Leisure Suit Larry fans
• Puzzle lovers
• Players with at least some experience

Why play?

If you meet all of the following criteria:

• You have the sense of humor of a horny middle schooler
• You like puzzles
• Metric paper is loaded in your printer

Story

There was an ARG standing in the way of our friend Richard and an invite to a sex party. We had to help him get in.

Setup

Sinful Pleasures was a typical print-and-play experience with a companion web interface. The catch was that it was structured for metric paper, which we didn’t have… because American. (That said, metric paper is way cool.)

Our workaround was to solve what we could with the materials that we could printed or were viewable in the PDF… and then use the hint system to bypass the things that we couldn’t solve. This was a bad situation, so we elected to drink more wine and ignore it.

Beyond metric paper, we needed the printed materials, scissors, and at least two devices. The game worked best with both a laptop and a phone (for the QR scanner).

The bulk of the narrative, game flow, and hinting were carried via an automated chat interface with our desperate friend.

Gameplay

Komnata Quest’s Sinful Pleasures was a standard print-and-play escape game with a moderate level of difficulty… and a sexual theme.

Core gameplay revolved around observing and puzzling.

Analysis

➖ This metric versus letter paper formatting issue was a big deal. We’re a year into print-and-play games being a normal thing in the escape room world and the most basic element of this is working with global paper standards. If you don’t want to format for letter… that’s cool. Don’t market and sell the game to regions that use it.

➕ The chat bot and associated hint system worked well. Thankfully, we were able to use them to make the game partially playable.

➕ The puzzles worked well and offered good variety. The highlight was cocksweeper.

➖ Narratively speaking, the puzzle play did little work to meaningfully tie into the narrative.

➕ The main character was a non-threatening ally. We could easily see a theme like this turn dark, but it never did. In this regard, the narrative supported the content.

➖ /❓ The sexual content of the game was strange and lacked clear direction. The jarring transitions between playfully immature sex humor and hardcore imagery and video felt confusing and left me wondering who this was for and why it was made this way.

➖ /➕ Originally Sinful Pleasures was priced at £99 (about $138) which was outrageously expensive. It’s insulting that they ever charged that much. At its current £15 ($21) it’s far more reasonable.

➖ Fro’s initial purchasing experience left a lot to be desired.

Tips For Players

• Space Requirements: a small table
• Required Gear: printer, metric paper, pencil, scissors, mobile device (for QR code reading), and a computer

Buy your copy of Komnata Quest’s Sinful Pleasures, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.