Room Escape Artist

Home Sweet Home

Location: Pomona, CA

Date Played: September 18, 2025

Team Size: 2-6; we recommend 3-4

Duration: 60 minutes

Price:  $49 per player for 2 players to $37 per player for 5+ players

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: All players must climb stairs; some players must crawl

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

Quest Tavern’s newest quest transported us to a magical gingerbread house filled with candy, cheer, puzzles, and even more candy.

Through the Sugar Glass successfully captured a sense of childlike glee with a constant flow of sugar-fueled ahas. While the theming might suggest that this game was designed for kids or families, a high density of layered puzzles will keep puzzle enthusiasts of all ages actively engaged.

I’ve loved seeing how Quest Tavern’s style has evolved over time, and Through the Sugar Glass truly played to their strengths. A unique premise, creative gameplay, unexpected character development, and a particularly charming environment all made this experience an absolute delight. Through the Sugar Glass was clever in its mixing of tech and more old-school, tactile mechanisms.

Through the Sugar Glass provides a more lighthearted and playful challenge that’s a cherry on top of Quest Tavern’s other fantastic offerings: the intensely theatrical The Last Supper and the magically cerebral Bridge Between. All together, Quest Tavern continues to be a destination worth traveling to in Southern California.

Who is this for?

• Scenery snobs
• Puzzle lovers
• Any experience level
• Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle

Why play?

• Delightful puzzles
• A charming and cheery environment
• You like eating candy

Story

Upon encountering a mysterious snow globe, we were sucked into a sugary realm where the sweet treats all concealed layers of secrets.

Setting

Through the Sugar Glass was set in a life-size gingerbread house, filled with a mixture of edible and inorganic treats.

Gameplay

Quest Tavern’s Through the Sugar Glass was a standard escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around solving puzzles, making connections, communicating, and consuming sugary delights.

Analysis

➕ The set design was colorful, cheery, and whimsical, full of charmingly handcrafted details wherever you looked. You could feel the positive energy and creativity emanating from every surface. Moreover, Quest Tavern packed an impressive amount of content into a relatively small space, even including some segments of more physical exploration.

➕ Through the Sugar Glass was not a particularly search-heavy game… other than the ongoing search for candy. Sweet treats were scattered around the room, including a particularly lovely reveal of one candy bar, and we savored our thematic snacks during the experience.

➕ A high density of largely nonlinear puzzles provided a ton of fun for all players. This gameplay was observational and well balanced, with some surprisingly clever ahas and layered solves in the mix.

➖ Some nonstandard, thematic inputs required a bit of jiggling to be properly aligned. They would have benefited from clicking into place rather than freely moving.

➕/➖  Through the Sugar Glass was centered around a clever and unique narrative premise. As we stepped into the room and realized what was going on and where we were, we were instantly delighted. However, the physical setup and script in the intro could have been streamlined for improved clarity.

➕ A visual depiction of the passage of time was thematic and beautiful.

➕ For an experience that was so light and playful on the surface, I was pleasantly surprised to encounter another level of narrative depth. It was somewhat darker than expected, but ultimately quite wholesome.

➖ Whereas most of the gameplay in Through the Sugar Glass was quite puzzle-centric, the finale sequence took a hard left turn to be a bit more mini game-centric and, to some extent, more simplistic. One game didn’t work particularly well, or at least didn’t provide sufficient intermediate feedback. Another interaction escalated in pace but not difficulty, and it would have benefited from a final aha or metapuzzle. This ending told the story, but it largely felt like it belonged to a different experience.

Tips For Visiting

• There is a parking lot.

Book your hour with Quest Tavern’s Through the Sugar Glass, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Quest Tavern provided media discounted tickets for this game.