CyberQuest is an online race in the style of a light puzzle hunt, presented by Accomplice in New York City.
Format
Style of Play:
Online native experience (can NOT be played IRL)
Light puzzle hunt
Required Equipment: computer with internet connection, pen and paper
Recommended Team Size: 2-3 per team for experienced players
Play Time: under 30 minutes for experienced teams
Price: To book a private group, contact Accomplice for pricing (think corporate rates). For public bookings (offered occasionally) it’s priced at $25 per person.
Booking: book online for a specific time slot
Description
You enter into a Zoom meeting that delivers a narrative. The call abruptly self-destructs after less than 10 minutes and it is up to you and your team to solve the mysteries laid before you in order to win the game before your competitors do.
At the conclusion of the setup, you have to self-divide into your own teams, spin up video chats, and race through a series of puzzles.
Many of the puzzles are solved via typing in your team name and a code phrase.
We embarked on an interactive dinner theater and puzzle adventure though Greenwich Village. We’d been invited by Mysterio to become members of the Secret Dining Society. If we could solve our way through dinner, we would be initiated in the presence of the Society’s precious Golden Spork.
The humorous pretext for the excursion set the tone that lasted throughout the show.
At each location, we enjoyed one course of the meal. Before leaving, we puzzled out our next destination. We’d occasionally run into actors who interacted with us in both alarmingly natural and ridiculously strange ways.
Puzzles
Against the background of a secret society initiation, Accomplice could put more emphasis on the puzzling than in some of their other productions. We spent more time puzzling as a group and less time bantering with actors.
The puzzles were mostly challenging enough for us to mull over through a course, but not so challenging as to keep that treasured Golden Spork out of our grasp.
Along the way, we unlocked information from various tangible objects, the majority of which were set out as centerpieces, or delivered through an interaction. We didn’t need to investigate every oddity in Greenwich Village.
Standouts
The Golden Spork was an engaging and humorous production. We enjoyed the light-hearted mission, complete with its jokes and puns.
This show balanced theater with escape room-style puzzling and time with friends. While we were sometimes interacting with an actor, more often we were interacting among ourselves. We puzzled intensively and collaboratively, but without a strong sense of time pressure. We were relaxed and enjoyed a meal as a group of friends.
The actors were skilled at blending seamlessly into their environments. In that way, the restaurant setting too became part of the show.
I don’t usually take photos of my food… so I got to it a little late.
The food and wine were delicious.
Shortcomings
We’re dessert people and the dessert course left us wanting more. While tasty, it didn’t live up to the rest of the meal in terms of experience.
Two of our guests do not consume alcohol. They missed the final toast with the cast while someone looked for an alternative beverage. This made the end fizzle for them as they felt left out.
The show was marketed for 7-30 people, but the puzzling wasn’t optimized to engage such a large audience. The puzzling couldn’t even stretch enough for our group of 10. Whereas a skilled actor can command an entire theater’s attention, it’s a different challenge to design puzzles that do the same, even more so to make puzzles that rely upon numbers. With small changes, Accomplice could iterate on the puzzles such that they engage more of the audience.
Should I play Accomplice The Show’s The Golden Spork?
The Golden Spork is a hybrid puzzle / immersive theater / dinner theater / walking tour. It’s a lot of experiences rolled up into one and it works. It does this by rotating through phases of puzzling, theater, dining, and walking. It’s also an excuse to enjoy dinner in the company of friends.
If you expect the show to entertain you with puzzles and actors the entire time, you’ll be disappointed. If you understand those elements are a revolving door of entertainment through your dinner, you’ll be quite pleased.
While $185 per ticket felt high, upon reflection, The Golden Spork was almost a deal. Manhattan ain’t cheap. Here, three courses with a fair amount of wine could easily cost over $100 per person. Given the few hours worth of actors, puzzles, and entertainment, that price felt fair to our group.
We truly enjoyed our quest to behold the revered Golden Spork. It was an honor to bask in its untarnished radiance.
Contact Accomplice at info@accomplicetheshow.com for a private booking of The Golden Spork, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Full disclosure: Accomplice the Show provided media discounted tickets for this experience.
We had received an amusing email informing us of… a situation, so we swooped in to save the day.
Accomplice The Village walked us through the streets of Greenwich Village, introducing us to entertaining characters and interesting places along the way.
As we followed the bread crumbs to right the aforementioned situation, we became part of a theater piece, searched for clues, solved puzzles, and had many good laughs.
Interaction
This was an interactive show. There were specific tasks to accomplish and a fair amount of walking involved. We engaged with conversationally energetic characters.
Accomplice The Village was not a passive experience.
Standouts
The actors brought Accomplice The Village to life. With few exceptions, they were engaging, humorous, and witty. They expertly balanced a scripted narrative with improv. Their characters may have been ridiculous, but they managed to be believably ridiculous.
The show kicked off with an email that set the tone for the entire experience. It never deviated from this. Each character we met fit right into the world.
As the show progressed we started to notice subtle references on a theme. These ultimately escalated into the finale. It was beautifully orchestrated.
There were some hilariously serendipitous moments, my favorite being when a couple of passersby joined our little group out of curiosity. We were pretty confused when they approached, but nowhere near as confused as they were.
Warmth in a cup
Accomplice the Village introduced us to some incredible neighborhood gems. In addition to the actors, these places helped create just enough spectacle to make Accomplice The Village something out of the ordinary.
Shortcomings
Because the actors truly brought this show to life, when we encountered a dud, the entire scene fell flat. That section was disappointing.
On any given day, multiple teams of 10 play the game, starting in the same location an hour apart. Our group was moving particularly swiftly and caught up with the group in front of us just before the finale. While the show did have a stalling tactic in place, it was poorly executed, and by someone not at all in character. This broke our rhythm and took us out of the experience.
Two consecutive scenes took place entirely outside. Weather could certainly put a damper on the experience.
Should I play Accomplice The Village?
Accomplice The Village should be approached as interactive theater with some light puzzling. It was, first and foremost, a theatrical excursion through an iconic Manhattan neighborhood.
If you like comedy, improv, and a bit of scavenger hunt, this will be a blast.
If you’ve already played Accomplice New York, this will be a new experience. The mission was different and so was our place in it. While we were still exploring Manhattan, the show was less about its setting. Instead, these characters turned up the dial on absurd and hilarious, but still managed to fit everything into their ludicrous scenario.
For tourists, we recommend Accomplice New York. New York itself was a character in that show; in Accomplice The Village it was simply the setting.
For those new to Accomplice, we recommend Accomplice The Village. This was an approachable show. We walked outside, but not nearly as much as in Accomplice New York. It was also shorter and less expensive.
We enjoyed this experience immensely, even on a brutally cold day. That’s saying a lot.
Book your hour with Accomplice The Village, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Full disclosure: Accomplice provided media discounted tickets for this game.
Bring a group of characters to play with their characters.
Location: New York City, New York
Date played: May 21, 2016
Team size: 10; we recommend 10
Duration: ~3 hours
Price: $80 per ticket
Story & setting
A day before our game, Lisa received a phone call from a man in character giving very specific instructions for our team.
While I can’t give away the details of where exactly we went, or precisely what we did, I’ll say this: they call it “Accomplice” for a reason.
The setting of Accomplice New York was truly Downtown Manhattan.
The game was something in a nether-realm spanning a live action roleplay, scavenger hunt, and escape room. There were compelling characters, interesting locations, and easy puzzles.
Interaction
This was an interactive show. There were specific tasks to accomplish and a fair amount of walking involved. We engaged with conversationally energetic characters.
Accomplice was not a passive experience.
This was probably the most memorable activity of Accomplice.
Standouts
Accomplice was a tour of Lower Manhattan. We traversed a number of significant neighborhoods and met realistic yet humorous characters that were, shall we say, unique to New York.
The team at Accomplice had their coordination and stage management down to a science. They had impressive mechanisms to keep teams moving through the game on the right pace, especially considering the physical size of their stage.
The actors were wonderful. Not only did they portray great characters, but they didn’t stick to a script. We messed with them a bit and they never broke character. We shared a short meal with a particular character and he ended up engaging Lisa in an incredibly detailed discussion about her career in onomastics and what she could tell about him (his character) based on his name.
Most impressively, the Accomplice actors read our team of individuals so well and worked that into their performance. When they made fun of us, they were painfully accurate in their assessments of each of us. It was hilarious.
Shortcomings
We didn’t race through the game; we tried to milk each interaction for all that it was worth. There were points in the game where we received food or drink and we could not tell how much time we had with our nibbles and libations. Sometimes it was longer than we expected; sometimes we were chased out before we were through.
One character was so realistic that it was uncomfortable. We had to break our character during our initial interactions with this person because we were worried we were weirding out a stranger.
Speaking strictly as a puzzler, the puzzles were not Accomplice’s strong suit. However, I don’t think that they were supposed to be – nor should they have been – difficult.
Should I play Accomplice New York?
There was a lot of love about Accomplice New York. Through its decade-long run, the producers have developed a deep understanding of their craft.
Speaking as a guy who has lived most of my life within arm’s reach of Manhattan, it was hilarious to interact with all of these NYC stereotype characters. There are some people who only exist in the in this part of the world.
Accomplice was also an excellent walking tour of Lower Manhattan, taking us through a number of neighborhoods that a tourist should see while visiting The City.
If you’re only looking for puzzles, you should do something else with your time. However, if you’re looking to experience New York and an interactive show in tandem, I cannot think of a better way to spend 3 hours and $80.
Book your session with Accomplice New York, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
