Escape Quest – Mr Copplestone’s Curiosity Shop

Escape Quest – Mr Copplestone’s Curiosity Shop
Location:  Macclesfield
Game Date: 17/11/2021
Team: Amy & Ian
Duration: 60 Minutes

Theme:
“Mr Copplestone aka “The Professor” is an inventor. His greatest invention is the world’s first time machine, built so he could travel through space and time to find interesting objects and life saving potions to sell in his curiosity shoppe.

The time machine is powered by Time Echo Crystals, these crystals are rare and only a small quantity exist in the world.  Without them the time machine won’t work.

Such a precious commodity must be stored & guarded carefully to ensure the future of time travel can continue. There’s just one problem with that – Mr Copplestone!

He may be a genius, but he’s the most forgetful man you could ever meet.  This morning when he opened his box of Time Echo Crystals he found only one left inside, where could he have put them?

Mr Copplestone and his wife Margaret live on Chapel Street in the year 1873.  We can’t rely on Mr Copplestone finding the missing crystals alone so if you’re brave enough to jump into his time machine and use the last remaining crystal we have to head to 1873 you could save the future of time travel.

. However the time entry vortex is weak and can only stay open for one hour, get back inside before it closes and bring any crystals you find with you so we can keep them safe back in the future ready for our next time travelling adventure.”

Wow. Wow. WOW. This game starts off innocuously enough, in a well decorated and steampunk-esque time-travel machine, but once your travels have ended and you arrive at your destination does the real wow moment begin.
Escape Quest have created a literal street, a street that is so immersive and full of detail it’s hard to imagine you haven’t stepped back to 1873. There is no stone left unturned in the decoration of this game and it is finished to perfection. Ian must have spent the first 10 minutes just LOOKING at stuff, and it’s easy to do, you could easily get lost in the detail a nueances in this game, which creates such a real world aided by a perfect soundscape and lovely smells!
I won’t ruin the game too much as there are surprises around every corner, suffice to say that you will spend the entire hour discovering places, exploring and generally being wowed by the beautiful and immersive world that Escape Quest have created.
I honestly can’t praise this room enough, you can tell that there is so much passion put into it, and there is also a sense of humour in the decor that is subtle, yet wonderful. I can’t wait to experience it again!

Game Play:
A fairly open game that has almost every type of puzzle you can imagine, word, logic, searching, teamwork, codebreaking, observation, maths, aural… they were all there and in spades too. This is a game that WILL keep every team in the room for its full hour. The aim of the game is not just escaping, there is a collection element too, this is done with excellence in the game design, and it is just a puzzle bonanza. A team could collect few, or they could collect many, but the over-arching feeling is going to be one of acheivement.
The puzzles were all perfectly logical, with plenty of Ah-ha moments that flowed thick and fast and never left us feeling disappointed in their outcome. This is a room where it demands a lot of the players, but also makes them feel incredibly smart when a  puzzle is solved (this is the best type of roomI IMHO).
There was not a shred of ambiguity in the game, and each and every puzzles was delightfully on theme, with a sense of frivolity and jovial nature through all the puzzles.
The flow was wonderful, fast paced and delivering quick, impactful puzzles and plenty of fun wow moments.
Signposting was a dream, subtle enough to make puzzles clear and concise, but not to guiding or hand-holding.
All in all this is a marvellous, intelligently designed game that is made by a team who know what they’re doing in their design, have used their 5+ years of knowledge in the industry to design a top class game that serves from first timers, to players with hundreds of rooms under their belt. It is a n absolute treat of a game, suitable for literally anyone, if you haven’t played it yet, I urge you to book it pronto!

Clue System:
Clues were delivered via a helpful AI system!

Game Host:
Elaine and Mike were our hosts and to put it succintly they are as close to perfect as you’re going to get.
A spot on brief and story, which is supplemented my a multi media indroduction to the room, with perfection in their game hosting. It is perfectly clear that Elaine and Mike are pay incredibly close attention to the game, which they know inside out, add to this that they’re both utterly lovely, passionate people and you can’t help but recognise that they’re the gold standard of game hosts.

Did we escape?
Well, yes but escaping isn’t the main goal! Collecting as many time crystals as possible is, we collected 24 of a maxium of [redacted]

Website: https://www.escapequest.co.uk/
Price:
3 – 10 Players, £20 per person.