Cocktails, Spies, Murder AND fun!
Your mission, should you choose to accept it…
Uncover a deadly cocktail and reveal the identity of a dangerous double agent, before they strike again, and another body is found dead. You only have 90 minutes to discover the truth. Do you have what it takes to be a top agent?
QuestVenture is a company that we’re quite familiar with having already played both their other games, ‘A Hunt Across The Capital’ and ‘Cosmic Panic’. We enjoyed both of those games so when we found out they were developing a third game it naturally had our attention.
This is not just an online escape game, this is an experience to be savoured. Cocktails, Spies and Murder has it all in the title with the keyword being ‘Cocktails’. At the time of writing, QuestVenture have made it even easier to arrange the cocktails as they’ve teamed up with The Cocktail Man to offer you 20% off their letterbox cocktails. It’s great to see escape rooms becoming more mainstream and teaming up with ‘regular’ companies to promote each other, more of this please! **You can enjoy this game without alcohol if you wish**
Anyway, enough about alcohol. We played the other two QuestVenture games as a team of two so we decided we’d do this one as a twosome also. After waiting for the stifling heat wave to pass (can’t do computer stuff in the heat), we sat down at our laptops to finally enjoy the third installment from QuestVenture.
It’s also worth pointing out that the QuestVenture pricing structure is really rather favourable and your £9.99 purchase price enables you to share your game across multiple households.
CONCEPT/EXECUTION
While ‘A Hunt Across The Capital’ takes place mostly on Google Maps, and ‘Cosmic Panic’ is purely in its own environment, this game takes the best aspects of both games and merges it into something even better, there’s no getting around this – this game is slick. The interface worked seamlessly for us and the way we interacted with some of the puzzles was rather satisfying.
QuestVenture have created a purely online experience here, where (almost) everything takes place in the web browser. I say ‘almost’ because there is one document that you need to be able to easily access at all times. QuestVenture have designed it so you can open this additional document on a smartphone by scanning a QR code, but we actually found it a little easier just to download it as a PDF document and use it like that.
What was nice about this game is that they have set it up so it is fun for all the family and puzzle difficulty is varied. There are six main missions which have to be completed to finish the game, but on top of that there are also seven side missions – these are optional but being the completionists that we are, we did it all.
This game is set up in a non-linear way so you can choose what puzzle you start on and if you get stuck you can move onto another and come back to it later – this is good for larger teams as it means everyone can get stuck in to something different simultaneously.
PUZZLES
As I previously alluded to, there are two main levels of puzzle in this game; main mission, and side mission games. There’s a good variety of puzzles in this game which include some observation, anagrams, a bit of maths, some logic, and a good ‘old fashioned’ Google Maps hunt. It’s unlikely any of the puzzles will prove to be too taxing for experienced puzzlers, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still be fun.
Outside knowledge is needed for one or two puzzles but it is clearly stated from the outset that using Google is acceptable and actively encouraged at times. One thing that QuestVenture got right with this game was their signposting on the puzzles. If you needed to use the ‘Cocktail Menu’ then this was clearly stated – if it didn’t say that, then everything is fair game.
Just when we thought the game was over and we had solved everything, there was one more thing to do. To be honest, it was just because I had got so lost in solving puzzles that I forgot about the main mission that we were supposed to be solving. Still, when there are no time constraints it’s always nice to find an ‘extra’ puzzle, right?
CLUE SYSTEM
If you need a clue for any of the puzzles you can easily scan a QR code to take you to the clue page, if that doesn’t scan then there is a work around that just has the direct link. When you go to the clue page there is a breakdown so you can select the puzzle number that you’re on and that will give you the option of revealing three cryptic clues, if you’re still not getting it, it also contains the answer so you can keep moving.
FINAL THOUGHTS
If you’re looking for a game that you can play with the family and get everyone involved, then this is a strong contender for your choice. It’s well put together and has fun puzzles, plus an online leaderboard to give you something to aim for (if you care about those things).
TOOLS REQUIRED
- Internet connection
- QR Code reader (optional, there are workarounds)
- Pen and paper for taking notes
- Camera phone (optional, for taking pictures of useful discoveries)
Final Rating:
| Puzzles | |
| Concept/Execution | |
| Clue System | |
| Value for Money | |
| Enjoyment |
Team: 2 players
Time Taken: 29 minutes
Website: https://www.questventure.co.uk
*Disclaimer: we weren’t charged for this experience, but this has not influenced our review.
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