A very clever person once said that “A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned”.
It’s a very elegant way of describing one of the biggest problems of a creative project - deciding when to share it with the world! Because art doesn’t just spring into being fully formed - you have to work at it, refine it, and improve it until you are able to say that it’s ready. But even then, is it ever truly finished?
When it comes to escape rooms at least (YES - ESCAPE ROOMS CAN BE ART) then we here at clueQuest say yes - they can always be perfected! In fact they’ll never be finished, and neither will they be abandoned. Because we are always looking for ways to refine our games.
Showing is worth more than telling, so here’s a (panoramic) photo of PLAN52 not long after it first opened in May 2013:
And here it is now, eight years later...
At its heart, the game remains the same - but as you can see over the last year we’ve taken some pretty major steps in refreshing it - giving it a more immersive, and high-tech look and feel. The old padlocks and off-the-shelf laptops have been thrown out, and we’ve used our experience from building cQ ORIGENES - our latest installment in the clueQuest universe - to replace them with new digital keypads and a completely custom-built spy computer!
No we won’t tell you more about the super cool spy computer - you’ll just have to see for yourself!
(If you’ve already played PLAN52 and you’re excited by the new look - then it honestly depends on how well you remember it as to whether it’s worth a revisit. The game flow is still pretty much the same - but of course we’d love to see you back and get your thoughts!)
Of course improvements don’t normally occur on this sort of level - generally it’s a more gradual, organic process. We pay close attention to how our players interact with our games and we’re always trying to come up with ways to improve their experience. That might be a new clue, the subtly adjusted placement of an object, a fancy sound effect or even a whole new puzzle.
Just a few examples of features that were added long after the missions were launched. We not only listen to our customers but our very talented team too, so every one of them came out of the brains of our Gamesmakers - what a clever little bunch they are!
As much as lockdown has provided a great opportunity to make these grand changes, we couldn’t be more excited about reopening (17th MAY!). We hope we’ll get to see you soon for another nail-biting chance to save humanity. But whether you’ll be knocking down our door on Monday morning, or waiting until the world feels a little bit safer, then rest assured that you’ll always get to play the very best version of our games that we can offer.
And if you’re looking for something to do in the meantime - then do check out our play-at-home range of Print+Cut+Escape games! (And yes, we are also always working on improving them as well!).
Play safe agents,
Mr Q and the clueQuest team