Collaborating to solve puzzles is good, winning solo and being able to tell it behind is cool too. Seven years (already!) After having lacked a little bit of cohesion to get out of the first Nantes escape game, the team of 20 Minutes Nantes went into “every man for himself” mode for an hour. Friday July 9, we tested Quizboxing, one of the brands (like Quizz Room) offering this new fun activity that is being rolled out at high speed all over France. If the concept is rather banal (a mix between quiz of G culture and blind test), it is the immersive atmosphere and the course of the game that make the experience downright fun. “Everyone who has been here came out with a smile”, assures Jérôme L’Hurriec, 46, who installed this concept a month ago in Nantes, invented by the Cannes escape game Curious World.
When we enter the “battle arena” all five, to the sound of Eye of the tiger, impossible not to enjoy. Here we are propelled into a reconstituted TV set, with the desks and the play of light that go with them. No time to find out if Jean-Pierre Foucault or Samuel Etienne are in the area that a recorded voice starts the game. And it promises to be even crispier than expected: in addition to having to give the right answers, we can also use wild cards (uppercut, theft or bet) to rot our opponents. Our sports journalist colleague already knows that he risks being stripped in the first football question …
The gap widens at blind test
During the game, dozens of multiple choice questions, from a base of 2,500, are linked on the screens. “What is the longest river in Africa? »« At what height is a volleyball net installed? “” What is the rabbit’s field of vision? »(Answer: it’s 360 °!) You have to read quickly, be cultured and strategic, and in our case, be versed in cartoons and series, a theme that was widely (even too) represented in our sample of questions, configured according to our preferences before the start of the game. You knew in which city the series “Buffy” takes place, you …?
After a little “true-false” session, where you play alone in front of your buzzers with the thrilling that gets carried away, comes the moment of blind test. And it’s really cool when no one in the gang has to devote themselves to animating it! In Quizboxing, you have to be among the first three to give the correct answer to hope to score. And there, the gap can frankly widen between those who have never heard the credits of Harry Potter (we will not denounce anyone) and the unbeatable hits of the 2000s (hello Marie, our colleague from the sales department, who is part of the best scores).
After two more rounds of questions and no dazzling comeback, it’s already the end of the game. If we would have liked a little more varied themes, we all did “very well”, congratulates us Jérôme L’Hurriec at the exit.