About Northern Play Quest

Northern Play Quest is published by Northern Play Quest Media, a small independent outfit working from a shared office in Ottawa’s Glebe and, more often, from the lobbies of escape rooms across the country. We launched the site in the spring of 2026 after a few years of keeping the notes privately, and the notes are what you are reading: which neighbourhoods have rooms, what they cost, what the local scene is like and when to book.

There are four of us. Two write, one edits and checks facts, and one handles the site and the arithmetic — the tax tables, the price bands, the transit timings. Between us we have played several hundred rooms in five provinces and two languages, and we still lose about a third of them, which we consider a healthy sign.

Why we don’t name venues

Three reasons. First, churn: rooms open, close, rebrand and change owners quickly, and a page that names the best room in the Beltline is wrong within a year. Second, independence: the moment a guide names operators, operators start asking to be named, and we would rather not have that conversation. Third, usefulness: a reader who knows that the plazas in Markham run harder, cheaper rooms than King Street can make a good booking for years, whichever operators happen to be trading.

How we pay for it

Out of pocket, at the moment. We pay the public rate for every room, we pay for the transit and the parking and the occasional −30°C taxi, and we do not accept advertising, affiliate commissions, free games or sponsored content. If that changes, the editorial policy page will say so before anything else does.

When we get it wrong

Prices move, lines get extended, holidays shift. If a figure in a guide is out of date, write to contact@northernplayquest.com and we will check it and fix it. Corrections are noted at the foot of the page they apply to.