Escape Room Kristiansand: The Art Thief

We played this as a two who were only in Kristiansand for a day and wanted to see some of the place in the context of a guided gamified experience rather than just walking around on our own volition. You're greeted by your game host close to the cruise terminal (which was useful to us) who explains how the game works and what you'll need to do. It's essential to have data on your smartphone for this as you input your progress and get your next clues through a website, and I'd advise downloading the Google app to use Google Lens for certain translations along the way, but the host will always provide help/alternatives as long as you can contact them through something like Whatsapp.

You'll be doing the classic puzzle hunt fare of following series of photos, looking at items in your environment and following maps, but this one is nicely hosted with some entertaining 'live actor' interactions (these are played for comedy, so no worries about anything scary here, though you will have to be a bit brave to just go along with things at some points). While some of the instructions were easy to misinterpret - one of the rules says to not 'chase' any actors - we assumed that meant not to run after them, but actually they meant don't 'follow' the actors at all, and our own British sense of not wanting to be a bother to anyone meant we didn't try speaking to someone we should have at the start. The puzzles themselves were smart, had great use of the environment and were justified in being a part of this experience.

If were being pedantic, we would have preferred the puzzles to have been a little more contextual with the story, as you're presented with the question of 'whodunnit' at the end, and we clearly hadn't been paying enough attention to identify the second of the two culprits, but it all makes sense and ends with a great debrief.

It's well worth playing if you're there on a cruise ship, or just have limited time to spend and want to explore Kristiansand with a purpose, though benefitted from excellent weather while we were there, and ends at one of their escape room venues in case you want a more traditional escape afterwards.