About our team
We believe that the greatest joy comes from real human connection and smart entertainment!
400 000 people
played with us
13 years
expirience
10 000 events
for groups 6 - 800 people
OUR STORY
Questime Netherlands is a family business. It was dreamed up by the two of us — Mark and Natasha, husband and wife.
We met at a summer camp buzzing with creativity, where the camp leaders were forever inventing team bonding games for us. So from the very start, games and love have been two sides of the same happiness. And it all poured into a company over a single sleepless night. One evening we went to a murder mystery. The game ended; the night didn’t. We were so wired — by the new format, the atmosphere, the sheer emotion — that we didn’t sleep until morning: dreaming up our company, its name (Questime) and the first storylines. By dawn we knew this was what we’d give our lives to.
The first of those stories was born in 2012, when we holed up for a month in Paris, on Montmartre, and wrote one set in the Belle Époque. And it was right there — between the Chat Noir cabaret and the paintings of Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec — that our approach took shape. Building a whole story around nothing but a corpse struck us as dull. What about art, love, anarchists, spies?
“Murder mystery” is the label that stuck, but trust us, what we create and host runs far deeper and wider. It’s a truly immersive experience, where each of you becomes the hero of a story in which only the first act is written. Our hosts swear that in 14 years, no two games have ever been alike. That is what makes our games so effective for team building: in just 2–3 hours, participants share an unforgettable adventure and begin to see each other not only as colleagues, but as individuals they genuinely enjoy working with toward a common goal.
Over those 14 years we’ve written more than 135 games for every kind of brief. Not only murder mysteries, but teambuilding & team outings for 20-300 people, serious games, games for marketing, gamified tours & city escapes, museum scavenger hunts. We loved to explore, to try new things, to deliver on our clients’ goals. And the goal is always the same: a brilliant experience for the players, one that sparks joy, curiosity, pride and surprise. All that craft we bring to your event. Whether it’s team building for a hundred or a dinner for eight.
We found our mission watching Jane McGonigal’s TED talk and reading her “Reality Is Broken” and something clicked: make reality thrilling enough, and no one will want to escape into a screen. Because waiting for you are Victorian London, a Belle Époque cabaret, or a Roaring Twenties film studio — with you as the hero who decides, investigates, and truly has something to lose. Beneath every game lies real history and a living era. You leave having had the night of your life and, along the way, a little smarter than you walked in. And that’s no accident: Questime became the perfect extension of our talents and training. Natasha studied screenwriting at UCLA. Mark studied philosophy & history at Moscow State University and marketing HEC business school in France. Screenwriting, drama, history, and knowing how to deliver it all — it all came together in a single craft.
Our business grew up alongside our son (he’s 16 now). For every celebration we’d invent a quest for him and that’s how our printable home escape kits were born.
With these quests & games parents around the world can easily become the Wizard of Oz or Gandalf for their kids and give them a little magic. So for us, games are also about a strong relationship, about a beautiful family story full of adventure. A side effect: our son loves to read, dreams of becoming a film director, and already runs his own D&D and murder mysteries.
In 2017 we launched in the US, earned our O-1 “extraordinary ability” visa and opened Questime in Boston. It was a wonderful ride: we ran hundreds of private parties and corporate events. Personal reasons eventually brought us back home but messages from our Boston clients still reach us to this day. During Covid we built an online format, found a way to run bright, unexpected online corporate events and virtual team activities & team building. Since then we have hosted more than 1,000 of them, for groups from 6 to 800.
In 2022 we left Russia, packed more than a decade of craft into a suitcase, and rebuilt Questime from scratch. We chose the Netherlands for its remarkable history of entrepreneurship (which inspired our gamified tour Monopoly: The Golden Age of Amsterdam), for a society that adores everything new, for its rich culture and museums. We can run our games in any city in the Netherlands. Most often, we host events in Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, and Rotterdam.
And the last small confession: we love the rain. It’s the finest weather for a good murder mystery.
Our team
Mark Minskii
For me, Questime is not just a business. It is a way to create meaningful, intelligent entertainment — and to make people feel a little happier, more connected, and more alive.
I truly enjoy hosting games. As a host and facilitator, I work with a wide range of audiences, from corporate teams to children and families, adapting the experience to each group.
My first academic field was the philosophy of history; later, I studied marketing and business. At Questime, I am responsible for client relations and event operations, making sure every game is well organised, engaging, and memorable.
Natalia Minskaia
For the past 14 years, I have been creating games & quests around the world: immersive performances, teambuilding games, printable home escapes, gamified city tours. My mission is to make reality so rich, playful, and exciting that kids and adults do not feel the need to escape into a virtual world.
At Questime, I am responsible for designing new stories and game concepts. We turn culture into an adventure and make history feel alive. We show that reading books, solving mysteries, and using your imagination can be not only smart but truly fun.
My professional background is rooted in film and storytelling. I studied screenwriting at a film school in California (UCLA) and have completed more than 50 courses for screenwriters and creative writers.
Game Master Kirill
It was like an electric shock, like love at first sight. I was hooked on Questime from the very first game, and I knew this was exactly my world. For me, every game is a stunning performance with brilliant actors. A good game can reveal qualities we never suspected in ourselves. That is what I want to create for you: a space where people can discover something new in themselves and in each other.
Our murder mysteries & team building activities give something everyday life often lacks: excitement, fresh emotions, and the feeling that anything can happen. In a world overflowing with content and screens, that kind of real experience feels more relevant than ever.
join us
WHY us?
Deep Historical Research
We dig deeper than guidebooks — every story is carefully researched and istorically accurate
Smart Gamification
We use elements from board games, RPGs, video games, and escape rooms to create experiences hat are strategic, immersive, and fun
Cinematic Storytelling
Our experiences are built like films — with tension, characters, and powerful narrative arcs
Turn your team building and outings into a bold,
unforgettable adventure!