Escape Boats: SOS & Convicts | Review

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You and your team are trapped on an abandoned, crippled boat. Your mission is to gather information, repair the boat and escape – before it’s too late! // You and your team are convicts, imprisoned on the good ship Zorg Ella. Using your wits, intelligence, and teamwork, can you work together to escape before the ship departs for the colonies?

Completion Time: 30 mins // 62 mins (out of 90)
Date Played: March 2023
Party Size: 2
Difficulty: Easy

Whenever I go to a new country, or even city, I love to find a local escape room to do, as it’s often very different from what is available near me. Usually, this involves a lot of research on blogs, travel sites, and Facebook, but for our recent trip to Dublin, I immediately knew where I was going to book – Escape Boats. It has been on my list for a while as I’d heard it was an escape room…on a boat…that really utilised the fact it was on the boat.

Luckily for me, since first learning of ‘Escape Boats’ they’ve introduced a second room, so we booked both for the same morning.

SOS

We started with their original room, the one I heard so much about. We were first lead to the steering cabin (probably not it’s technical name), which is where the GMs monitor the games from, before a door was revealed, leading us to the belly of the ship. This is where we began the game, so right from the start you are fully immersed in ‘boat’ aspect. The concept of ‘SOS’ is that you wake up on a sinking ship, so it was particularly cool that we started next to the actual engine of the boat!

From there we really raced through the room (completing it in half an hour!), as it was totally linear (one puzzle led to the next). For the pair of us this was absolutely fine – we worked on everything together, but for a larger team I can see this being a little frustrating. However, the puzzles were all well thought out and fun to solve, and fit in perfectly with the theme and story. The room really did feel like it was progressing throughout in a natural way – first we had to turn on the electricity, then find a way to communicate and send an SOS message, and then find a way out. It also felt pretty spacious given we were just on a boat, which actually fit two separate escape rooms – they’ve done a really good job of giving you the impression of size via clever tricks and sparse (but still relevant) set dressing.

It’s the final room that really sets this experience apart though. If you don’t want a spoiler I’ll just say…think boat. For those of you who do…

think boat?

To solve the final room you have to flick a lever…which starts filling the room with water! Luckily I had already spotted a couple of pairs of wellies conveniently placed as we had progressed through the room, and made sure we put them on before entering this room!
I was actually very impressed and excited by how quickly the water came in – the room is probably larger than it seems, as although the water appeared to flow very quickly it only made it up to our ankles before we managed to stop it.

Not only was this every exciting (and the reason I had heard about this room in the first place), but it just shows how well this company have designed the room and taken on feedback. Apparently, many early teams had managed to solve the puzzle before, or just after, flicking the lever to trigger the excitement, so didn’t get the full experience. They have therefore modified the puzzle to stop it to only be ‘active’ once it has been triggered, and completely randomised so you can’t figure it out beforehand!

Overall, although this room was a very quick experience for us, we enjoyed it a lot. It was on the easier side, as we didn’t need help at all and only used half the time, but this also meant we were never frustrated. All the puzzles made logical sense and were fun to do, and the room itself was fantastic.

Rating: 4/5

Convicts

It was only natural to book both rooms at the same time, so after a quick coffee break at a nearby cafe we returned for their newer game. This is designed to be a head-to-head game, but unfortunately we weren’t able to do 1-v-1 as I had hoped due to the nature of a couple of the puzzles, so instead we did both sides…one after another. I think this is fairly unique – most head-to-head rooms tend to be mirror copies of one another, but in ‘convicts’ the two sides were similar, with a couple of the same mechanisms used for a different puzzle, but different in a lot of ways. We didn’t feel like we were repeating ourselves at all when we were into the second half – we were still experiencing new things and having to think how to solve certain puzzles. This was also a fairly unique aspect – rather than playing one side through, then the other, the first half lead to the second half before leading to the common final room.

Once more, this room does a fantastic job of feeling big and spacious, when actually it covers any space at all. This was partly achieved via the small rooms packed with puzzles, but also the method of moving between rooms – tunnels. These were great fun for us, but I can see this being a real issue for anyone with mobility issues or spacial concerns. However, I thought it was a really novel idea that meant the rooms themselves could capitalise on more space, and surprise you with your route to the next step.

This room was definitely harder than the last, and we were stuck a few times. There were more puzzles, which were a little trickier but this also meant they were more interesting. Once again, everything was themed really well, and there was less linearity at the start.

We escaped in 61 minutes – I believe we had 90mins available as we were playing both rooms. Technical issues hampered the ending slightly, but this is easily forgiven and explained by a very quick turn around to get us in early after the previous team had finished.

Overall, I’d probably still recommend ‘SOS’ over ‘Convicts’ for the novelty aspect, but why not do both?!

Rating: 4/5

Accessibility

Minor spoilers

Vision: Convicts starts in the dark, with near to no light until you complete the first puzzle. There are also a couple of puzzles that are done in low lighting, and one requiring colour recognition. SOS is a little dim, due to the nature of the room.

Sound: Hints are delivered via a speaker, so there will need to be someone who is able to hear to utilise this. There is an audio puzzle in SOS, and a puzzle requiring communication between two (or more) teammates in Convicts.

Physical: This may be one of the least accessible rooms I’ve done! The spaces are very small – it felt crowded at times for even two of us. I could see it easily becoming too cramped and warm with more! There was climbing required for all teammates in both rooms, as well as crawling required for Convicts (for all teammates). Convicts also starts with very low headroom (I am 5ft3 and had to crouch to start), and to access and exit both rooms you need to climb up/down ladders. I would advise against doing this room if you have claustrophobia, mobility issues, or are unable to fit into small spaces for any other reason.

Location and overall verdict

The location was fairly easy to get to from central Dublin, although we got a bit lost trying to find the boat itself (both

Google and Apple Maps were sending us to the wrong part of the canal). It is based just over the bridge from a handy Caffè Nero and independent cafe, which also have toilets for use.

I think this was a fantastic pair of rooms, clearly designed and ran by people who care. Our GM was really friendly and welcoming, and did a great job of hosting us. We had a lot of fun, and I highly recommend you visit if you are going to Dublin! I am also awarding this our ‘Wow award’ as a I think what they’ve created for both room is very unique and innovative!

SOS and Convicts can be booked on the Escape Boats website here

The Complete Guide to Tulley’s Escape Rooms Sussex

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The Escape Room Adventures take you on a journey of discovery as you puzzle your way through the gameplay and unlock the many secrets within. The easiest room is Mutiny, our pirate-themed room, which is ideal for beginners, families, or a group with mixed experience. Our most challenging adventure room is Nethercott Manor – our haunted manor, which is a fast-paced challenge. We would recommend Dodge City, The Outfitters & our newest room SpellCraft for teams that have some previous escape room experience.

Date Played: December 2022
Number of Players: 5
Time Taken: ~40 Minutes each
Difficulty: Expert!

Tulley’s gained its reputation for being one of the best companies in the country a few years ago and has managed to retain it when many others failed to move with the times, or unfortunately closed due to the pandemic. It had long been on my to-do list, but I had been prevented from trying any of their 5 games for a number of factors – namely location, cost, and the necessity to have an expert team to even attempt the rooms!

Luckily for me, the stars aligned at Christmas (well, boxing day) last year – my parter was gifted the day as part of a brand deal, my mum happened to be visiting us (as it was Christmas) and had a car, making transport that much easier, and I had confirmed the availability of the final two members to make us up to a team of 5 experienced players! It may not have been most people’s choice for how to spend their boxing day, but for us it was magical…

Tulley’s has 5 rooms, ranging in theme and complexity, so this is really going to be a whistlestop tour! I also want to highlight their amazing GMs who looked after us throughout the day – Adam, Dan, Ellie, Ed, Jamie, and Tyler – and of course their boss – Sooty the cat.

Dodge City

Dodge City in 2127 remains a stronghold of the wild west. The constant tussle between the Sheriff and local gunslingers means there’s opportunity abound for some creative bank robbery for those with wits and courage. As a member of the Notorious ‘Barn Door’ Gang you’ve been caught by the local sheriff breaking into the bank. Locked away with little hope, hired by an unnamed outlaw and facing the ruthless justice of the old west you’re left with only one option. As the sun sets the race is on to break out, reclaim your supplies, pull off the bank job of the century and get out of Dodge City.

Dodge City was our first room…and one of their hardest! Immediately on entering it’s obvious how Tulley’s have earned their reputation – the set design is amazing and extremely immersive, and there are surprises throughout the game. Even as a hardened spotter of fake doors and moving bookshelves, I soon gave up trying to anticipate what was coming next.

This room started with one of my favorite tropes – being separated! We were placed in separate cells, and this obviously required good communication from our newly assembled team, as well as a neat form of contact between us. We then progressed to all things cowboy and outlaw related. I don’t want to give away too much, but the set design and theming were amazing and definitely felt like you were progressing through Dodge City as you progressed through the room. There was only one point in which we were truly stuck, and this was largely due to a breakdown in communication and confusion over who a hint was intended for. Otherwise, this room was one of the most fun rooms we did all day, with some unique puzzles I’ve not seen before (or seen used in a different way), really appealing to different skills. As a team of 5, we only made it out with 4 minutes to spare, which was a great way to get the adrenaline going for the rest of the day!

Rating: 4/5

The Outfitters

It’s 1926 here in Chicago, and depression is still rife. Jobs are few and far between and the Prohibition has been in force for six years now. Everyone still drinks, nothin’ has changed. But now the mob control the streets, the supply and the money. The influence of the Outfit is far-reaching. Most of the cops are even under their control. Who can put them in the joint? You can, that’s who. The Commissioner has put together a special task force of straight, trusted cops and you’re on the team. You’ve spent the last few months infiltrating their network and now tonight is the night to get the evidence you need to put them away forever. But it won’t be easy, your cover might be blown! Do you have what it takes?

The natural progression from ‘cowboy’ is ‘mobster’, right? We moved almost straight from the Wild West into a mafia front in Chicago. We entered into an unassuming tailors shop, before discovering all was not what it seemed… The use of space at Tulley’s continued to be a lovely surprise, although the set felt a little more tired and rough around the edges in this room. That’s not to say it wasn’t good though – hidden information was the name of the game for Outfitters (what more could you expect from Gangsters), with themed puzzles and ’20s mechanisms running the room.

In this room, there were a few moments where mechanisms didn’t trigger or triggered when they shouldn’t have, and we were much less active than we had been in Dodge, with only a couple of us solving puzzles at a time. We managed to escape with a respectable 19mins remaining and an eagerness to sink our teeth into the next one (after lunch). Although this wasn’t a bad room, I’d say it was fairly average, and if this was the only room we’d done…I would have been disappointed.

Rating: 3/5

Spellcraft

The SpellCraft twins, Evilinda & Spellinda, two witches, two paths, two shops, two worlds, two journeys, their two magical worlds collide, and you find yourself in the middle of their story. SpellCraft will take you on a magical adventure, you’ll need to work together, but in the end there’s always a battle, will you escape and who will win?

Our next room was the newest room at Tulley’s, and the room that has quickly become a favourite of most players (myself included) – Spellcraft! When I first heard it was a magic-themed room my reaction was probably similar to many other enthusiasts – “not another one!”, “How is this going to be any different from all the other magic rooms?” , “why do people love this so much? What’s so good about magic?”

However, it was unlike any magic room I’ve done before, and has truly earned its place at the top of many lists. Firstly, you can tell from the waiting area that the set and story are going to be completely different from any other magic room. There are no “wizard school” or 4 “magical houses” that happen to be primary colours…

Instead, we were once more split into teams – this time “good” and “evil” – and given wands, which stayed with us and were used throughout the game. We were also given cauldrons to collect/carry things with us, which was a nice touch I’ve not experienced anywhere else. Inside the room, the set design was once more delightful and surprising. The set is huge, but of course, you don’t realise this at first. However, there is a truly magical mechanism within the room and we were transported again and again to extremely different settings and places. There were a lot of fun puzzles here too – some familiar, others less so, and the climax of the room brings together the two teams in a fierce battle of good and evil, which we obviously won.

Overall, while I can’t remember (or didn’t see) quite a few of the puzzles the experience itself blew me out of the water with the magic and joy I felt. As a team of 5, we escaped with 16 minutes remaining, and I enjoyed every second. This is an amazing room, one of the best in the country I’d say, and makes me excited to see what they do next.

Rating: 5/5

Mutiny

It’s the year of our Lord 1672, and you be right in the height o’ the golden age o’ piracy… After years of sailin’ the high seas, you and your crew have succeeded in your fair share of ambushes, and as a result – your ship is teemin’ with bounty. Yet you’re still suffering beneath the cruel wrath o’ Captain Starling – a notoriously bloodthirsty buccaneer, and your shipmates have decided you all shall take matters into your own hands. After all… you fought for the gold, so the gold is yours for the taking, aye? Once the old seadog has retreated to his berth for the night, you make your move. Get in, get the treasure and get out. You won’t have long before he starts to stir – and Starling shows no mercy to ANY soul…

After that amazing experience we needed to calm down a little, so found ourselves upon a ship in the easiest room. This was again misleading – although our initial perception was that of every other pirate game I’ve played (as we solved it as such, by guessing digits in combination locks and skipping steps), once we were out of the cabin we had clearly been played.

As you might expect for a ship, this game required more physicality than others, but these were more to reveal/solve puzzles than being the puzzle itself. There was one particularly unique feature of this room, which was fun to build and use, but otherwise, this was your average pirate room, just more polished and better executed. Ultimately we escaped with 22 mins left, and we had fun doing so, but we were looking forwards to the final room.

Rating: 3/5

Nethercott Manor

The old manor house is entwined with local legend, the living don’t remember the Nethercott’s, the family’s hay day was long ago. Local folk talked, whispers were heard, rumours began, lights were seen within. The Nethercott’s are long gone but something remains, an essence, a smell, a feeling, it’s in the fabric, in the walls, under the floor boards … it ticks, it creeks … take a trip into the past, uncover the family’s many secrets and glimpse their fleeting souls?

Finally, the room that put Tulley’s on the map (for me at least) – their largest and hardest (I think), as I didn’t even see half of the room – more like 1/3! It was also the one I was most nervous before, being a massive wimp and this being a haunted house. Nevertheless, I couldn’t pass the experience up, so I steeled myself and forged ahead.

The atmosphere is obvious from the start, finding ourselves outside the front door of an abandoned house, with an atmospheric soundtrack doing nothing to ease my nerves. The immediate puzzles were fairly easy, clearly luring us into a false sense of security before we entered the manor itself. Once inside, the set is appropriately dimly lit (until you’re able to find the fuse box at least), with many old-fashioned items of decor and themed puzzles attached. This is also when you get your first taste of the spirits that haunt the house, and it became clear that I was an easy mark for the GM.

How scary?

For those of you of a similar disposition to me, I will just reassure you that nothing physically jumps out at you, but there are a lot of loud noises, which the GM can, and will, trigger whenever they feel like – especially if you are an obvious target stood next to the item in question.

This first room had the most frustrating puzzle I’ve seen in any room…ever. We found out afterwards that even the GMs will struggle to complete it, so usually, they take pity on the players and allow them to bypass it (ourselves included). Usually, this type of time sink would annoy me, especially in a room as large as this, but we actually addressed most of the room at the same time as this ‘puzzle’, and the GM clearly knew the right time to give us a nudge that gave us a chance of solving it, without feeling frustrated.

From this point, we barely saw each of our teammates again until close to the end of the room. I found myself with my mum solving a series of logic puzzles while being terrorised by the GM ghost. We also encountered a smell test, which worked well given we were in the kitchen. From what we saw afterwards, our teammates were working through similarly well-themed puzzles for their respective rooms, across a large variety of skills.

The final puzzles were once more of the deductive style (my favourite), before quite a fun/creepy ending (depending on your perspective). We managed to escape with 9.34 left, which is quite an achievement given they used to sell this as an 80-minute room, and I know many people who didn’t manage to escape! This was definitely a great way to end the day, and almost my favourite room.

Rating: 5/5

Overall experience

The team at Tulley’s were fantastic, and the rooms were large and immersive, while still delivering high quality puzzles. We appreciated the drink offerings, and usually they serve food on the farm too. The introduction videos are also worth mentioning – very entertaining, and slightly unhinged, but they weave into an overall lore, which I’ve only seen a handful of other rooms do as effectively.

This is definitely a must-visit for any enthusiast. Although we could award this nearly all of our badges, we definitely think they’re most deserving of our “I believe” badge, for just how immersive and expansive their rooms were.

Accessibility

Minor spoilers

Audio – nearly all the rooms require some form of communication between players. Spellcraft, Nethercott and Dodge also featured audio puzzles/prompts, although not everyone will need to do these.

Vision – Nethercott, Mutiny and Outfitters all had fairly low lighting at points. Dodge required a small amount of colour identification, as did Nethercott and Outfitters.

Smell – Nethercott has a smell puzzle!

Spatial – In Dodge you start in a small cell, so if you have issues with space I recommend being the only person in yours. There are also some small spaces in Nethercott, Outfitters, Mutiny and Spellcraft, but none require all team members to enter. There are some smoke effects in Spellcraft, as well as Nethercott.

These rooms can be booked on the Tulleys website here

Breakin’: The Flying Dutchman | Review

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The Flying Dutchman Review | Avast ye! Tell me, shark-bait, have you heard the legend of The Flying Dutchman? That dreaded ship captained by the sea-devil Davy Jones and his undead pirate crew? You’d best start believing in ghost stories… you’re in one! After your ship sinks in a great tempest you awake aboard the Dutchman. If you don’t escape before sunrise you’ll be trapped aboard her forever. Legend tells of a mythical diamond – the Heart of Calypso – which can break the curse. It’s hidden somewhere on the lower decks. The sun rises in an hour. So shiver your timbers, swash your buckles, and batten down the hatches. You need to discover the diamond to escape the ship and a watery doom!

Date Played: May 2022
Number of Players: 6
Time Taken: <30 Minutes
Difficulty: Very Easy

My favourite thing in the whole world is introducing new friends to escape rooms. My second favourite thing in the whole world is when they love the escape room and spend the whole time laughing and having an absolute blast.

For me, The Flying Dutchman at Breakin’ Escape Rooms was a perfectly ‘okay’ escape room. For the friends I took with me to play this one, 4 people who had never ever played any escape room before, they loved it. This makes The Flying Dutchman a fantastic ‘entry level’ room to bring your puggle friends to. It perfectly encapsulates what an escape room is with a mix of physical and mental puzzles, but isn’t in the slightest bit challenging meaning that even the most beginner of teams will ace through it and feel extra smart.

A Pirate’s Life for Me!

The story of The Flying Dutchman is your classic pirate ship escape room game. You play as a team of pirates who find themselves trapped on the dreaded ghost ship – the Flying Dutchman, captained by Davy Jones. Your ship has sunk and you’re trapped on this one with just one hour to try to escape or else you’ll find yourself in a watery grave too. Nothing like a little pirate themed peril to get the excitement going.

The setting was a large and well-furnished pirate ship. Think wooden floorboards, cannons and cannonballs, ropes draped from the ceiling and a big ol’ pirate ship wheel in the middle of the room. At first glance, especially compared to someone of the other escape rooms at Breakin’ you might think “this is is” but there’s a couple of sneaky extra spaces hidden around the environment making it slightly larger than you first expected. Though be warned – some of those extra areas are very small and very cramped!

Your goal is the simplest: Escape. And what follows is a somewhat linear series of puzzles to get you from A – locked in the ship to B – escaped!

Pirate Puzzles

For me, I’d definitely put this room in the category of “very easy”. We took zero hints and didn’t pause for even a single second. When taking new people into a room I’m always a little worried about solving things and jumping ahead with prior knowledge, so resigned myself to taking more of a backseat role. But in The Flying Dutchman this wasn’t needed, the rest of my team flew off to a flying start with no nudges from our Games Master, or even no need for me to step in and put my “escape room hat” on.

As mentioned, there was a mix of different puzzle types. They were all fairly well themed within the pirate universe, and a mix of ones that we triggered ourselves, and ones that we could tell the Games Master triggered for us. One puzzle, towards the latter end of the room was a very dexterous, manual puzzle which was a bit of a bottleneck for our very large team. With only two people able to complete the puzzle at one time, and multiple steps and chances to go wrong, the other four of us found ourselves standing around a little bit longer than we might have liked. But after 10 minutes (1/3 of our whole game time) passed, I spotted a sneaky hack that got past the slightly more boring part of the puzzle and skipped us closer to completion. Do I feel guilty? Yes, yes, a little bit. But if a puzzle is meant to be un-hack-able, it should be designed as such.

Besides this, the game was enjoyable from a puzzling point of view. There was a distinct absence of padlocks. Instead the room was surprisingly a lot more high tech than expected for a pirate themed room. Though that said, high tech comes with some downsides and we encountered one technological hitch with a puzzle where a door sprang open a little too early, giving us the final piece we needed to escape before we’d actually finished the game. I don’t think the rest of my team noticed so much though, and all was well that ended well since it ensured we broke out of the room with record time to spare.

If we had any issues along the way (we didn’t), in true Breakin’ form, we were given a walkie talkie that our Games Master could give us a code via. The code was input into an iPad on the wall and a hint would be displayed. This is the same as in all of their rooms, and a mechanic we are fairly used to by now. Though again, we didn’t need to use it.

Team The Escape Roomer escapes!

The Verdict

I had a good time playing The Flying Dutchman. Again, it’s not my favourite room in all of Breakin’ but it did the job and introduced a new group of friends to escape rooms. For a room best suited for a new team – the verdict is yes, that new team had a blast. For me? I found it much too easy, and a little wear and tear (to be expected after opening 5+ years ago) caused some hiccups with the tech and ease of brute-forcing a few puzzles. It’s probably what the enthusiasts call a “Gen 2” escape room. It’s a very early one, but it’s moved away from padlocks and codes as the primary source of puzzling into something much more atmospheric and immersive.

Add in a beautiful, well themed set, and it’s still a winning escape room. For the best experience, don’t bring any more than a team of 3 into the room. There just simply isn’t enough for a larger team to do. If you do choose to go in an enthusiast team, expect to escape in around 30 minutes as we did – and why not book yourself into a second room whilst you’re at Breakin? I’d recommend Wizarding School or Heist Plan.

The Flying Dutchman can be booked by heading to Breakin’s website here.

Extremescape: Pirate Ship | Review

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Extremescape Pirate Ship Review | A long time ago on the Carribean seas sailed the Spanish Galleon, Castoria. Captained by Zak Barrow and crewed by a gang of murderers & merciless cutthroats. Plundering ships of all kinds along India’s Malabar coast, Barrow was a Pirate, one of the most infamous Pirates of all time. Barrow’s ship Castoria battled with the India Merchant, a huge treasure ship of 350 tons. In rough seas, the merchant vessel fired but due to a sudden ocean swell, the shot missed its mark. The pirates threw their grappling hooks, bringing the two ships together. And rapidly boarded the ship, soon Captain Barrow was in the possession of one of the greatest pirate treasures ever. The ship disappeared in 1722 and was not seen again until now!

Completion Time: 73 minutes (out of 90)
Date Played: 24 March 2022
Party Size: 2
Difficulty: Medium

As someone who works full time and lives ‘down South’ it can be hard to find the time to travel just for escape rooms, particularly when the journey alone takes over 4 hours! However I found myself with a few days to space are itching to play some rooms farther afield, so we decided to book a couple of days in Manchester! First up we stopped we spent the day in Disley, surrounded by gorgeous views, friendly locals (sheep) and some cracking rooms!

Time to set sail

The first room we tackled was the oldest at the location – opened 7 years ago and barely changed since! Before you even step foot in the room you know you’re in for a good time, with an epic narration to get you pumped and the ship door swinging open to welcome you. Our first impression of the room was similarly excited – it’s beautifully crafted with plenty of hidden elements (some hid expertly in plain sight), and definitely more than one surprising moment.

Argh, ye scallywags!

We were told that this room was ‘non-linear’, which is technically true as there were a few different puzzles to solve at a time, but I admit in practice it didn’t feel this way. It may have been the early morning or lack of practice, but we worked on most puzzles together, and only felt like we were progressing as we solved the puzzles.

There were quite a few pieces of information scattered about the room, which appeared similar but required different methods of solving. I appreciated the variety of puzzles, but we ended up relying on hints more than I usually like to, as perhaps some of the leaps were a little too far for me! In particular, one puzzle felt very tenuous, and I’m still not convinced of the answer!

Finally, the signposting wasn’t necessarily ideal – usually, I would expect the respective lock to be near the puzzle, or else be marked in some way. However, there were quite a few locks here which meant quite a bit of trial and error each time!

That being said, there were puzzles we got instantly, or just about managed to figure out, which were satisfying and a little different from others we’ve experienced before. I think the theming and thrill more than makes up for any slight frustrations, and I would strongly encourage you to give this room a chance!

Peg legs & eyepatches…not quite welcome

Unfortunately, there are stairs into the venue and up to the room, as well as within the room itself – so not great for those with mobility issues! Hints are delivered both via screen and via a voice-over, so should be suitable for those with either hearing or sight issues. There are some puzzles requiring colour perception, but the light level in the room is generally good and it is fairly spacious.

Here be the Jolly Roger

The staff at this room are great and very encouraging. We had a lovely time chatting with them, and even met a special guest (check out my later post to hear about him!). Although the website seems fairly basic, this room is anything but and the location is enchanting.

The Verdict

This room was a fantastic room – although I was a little frustrated throughout the experience, the set is so well done and I was still having fun. I highly recommend taking on this room (although I would also book the others at the same time!)

Pirate Ship can be booked at Extremescape here

The Panic Room: Dead Man’s Chest | Review

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While adventuring across the seven seas looking for treasure, you spot a ship adrift on the horizon. It appears empty, not a soul in sight…

You decide to board this ghostly ship, and upon exploring the captain’s cabin you stumble across a strange chest, emanating a strange and mysterious feel. You reach out to it, and as your fingers move across the rusting steel, a voice bellows from the ether.

It is the spirit of the captain himself!

His disembodied voice tells of his discovery of an Aztec ruin, laden with gold. Yet, an even bigger treasure laid within: A totem of immortality. A totem he claimed to himself hastily, hiding the valuable icon from his crew in a chest only he could open.

Yet, The totem was not all that it seemed, the captain passed away and awoke inside the chest itself. The totem was cursed!

You now need to help the pirate by solving all of the exciting puzzles within the chest, breaking the curse and set him free.
Are you up for the challenge?

Date Played: 28th December 2021
Time Taken: 30 minutes
Number of Players: 2
Difficulty: Easyish

All aboard the Ti-Panic…!

Back in summer 2021 (which is now LAST YEAR – when on earth did that happen?!), we won an Instagram competition to help name The Panic Room’s new pirate ship for their upcoming experience: Dead Man’s Chest.

As we are not often down south, we booked in (optimistically) for winter 2021 when we would be travelling down to Ash’s family in Kent. Luckily, the stars aligned and we managed to make it down south without getting infected (never thought we would cheers to a negative lateral flow test but COVID has taught us lots of new things about ourselves!).

So, we got to have a go at this new adventure which takes place inside the Panic Room’s sister shop – Don’t Panic, and we are so happy we finally got to play this escape game!

It’s only one box… Right?!

This adventure steers away from the typical escape experience as players are tasked with breaking into a cursed treasure chest, rather than escaping from a room. We initially thought, ‘this surely won’t take us long at all!’, but wow, we were pleasantly surprised by just how much The Panic Room have managed to squeeze into one (pretty big) box!

There were layers and layers of puzzles with drawers appearing from literally nowhere and secret compartments galore. On more than one occasion, a drawer appeared from somewhere that we did not expect and offered up a whole new section of gameplay. It’s a box full of different puzzles and gentle nudges in the right direction.

From moment to moment we found it fairly easy to figure out what we needed to work on next, but this just goes to show how well The Panic Room have signposted the experience… Especially when you’ve only got one treasure chest to work with!

Aye-Aye Captain!

Obviously, this is quite a linear experience as players are solving one section of the chest at a time, but we really enjoyed tackling this game as a pair. With the help of our spooky pirate ghost man, we worked through all the puzzles together and navigated the mechanics of the game seamlessly. The technology worked wonderfully to provide us with a magical experience of breaking into the treasure chest.

A note on the clue system, as we did get stuck on a couple of occasions and needed to use it. It was in theme and clues were delivered clearly and always for the right bit of the chest we were currently working on!

We would definitely recommend this game for an enthusiast pair to see how you get on. It would also work really well for a group of newbies to introduce the escape room concept (and to get you hooked!).

This cursed treasure chest!

Overall, this was a great game. We thoroughly enjoyed playing the Dead Man’s Chest and especially enjoyed getting to explore the Don’t Panic shop afterwards with a nice 10% off for escaping successfully! The shop is literally the dream for escape room enthusiasts, there are SO many games on offer and we had to resist buying everything…

We will definitely be returning to The Panic Room as soon as well can.

You can book the Dead Man’s Chest experience at The Panic Room’s website here.

The Mystery Agency: The Balthazar Stone | Review

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Can you unlock the ancient chest, find the Balthazar Stone and break the ancient curse? Join Elsa Winslow on her journey to Sharktooth Island. To solve the mystery, you must unlock an ancient treasure chest, find Balthazar’s Stone and break its ancient curse.

Rating: Fantastic!
Completion Time: 1 hour
Date Played: 23rd May 2021
Party Size: 1
Recommended For: A spectacular adventure from your own home!

Can I just start this review by saying I absolutely lost my mind when I opened up The Balthazar Stone, like, what?! How cool is this? It’s an ACTUAL TREASURE CHEST. WITH TREASURE IN IT. WAT?! *cough cough* okay professional review time….

I was super lucky to be lent this game by the fabulous Armchair Escapist, who sent the box via Review the Room (side note – Review the Room have the world’s most excellent package wrapping skills!) and it was very cool to be part of that escape room box chain of fantastic people. I’m also kinda glad I borrowed it and don’t own it myself mainly because the accompanying news article explained how the mysterious box whispers to the owner and eventually sends them crazy. I don’t need that kind of drama in my life right now.

The Story

You are sent the box by The Mystery Agency, hoping your puzzling skills might be able to help in uncovering the mystery that surrounds the Balthazar Stone. After all, the professor who had it last went crazy trying to decipher the riddles and open the case. He even tried *whispering* brute forcing the lock, but alas! The Balthazar’s Stone keeps it’s secrets.

But this is where you come in and what quickly unfolds is a story so much larger than a simple piece of lost treasure. The Balthazar Stone is actually about a young orphaned girl named Elsa Winslow who goes on a quest to Sharktooth Island to find out what became of her father after finding the words “Balthazar Stone” written in his last message to her.

As you descend through each layer of the locked box you uncover more parts to the tale – more treasure maps, more curious artefacts and more sea-weathered materials that will lead you back to the Balthazar Stone. But do you actually want to find the stone? Well, that’s for you to decide.

The Experience

The coolest thing about playing The Balthazar Stone is the sheer spectacle of the game – which is probably why I took so many photos (too many to fit in one review). The production quality on this boxed game is extremely high. For starters, the contents of the game literally come locked inside the more treasure chest looking thing I’ve ever seen, complete with aged padlocks and trinkets.

As well as the physical component, you’ll also need to head online to The Mystery Agency’s website where other resources – such as newspaper records and death notices can be found to help aide your solving of the game. Logging into this interface was just as special as the treasure trove of goodies though, as it’s all themed around The Mystery Agency. You log into a very vintage looking computer system, and have other folders such as ‘Hints’ and where to begin scattered about the desk – all clickable of course!

From here you weave your way through the game unlocking each layer of the locked box as you go. Arguably, I found that with each layer the puzzles got a little bit more difficult. The first three digit code was fairly easy to crack using the newspaper that came with the box but from here in I was on my own with stacks of pirate maps, feathers and corks.

The whole thing is themed beautifully. From the thin paper stock for the newspaper, to weathered materials that felt centuries old… It just felt genuine. You, the player, aren’t merely passive. You’re part of the action and holding a very valuable treasure chest in front of you. It’s magical.

In some ways I felt it would be technically possible to play the game in a non-boxed form. There weren’t any puzzles that explicitly needed to be physical. Taking the corks and feathers as an example again – these could have been drawings or even images on my computer screen, sure. But as the physicality of the game was what I enjoyed the most, I wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s a little pricier than your average ‘play at home game’ but if you enjoy feeling like a real life treasure hunter in the most immersive way possible, you can’t do too wrong with The Balthazar Stone.

The Puzzles

This game is split into three areas, with a three digit lock at each. What this means is that most of the game revolves around finding a three digit code. If you keep this in mind, you’ll be golden. The rest of the story falls into place around this.

I’d rate the puzzles around the “medium” level of difficulty. As a solo player I completed this in exactly an hour with help from one or two clues to get started towards the beginning. The whole time I had my player 2 hovering nearby wondering what on Earth I was doing.

“Looking for treasure again”
“You bet.”

And of course, weighing in on the occasional puzzle.

My favourite puzzles in this box revolved around looking for co-ordinates on a map. Again, this was broken down into further, smaller puzzles, but anything that lets me roll out a big pirate’s map and pinpoint locations is a double thumbs up in my book. I love it!

Overall

A thoroughly enjoyable treasure hunt style play at home escape room. Although I suppose you’re not really escaping from anything, you’re unlocking padlocks to get into something. It’s easily one of my favourite play at home escape room experiences of 2021 so far (woah are we already halfway through the year?!) and it’s definitely put The Mystery Agency’s upcoming games on my radar.

I’d be remiss not to mention that in recent times, the company as a whole has had a little controversy around this (and other) games being distributed publicly before Kickstarter backers received copies. Some production errors also meant that some players have received multiple boxes and others none. As neither a Kickstarter backer, nor a purchaser (thanks again for lending me your copy, Armchair Escapist!), I don’t have an experience to share, but I thought it worth mentioning nonetheless. From what I can tell their customer service has been generally positive though, and the high quality product has enabled them to bounce back from this and go on to continue planning and making more games. In fact, I hear they have a 4th in the works now too!

My only regret? Borrowing the game and not owning it myself! The treasure chest it comes in is gorgeous and I’d love to show it off at parties.

“Oh? What’s this? Only a mysterious stone lost for centuries that drives people insane… Wanna give it a go?”

The Balthazar Stone can be purchased for £40 via The Mystery Agency’s website here.

Escape Live: Pirate Plunder | Review

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A mysterious Pirate Ship has crashed into the Pier. Rumour has it this is the ship sailed by notorious Pirate Sharkbait Sully but he and his crew are nowhere to be seen. You and your team need to solve the secrets of the ship before the ship sinks and your team become shark bait themselves.

Rating: Yarrghhh-mazing
Completion Time: 36 minutes
Date Played: 16th March 2021
Party Size: 4
Recommended For: Actual pirates

Pirate Plunder is a real life escape room playable at Escape Live Essex *however* if you look at the date we played, yep- you guessed it- we were still in lockdown! Instead of being able to visit in person, we gave the virtual “Telescape” version of the game a go. Essentially Escape Live have fully digitised their physical escape room into a rather cool point-and-click environment, complete with interesting puzzles, exciting ‘aha’ moments, and a pre-recorded live actor to guide us around the room. Almost as good as the real thing!

For this mission, I joined the Escaping the Closet team both as a little warm-up for an upcoming competition and a Tuesday evening hang out, and we aced it! Again, I couldn’t have asked for a better team! We hopped into the game link and barely 30 minutes later ‘yo ho ho’-ed ourselves to victory (wow remind me not to say that phrase ever again please haha).

The Tech

Pirate Plunder is built in Telescape, meaning you have a complete 360 view of your room and a pretty handy inventory system. If anyone in your team finds an item, it goes into the collective inventory for all to see! At all points in the game you can see everyone else’s mouse (mice?) on the screen, which works well for communication.

The Game

The story of Pirate’s Plunder goes… You are invited onboard a mysterious pirate ship only to discover the crew are all missing. But there’s a mysterious rumour about this ship. Hidden somewhere in the captain’s quarters is a cursed *cough* piece of treasure: The Golden Anchor. You must work your way through the ship and get at that treasure. Curse? Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m sure it’s nothing… Right?

This escape room is three rooms deep and makes excellent use of the whole pirate-y vibe. In fact, the theming is one of the best I’ve seen in a while! It looks and feels like a real pirate ship, complete with weathered barrels, ropes hanging here and there, and a very exciting second room which takes you up onto the deck! I can almost smell the sea air and hear the seagulls ‘caw’ up above!

The Puzzles

The main thing to say about the puzzles in Pirate’s Plunder is that they are very pirate-y, again – big compliments on their use of rope puzzles and mysterious chests and fanciful locks hidden around. In each section of the game you’re looking for items which will help unlock the next room. This makes it quite a “search and find” game – but this worked very well in a digital environment, giving everyone something to do right from the offset.

Players can also expect to encounter a sliding puzzle, a find-and-sort puzzle, colour puzzles, hanging rope puzzles and more. There was just one red herring I can think of- and even then, it wasn’t too much of a red herring but we did spend quite some time repeatedly clicking on it hoping for a clue. Haha oops!

Overall, we had a lot of fun! Escape rooms are always bound to be better with good company, but Pirate Plunder was a sweet room with lots of surprises and great set design all the way through. For a digital experience, not bad at all and I’m glad to have the opportunity to play this game without travelling too!

The digital version of Pirate Plunder can be booked for £25 via their website. The live version can be played at the Essex branch from £15 pp here.

Escape Hunt: Blackbeard’s Treasure

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Step onto a pirate galleon in the middle of a battle for control of the High Seas. Your captain, the terrifying Blackbeard, has just been killed and his ship is shot to pieces and sinking fast.

Rating: Swashbuckling
Completion Time: 41:40
Date Played: October 2019
Party Size: 3
Recommended For: Everybody

Another edition in my “I played this ~1 year ago but only got around to writing it up now” series. Well, it’s been a long year. Better late than never, eh? Plus, since October 2019 I have actually played Blackbeard’s Treasure at another site so *hair swish* I guess I’m an expert on this room? Just kidding!

The tale of Blackbeard’s Treasure goes – you and your team find yourself stranded on a sinking pirate ship. Sure, you could immediately jump ship and row your way across the ocean to safety but where would be the fun in that? Plus, rumour has it there is treasure aboard. The legendary Blackbeard’s Treasure. It’s hidden somewhere inside his personal quarters and its your job to find it and get to safety before the ship sinks.

Our escapade onto Blackbeard’s pirate ship was run by the enigmatic Games Master at their Reading branch: Hamish who provided a yarrghh-larious accent over the speaker to keep us moving along when we asked for clues. Blackbeard’s Treasure is available at quite a few other locations across the UK with minor variations, but we played at the closest branch to London: Reading!

In terms of gameplay, Blackbeard’s Treasure is fairly linear. You start in one room, unlocking the next, and finally unlocking the treasure. Although, I say “unlocking” very loosely, as there aren’t actually any locks in this game! The puzzles instead rely on less usual solutions and most surprisingly – rely on 4 of your 5 senses. See, I actually enjoy lock puzzles and think locks work very well in a pirate universe, but Escape Hunt manages to pull it off without breaking the immersion.

However, one puzzle in particular is absolutely fiendish. If “Polly the Parrot” rings terror into the hearts of anyone reading this who have already played the game, you’ll know what I mean! Haha! I don’t wish to give any spoilers, but if I never hear Polly the Parrot’s song again, I’ll be happy. We got there in the end and finished the room in a respectable 41 minutes!

Overall, Blackbeard’s Treasure is good fun! It’s one of my favourite from Escape Hunt and has buckets of charm. If any of my previous reviews are to go on, I’m also a sucker for a good pirate theme. With this one, I reckon it would be a good room to bring someone who has never played an escape room before. The puzzles are intuitive, exciting, but not too tricky as to put anyone off.

Blackbeard’s Treasure can be booked for £25 + per person on Escape Hunt’s website.

Try 2 Escape: A Pirate’s Life | Review

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You are a brave pirate who has been trying to find Blackbeard’s treasure for many years. You know if you find his treasure this would make you the Pirate of all Pirates. You’ll need to use all your cunning and bravery to solve the clues to find where the treasure lies and sail the seven seas.

Rating: Yo ho yes!
Completion Time: 35 minutes
Date Played: 15th October 2020
Party Size: 2
Recommended For: Small Group, Adults or Families

A Pirate’s Life is a short and sweet play at home escape game from the crafty people behind Leisure Kings, who have turned their hand from team events to something a little more digital: online escape games from the comfort of your own home! Introducing Try 2 Escape.

The idea and object of this game is simple. You are a pirate, locked up (perhaps rightfully by the amount of grog I’d apparently drunk!) and alone, who must first break out of jail, find a ship (with the help of hilariously named Two Toes Terry!), and set sail into the sunset in search of the legendary Blackbeard’s treasure!

I actually remember reading about this in an article a long time ago. I think I must have been googling Octopuses (just your normal Google searches huh?) – they think some of Blackbeard’s Treasure might have been found. Little do the archaeologists know that actually, I just discovered his treasure myself! Right now, when I played this game. That’s right – we won!

The game is overall fun and light hearted. Player 2 and I finished this one at the end of a cosy Thursday night over a couple of drinks around my laptop. I’ve never actually played a game of this format via Zoom, but the website does recommend it would be good for that too! For me – where a game is linear with one puzzle each after another protected by a password at each stage – I think an in-person group is just the ticket for the best player experience.

If you do want to boost the experience of playing A Pirate’s Life up a few notches, the game comes with a ‘setting up guide’ which includes some of the coolest looking cocktail suggestions I’ve ever heard! Alcoholic or… Grog free! You’ve also got a kit of printable costumes (eyepatches and wrap around pirate hats!), and a cheat-sheet of pirate slang. You bet I studied up and I’ll be shivering my timbers the rest of the weekend!

Our cocktails… Well they had grog in them! I went a little off menu on this one as my ingredient collection was limited – but if you want to try what we tried, combine sweet pea tea (for the blue colour) with whiskey, a dash of bitters, lemon and syrup. The little octopus I cut out of an apple is optional!

In terms of puzzles, the game starts easy peasy and ramps up to a good level of difficulty by the end! In particular Try 2 Escape has really good website interactivity – each puzzle has click and drag elements, things to assemble, jigsaws to put back together and a slider puzzle which probably took me 60% of the total time take to finish! Haha.

I mention it as I think this is the first online escape game I’ve played that makes good use of this interactivity. There’s no printing, no static pages you have to copy into MS Paint to manipulate! A nice touch!

A Pirate’s Life can be purchased for £20 on Try 2 Escape’s website.

Unlock!: The Tonipal’s Treasure

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The Tonipal’s Treasure, sets you at the start of a hunt for the treasure of Captain Smith, hidden somewhere on Tonipal Island. As your adventure begins, you’ve been arrested by the Governor and thrown into prison from where you’ll need to escape quickly, especially since Johnson, a famous treasure hunter, is also on his way to Tonipal in search of the very treasure that you seek.

Rating: Yarrghhh’mazing
Completion Time: 61 minutes
Date Played: 9th August 2020
Party Size: 2

The Tonipal’s Treasure is one of the Mystery Adventures set by play at home game company, Unlock! As with their other games, the whole experience fits in your pocket. It’s just a deck of cards and the Unlock! App. Compared to all the other’s I’ve played so far (The Island of Doctor Goorse & The Nautilus’ Traps plus the others I haven’t quite got round to writing up yet), The Tonipal’s Treasure is my easy favourite! I LOVED IT!

Yes okay, it’s not listed in my bio but I am quite partial to pirate games. Literally, there’s nothing more enjoyable than putting on the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack and searching for treasure. Pirates are … Cool!

So stepping into the world of Tonipal in search of treasure was an absolute joy. There’s such a fun narrative in this game. First, you’re locked up in a prison cell. Step one is to break out (but don’t worry, you later come back for your cellmates!), then what follows is an exciting trip from location to location. You meet good guys, bad guys, and voodoo priestesses. You’ll have opportunities to make a choice (whether you want to fight or flight, for example) which gives the game an impression of a ‘choose your own adventure’.

The puzzles too were enjoyable. In the past, we’ve found some of the Unlock! games are a little harder to follow but this one was great fun and just the right kind of challenging. The game relies a lot on ‘Machine’ cards, which are green. These give you a code to input into the app and there you can interact with your environment. One such puzzle has you create a recipe, another sticking pins in a doll. As well as Machine Cards, there are lots of items to collect, the meaning for which may not even become clear until right at the end of the game which again – brilliant!

In particular, I loved the ending puzzle. If, whilst playing (and from my photographs) you couldn’t tell that the backs of the cards have a particularly suspicious treasure map design … Well then you’re in for a treat because yes, the final puzzle involves an epicly large treasure map that didn’t quite fit on our table.

A final note on this review of The Tonipal’s Treasure, a post-game Google told me that apparently when you finish, there’s in fact a bonus extra mission that takes you on a real life immersive treasure hunt! I’ll try not to give any spoilers here – although since what I’m about to describe has now ended it’s a very low stakes spoiler – but effectively when you finish this game you have a card or two left over and a secret code that points you towards a URL. The URL offers more clues, which reference completely different games in the series. Any players lucky enough to solve the whole thing (and it looked hard!) would be rewarded well. The puzzles are absolutely still there, but you’ll not find a prize at the end anymore.

The Tonipal’s Treasure can be purchased for approximately £15 on Amazon, or local retailers.