Pirate's Cove

(This review has been copied over and altered slightly from a review on our old blogsite "Unlock'DE") AESTHETICS: Pirate's Cove wasn’t quite as immersive as some of Axxiom's other rooms, but the nautical theme and pirate aesthetic were easy to see. Wooden crates, skull and crossbones, boats, and flags all kept the theme on point. 4/5 PUZZLES: There was a nice mix of physicality, logic puzzles, and observational solutions that made this a very solid experience, though it could potentially be frustrating to less dexterous people. Puzzles involving a set of hooked poles to retrieve a set of keys, or maneuvering a keyring through a tangled wall of chains is time consuming to perform and far more costly to mess up. People who are easily frustrated should probably leave these puzzles for another player in the room. The remaining puzzles involved collection and assembly. This is also a room where the same key is used in multiple locks, which is uncommon to escape rooms (or at least the ones we know) and might stump those unaware. 4/5 FLOW: Once things fell into place, the flow remained pretty smooth. Design elements from one puzzle would potentially be key to solving a second puzzle, which was a very interesting way to keep the generally smaller spaces and decor relevant. Accessing the second room was also a lot of fun in execution, though there were many decoy objects found in multiple places and the two objects needed to solve the puzzle were simply together in the last drawer you unlock. This just made the decoys seem unnecessary. 4/5 ASSISTANCE: Hints came in when they were needed and were very helpful. Nothing about the hints was overly vague or too obvious. The host did a good job informing us of what did or did not need to be moved about in the room. 5/5 OVERALL: This was a very solid room design overall, despite the cramped space. A massive table in the center made for a good workspace and storage area, but seemed larger than necessary for the room size. However, the utilization of decor as puzzles, clues, and props ultimately made for a cohesive and highly recommended experience. 5/5 THOUGHTS AND FEEDBACK: A puzzle involving food items was not as easy to understand, especially since half the food items didn’t really read as “food”. We found it very interesting and unique that a later puzzle referred back to the locks/chains puzzle, but that interest wore off a bit when we needed to refer back to it yet again. This is not a terrible design choice, but it may throw some people off pace since it’s so uncommon.

Overall, really liked the game play. Everything worked the way it was supposed to and it was a satisfying resolution. My only complaint is that they were too quick to give hints when we didn't need them.

Fun room with just 2 ppl. Just needed 30min sec

This was an excellent run of the mill escape room. Since I have seen many rooms of this theme, I can’t say that it was especially novel, but it was done well. The puzzles were clever, one was a little tricky and unorthodox, but overall it was a good hour.

This room appeared to be traditionally designed yet had many high tech surprises! Enjoyed some fun elements of puzzles, teamwork, and cooperation. Made it to the final puzzle but was unable to escape :/ We recommend this room to other beginners who are looking for introductory great games.

This was a great room with some cool hidden elements.

Without letting out any spoilers, definitely some surprising effects in the room that made it enjoyable! It’s designed & feels like your actually on a pirate ship. There’s some unique puzzles I haven’t seen anywhere else that I really enjoyed.