I really wanted to like this room, especially with how passionate and excited the owner was, as well as the caliber and level of their other rooms. It's a unique play on your stereotypical pirate theme, and the immersion was great, but we couldn't get past the interrupted flow throughout the game.
We were warned prior that this is one of the most difficult rooms they have, and we can definitely see why. There are a lot of leaps in logic required to see how the information you have relates to a specific lock or puzzle. Even when you make that connection, what seems logical actually isn't.
There's a puzzle that requires a certain order of numbers, but there is no indication of how you should find that order. We thought we had found a cool decorative answer to what the order is, but nope it was something very different that we wouldn't have easily figured out unless we guessed.
Another lock requires you to have a set of numbers, but nowhere on that lock does it have any reference as to where those numbers could come from. The props you could use to solve this clue make sense in hindsight, but there are too many red herrings that have no point in the puzzle or game in general. With the already ambiguous plot (the pre-game video wasn't very detailed on what the purpose of the room is), you try and make everything fit, but a lot of props are just for show. Thinking back, I liked the decoration and theming and immersion, but a lot of it seemed like it was just there to fill the room rather than be of any use. There's minimal logical connection of which props are supposed to be used for which puzzles. The game is very linear, with one puzzle needing to be solved at a time. Once we solve a puzzle, momentum and flow stop because of the lack of forward direction on where we go next.
We were told that, on average, each group asks for about 8 to 10 hints. If this is the norm, especially for experienced players, then it's not that the game is too difficult. It's that there are key pieces missing from the game that allow for success. I love a good hard escape room where you worry if you're gonna make it out on time because the puzzles are just hard/required alternate thinking/lots of them/etc; at the end of those rooms, you still come out of it having enjoyed the challenge and love the room despite it's difficulty, because the flow was there, and once figured out, the puzzles did actually make sense. That was not the case here. I hope that they make some adjustments to provide a better puzzle experience- I would love to recommend this room to a lot of my pirate loving friends, but can't with the way it is now.
I rarely if ever give a thumbs down, but this room left us so disappointed, especially given the caliber and quality of their other rooms as well as the owners' description and excitement for this room when he first told us about it. The theme is fun and well suited for Tampa, but the ambiguous puzzles, lack of forward momentum, bottlenecks, lack of connection between puzzles and props made the flow very choppy.
Loved the atmosphere of the rooms! Even the squeaky floorboards made you feel like you were on a ship. Thematic music would add to the atmosphere even more!
Particularly interesting or different
No
You kinda get the gist of the plot but it's rushed and ambiguous in the pre-game video. Also, I didn't like that the pre-game video showed other parts of the room that we hadn't been to yet. I love being surprised when I go into a new room and the pre-game video took away from that. Maybe I wasn't sure about the plot because I was trying not to see things I didn't want to see yet.
The puzzles weren't technically difficult, just the ambiguity and lack of flow/fluidity with huge leaps in logic needed made this more difficult than it needed to be and not in a good way
Physically active
Not at all
