Escape Hunt Basingstoke: Blackbeard’s Treasure

Did this one with some colleagues even though I had done the Reading version previously. Rooms were much too small for more than 2, possibly 3, people so several people missed out on puzzles.

GM was enthusiastic and professional, but room lacked any difficult puzzles.

Positives first: The room looked brilliant and the theming was great. Our games master was responsive and helpful. Some of the puzzles were interesting and innovative and very satisfying to solve.

BUT several elements were broken, and the structure of the game was quite illogical. Quite a few things in the room we never figured out what they were for or how to use them and we completed the room without them. It’s not clear if they were red herrings or just broken so not in use. But it’s frustrating to have spent ten minutes trying to work out how (for example) to move two balls through a maze on the wall only to ultimately complete the room without ever doing it. There were a few things like this. Also there was one puzzle which required us to use our sense of smell but only 1 of the 5 smelly things actually smelled of anything so it was impossible. We got there in the end but only by random chance.

On the whole a mediocre experience and not very satisfying because the room just didn’t seem to follow a logical route to completion. 

Some tough puzzles. The look of the room probably is better than the puzzles themselves