DarkMaster Escape Rooms: Shamley’s Toy Makers

This is a tough one.  I though the first half of "One Wing Airlines" was great but was let down by the second half, I thought "Into the Reliquary" looked fantastic with some genuinely clever moments so I had been looking forward to playing Shamleys.  

The game looks great and carries on the same level of build quality and attention to detail that we had enjoyed in the previous games, the story was also intriguing and there's a clever start that was a nice touch.

The opening phase of the game is a fairly typical search and assessment of the environment, it was the main puzzle in that first area that probably derailed us.  With the theming of a toy shop there are some puzzles based on famour toys/games and (I'm trying to be as spoiler lite as possible) whilst they may have looked good on paper, I don't think they worked as a puzzle as the answers were open to varied interpretation.  This would be our problem in the second room with a similar setup.  We failed to escape and from what I've been told we were just over halfway through.  I also hadn't appreciated the fact that with it not having full height walls we could hear the team next door in Reliquary (they were stuck on a puzzle, we were fairly sure we knew which one and nearly offered assistance).  By the end, I had endured enough and wanted it to be over.

I think the game looks great and has some genuinely clever potential, I've played similar games with similar themes and ideas but with a much better puzzle execution.

Hints were delivered by a pocket thermal printer that whilst very effective (and I am looking to buy one for a project) wasn't overly in keeping with the theming.

What really irked though was at the end the GM (who was excellent, she was absolutely brilliant and hinted us well but it still wasn't enough) told us that we had got about as far as they expect teams to get and that if we could get a discount if we rebooked for another attempt.  

We won't be rebooking.

I have no problem with failing to escape a game, it happens, but this was just not a good experience, but the thing is, it really could be..

Dark Master is seemingly gaining a reputation and not one it probably wants.  

Looks great, puzzles with too many dull steps.
Locked boxes in boxes.

You cannot knock it for the amount of puzzles, but there is nothing new or inventive about them, and often have too many steps to be enjoyable.

There's a couple of things that shouldn't be in commercial escape rooms.

And, you can hear everything from the neighbouring room as no effort for any soundproofing was made.

It was time to return to the Darkmaster, for their third birthday offer was a great opportunity to get back down as we were passing through. Shamley's is a massive game, and certainly is a 90-minute game and not a 60-minute game disguised as a 90-minuter. Puzzles were mostly coherent, with a number of aha moments. We were stumped by one non-puzzle aspect of the room which felt like poor design upon reflection rather than just us being silly. If that aspect would have been different, I would have felt much more satisfied with the room as a whole. I also felt the ending, whilst unique, was also quite weak. One puzzle is in the wrong place in the room and so the pacing felt off from the start. Good puzzle, wrong place in the room . This puzzle's answer was also not quite satisfying since it didn't feel clear and found ourselves working out the answer from the most solid pieces of the answer (yes slightly confusing but if you play you'll understand).

This is now the second visit to DarkMaster, and the second time we have left feeling like the GM could have had a little bit more enthusiasm and just felt like with a little more oomph, it could have really made this room. Briefing was very, well, brief, the greeting was fairly standard, and the end of game entry and debrief really felt forced and a little on the awkward side. It's for this reason I can't give any more than the 3.5 stars here.  It's probably a high 4-4.3 star room, with slightly more from the GM. 

A magnificent behemoth of a room that provides a challenge that teams seem to either love or hate; we loved it and both ranked it as our favourite room at the venue but it could be a frustrating one and, with such a low escape rate, I can see why there are mixed reviews.

Saying that, our take on it was that having such a challenging room with so much to do - and having a whopping 90 mins to do it in - was a task we relished and there was a real sense of achievement in getting out with time left on the clock.

Setting-wise, this is incredible; the immersion feels real, as the build is so good. It's choc-a-block full of locks, which appeals to us but some of the more enjoyable elements of the room didn't involve locks, so there's a super mix of puzzles.

As a overall experience, there were moments of stress but it was incredibly enjoyable and we talked about this room for a long time afterwards.