Break Escape: Dead Man’s Chest (Nottingham)

A game to fill time, perhaps

Can you crack open the Dead Man’s Chest for the riches that slumber deep inside?

But what’s that? A sharp creak from the ship’s deck above…

You’ll have to crack it open quickly before the crewmates find you and make you walk the plank!

Will you find the treasure? Or end up in Davy Jones’s locker?

We were in Nottingham to mop up some games we had yet to play, which included all the games at Break Escape as they weren’t open last time we went to Nottingham.

On this trip, at Break Escape we had booked in for Sorcerer’s Sword, Chocolate Factory, Orbital, and Dead Man’s Chest. Dead Man’s Chest was actually the odd one out as it was more of a box game than a full escape room. Generally we don’t normally do these, but we had time to kill so we thought ‘Why not?’.

We had already played our first two games, then hopped to Escapologic for Violet, and finally returned just after lunch for Dead Man’s Chest. We were greeted by our host and escorted up to the top floor – this building has a lot of steps, so if accessibility is a concern, you should check with the venue directly.

Outside of the room, or maybe inside, I can’t recall now, we received our briefing and then it was time to get going.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

First things first, this isn’t what we’d class as a traditional escape room, it’s essentially a box game. It’s basically that, a self contained box that is on a table and everything you need is within that box. Break Escape have decorated the room around it to make it more immersive, but it’s still all focused on the box.

These ‘box’ games are an interesting concept and they solve a problem for a venue with space to use who perhaps don’t want to fit out a full escape room. They’re cheap (comparatively), and very easy to run/host. Of course there is a flip-side to them, and that is that they may not be up to the quality of the rest of the games at a venue. That’s what we found at Break Escape, their other games were good fun, this one left us wanting to break things.

The chest itself was fine, and had some cool tech built into it but we just really didn’t gel with it at all. These boxes generally feel like an afterthought and they just don’t have the immersion or fun that we expect from an escape room now.

We played as a team of two and even then at times we found that one of us was standing around with nothing to do while the other person worked on the puzzle. So if you were to play as a four (the max listed on the Break Escape website), then be prepared to do a good amount of standing around.

PUZZLES

As you may expect from a box game, Dead Man’s Chest plays out in a linear fashion, with one puzzle leading on to the next. Of course the problem you may have is if you get stuck on one thing, there’s not much you can do except get help. Sadly with at least one puzzle in this game, there is only so much the hint system can do, and if you can’t do it, you have to just keep trying until you eventually do. This, particularly, is an instant fun killer in escape rooms for us, and with no way of bypassing it, we very quickly lost the will to live – especially when the hints system kept telling us what we already knew and didn’t actually help!

The puzzles in/on the chest involved observation, colours, pattern recognition, physical/spatial awareness, and logic. I’d like to say I liked them, but for the most part, I didn’t. One I actually hated, and some had us questioning what to do next.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Although we had a GM who welcomed us and showed us into the room, the help system was built into the chest and was all automated. If we needed help, we simply had to press the eye on the skull and an in-character voice would come out of a speaker in the box and tell us what to do next. With some of the puzzles it was actually able to help, and for those, it would just gently nudge, and I assume eventually give you the answer if you still couldn’t figure it out. But sadly, like I said before, there was at least one puzzle that it just wasn’t able to help with. And if you can’t do this sort of thing for whatever reason, you will just get more and more frustrated by the ‘help’.

ANYTHING ELSE

I can totally understand why companies buy-in these box games, but so far, we’re not really a big fan of them. They often don’t match the quality of homemade games at the venue, and have so far been a lesson in frustration for us.

I can’t fault the build quality of the game though, the tech was cool and it did have some surprising moments. This is listed as a more budget option to an escape room, so if you’re looking for some cheap(er) entertainment, then maybe this is an option.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players – 34 mins

Address: 9a Market St, Nottingham NG1 6HY

Website: https://breakescape.co.uk/nottingham