Clue HQ: Captain Riddle’s Forgotten Fortune (Somerton)

Welcome to the world of escape rooms!

Captain Riddle was one notorious pirate. He was famous for pillaging from land and sea and holding his bounty within a hidden cave. The story has become legend over the years and no one is sure if the treasure exists anymore. You and your scallywag crew have commandeered his old ship and are now sailing in search of the gold. Paranoid that others would attempt to follow in his footsteps, he locked everything up and is said to have not written down the route to the loot. Riddle’s ship is protected, so you won’t have long after you set sail until others start to come after you.

ClueHQ Somerton are one of the companies that we would consider to be our ‘local’ escape room company. Normally, having a chain as a local isn’t ideal, but there’s something about the Somerton location that always makes them stand out for us – actually it’s not ‘something’, it’s the owners, they’re lovely and clearly enthusiasts themselves.

Despite living so close to Somerton, we were last here back in December 2019 when we played Detonation and Cell Block C. I’m not sure when they opened Captain Riddle’s Forgotten Fortune, but it is currently their newest game, and we had been saving it for a special occasion. That special occasion finally occurred, and we booked the two of us in, plus an extra, my (nearly) 12 year old niece, for her first ever escape room!

If you’ve never been to Somerton, it’s a lovely little historic market town in Somerset. So if you’re in town, or passing by, then it’s worth popping into Somerton for a little exploration. ClueHQ are located a little out of town on an industrial estate, which means there are never any issues with parking. We arrived at our allotted time and were welcomed by one of the owners, Geri, who made sure we were comfortable and then gave us a few minutes to use the facilities.

Geri returned shortly after and gave us the briefing regarding how padlocks work and what the emergency details were – I’d never seen my niece so still and attentive! Geri explained that she wouldn’t be our GM, instead it was Will who was behind the scenes and would be running our game. Geri then escorted us down the corridor and onto the darkened ship, where we then watched a video briefing on the screen. After that ended, the lights illuminated, and our time began.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

ClueHQ are an interesting operation as their games are all bought in from the ClueHQ catalogue, but that’s not to say that they can’t tweak them and make them their own. I imagine most games will need some tweaking as they have to make them fit the space they have available. I have no problem with companies like ClueHQ, especially when they’re as well run as the one in Somerton. Don’t get me wrong, we did play at ClueHQ Kingston many years ago and that had a very different vibe.

First impressions of the game were good, ok, not amazing compared to many we’ve played, but considering their market, it was totally fine. I always like Pirate ship games as all you really need to do is put some wood on the wall and it feels mostly authentic. Yes, there was wood on the wall, but there were some other features here and there that helped set the scene, oh, and this game is wheelchair accessible too which is a lovely touch.

As I mentioned, the room was darkened when we entered, and there were a few moments of darkness throughout the game, but this was to focus your attention on one thing, and to help drive the narrative forward. When we weren’t receiving the extra narrative the lighting was actually surprisingly decent throughout, and we were given a lantern should we need a little help with reading padlock numbers.

PUZZLES

Playing out in a linear fashion, I wouldn’t want to play this game with a larger team as I would imagine there could be a lot of standing around. As it was, Liz and I stepped back a lot to let our niece try and solve things which meant there wasn’t much else for us to do except make sure she didn’t try and eat a padlock (kids will be kids).

The linear gameplay actually worked in our favour on this occasion. As we were introducing our niece to the addictive all-consuming costly wonderful world of escape rooms, being linear meant that she could be involved in everything and not miss anything.

We found the usual puzzle tropes; observation, logic, following directions, very minor searching, basic maths and spatial awareness. Normally I don’t like seeing maths in an escape room, but it was great to see my niece immediately reach for the calculator to work out the solution.

Most of the puzzles resulted in combinations for padlocks, and there were a lot of padlocks, so when we got a code we split up to try it on all the possible options. That’s not to say it was 100% padlocks though, there was some tech and there was one input that was pretty cool, albeit a little finicky (precision is key here).

There was one puzzle which involved colours in a very minor way, and did cause a little issue for our resident colour-blindian, which was a shame as it could have been easily avoided with just one very subtle design change. Oh well, we got through it.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

The only member of ClueHQ we actually met was Geri, who was lovely, but I gather behind the scenes our game was being run by Will. Will was on the ball, as despite being told we had to ask for hints, there was one moment where he chimed him using his initiative as we had clearly missed something and this was stalling our progress. Rookie mistake – we didn’t check something the niece had done, so we missed something vital to our progression.

At one point we did have to ask for a little assistance, as somehow we had managed to confuse ourselves into thinking we had used a combination, when we actually hadn’t! We solved the puzzle, just didn’t actually use it – whoops. When clues were needed, they came via a screen in the room that displayed it as a text message, and with a noise so we knew to look at the screen.

ANYTHING ELSE

Generally we don’t recommend venues like ClueHQ, but ClueHQ Somerton always feels like an exception to that. If you haven’t played any of their games at other ClueHQ venues, then the Somerton branch is a good choice, especially if you’re looking to show someone what escape rooms are all about.

It’s always interesting when we have to rate and review games as we obviously review our experience, and we’re enthusiasts, so generally we want what enthusiasts want. But when we review games that may not be made for enthusiasts, we try to step back and understand who they are made for, and we rate/review accordingly.

Captain Riddle is not a game for enthusiasts, but it is a perfect game for someone to learn the ropes, and start a life-long addiction to escape rooms. My niece now wants to do another! Thanks ClueHQ, we’ve created a monster!

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2.5 players – escaped with 19:19 remaining

Address: Unit 5, Canvin Court, Somerton Business Park, Bancombe Rd, Somerton TA11 6SB

Website: https://cluehq.co.uk/somerton/