DreadLock Escape Rooms: You Plonker! (Bodmin)

Lovely Jubbly!

You’ve only gone and bagged yourself the bargain of the century! Amongst a pile of tat you bought for a fiver at the local car-boot, you found an extremely rare diamond… cushty!

There is just one small problem…

While borrowing your van for the evening, your dipstick brother only went and parked on double yellows – now the van’s been towed away, with the diamond in the glove box!

There’s only one thing for it, you’re going to have to wait ‘til dark, break into the tow company’s premises and retrieve the diamond, before someone else gets their mitts on it!

What a PLONKER!

We often book holidays due to escape rooms that are nearby. Generally that takes us to places like Athens, Barcelona, Amsterdam, but on this occasion it was a little closer to home, Bodmin. We found a cheap deal for a cabin at Bodmin Holiday Park which is the location for perhaps our favourite escape room venue in Cornwall, DreadLock, and got booked in.

We’ve visited DreadLock a few times over the years, and have never had a bad time. In the past we’ve played Witch Way Out, Let the Games Begin, and Detention. But since our last visit, they had opened up a couple more games, You Plonker!, and The Great EGGscape.

After possibly the shortest journey to an escape room we’ve ever had, we arrived at the familiar venue and were warmly welcomed by the lovely owners, Deb and Gemma. After a nice little catchup, it was time to get down to business. First up was You Plonker!

You may or may not be able to tell from the name of this game, but it takes its theme from ‘Only Fools and Horses’. Fortunately, you don’t need to know anything about the show to be able to play, and enjoy this game. If you are a fan of the show, then you should really just get booked in now.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

I always say it, but I love it when a room design is carried over into the outside space of the game, and that was the case for You Plonker, in fact the game actually started outside the room which was a nice touch (although if wasn’t for Liz, we’d have been waiting outside for a lot longer than we should).

Once we got into the game proper, we encountered a pretty unexciting space, but it played into the story and the game soon opened up into a more exciting and interesting space that was enjoyable to explore. I’ll admit that I never really watched Only Fools and Horses, but I’m sure that most people would recognise at least one certain iconic (yellow) thing from the show, and this game would have been lessened without it.

We played as a team of two and had plenty of space to move around, but even larger teams wouldn’t be on top of each other in this game. I think this game is probably pretty accessible too, which was nice. There is one spot where one player on your team will need to be a bit mobile, but other than that, it was all on one level and quite spacious.

PUZZLES

I’ve always enjoyed the puzzles that Dreadlock create, and generally they seem to click with us with things making sense (let’s not talk about their weekly puzzles on Facebook though, those make no sense at all to me most of the time!). We had high hopes for this game, and fortunately, the puzzles were just as satisfying as in their other games; searching, observation, wordplay, communication, teamwork, and logic puzzles. And they all felt like they belonged in the crazy world of You Plonker!

I’d say the majority of the puzzles resulted in combinations for padlocks, but there was still a good amount of tech thrown in. There was also an element of suspense which I really didn’t expect from this game, but it was well done, and added some extra entertainment – just make sure you listen to the instructions!

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

The team at Dreadlock are always lovely, and always pay close attention to any game that they’re hosting. Our hosts for You Plonker, Deb and Gemma, were a delight. They gave us an enthusiastic briefing and then disappeared, leaving us to our mission.

I don’t recall how much assistance we needed, but I definitely remember one puzzle causing us problems and we had to ask for assistance with that. It was very much a case of us being dim, as the puzzle was fair, with strong sign-posting right next to it, we were just idiots. As soon as we requested the help, we received it almost immediately and it was enough to get us back on track right away.

To request a clue, we just had to press a button in the room and then the clue would be delivered on a screen in the room.

ANYTHING ELSE

Dreadlock seem to keep upping their game with each new game they play, and You Plonker was another great way to spend an hour. Sadly we’ve now played all of their games so we probably won’t be back until they open up a new game, but they have just opened up Overnight Escapes, which is an overnight escape room cabin at the Bodmin Holiday Park – so maybe we’ll head back sometime for that!

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players

Address:  Holiday Park, Old Coach Rd, Lanivet, Bodmin PL30 5JJ

Website: https://www.dreadlockescape.co.uk/