MindMaze: Nautilus (Prague)

A fun adventure!

Professor Baron Emmanuel von Katzenstein und Kartoffelberg is a genius – an inventor, an adventurer, an explorer, and a madman. Very rich by the way. His letter reaches you, wherein the Professor asks for your help. Will you get to drive the submarine that the Professor used to hunt sea-monsters with? Or perhaps he wants you to continue his experiment of scientifically measuring magic? Either way, you can be sure, an adventure awaits!

We had planned a lovely week travelling around Poland when we suddenly realised that we were only four hours away from Prague, and an escape room conference was taking place there, Prague Escaping Summit. So we quickly rejigged our plans, cancelled flights and escape rooms, and then rebooked everything but this time our flights were from Prague, not Wroclaw.

After a stupidly early train from Wroclaw, we arrived into Prague at 0900 and had enough time for a coffee before heading to MindMaze to play our first escape room in Czechia, Nautilus.

If you follow the TERPECAs at all, then you’ll probably know that Galactic Pioneers is generally considered to be the heavy-hitter at MindMaze. I don’t know which came first, but Nautilus debuted in the awards back in 2022, at a very respectable position 116.

Because it was the conference weekend we were fortunate that the owners of MindMaze were there when we arrived, so we had time for plenty of chats – truly lovely people!

We could have spent all day chatting with them, but we were of course there to visit the Nautilus! Our actual gamesmaster appeared in the reception area and gave us our briefings, before escorting us downstairs and leading us into the Professor’s study.

In the darkened room, we were greeted by a recording that the Professor had left for us. This reinforced our understanding of the mission and pointed out some additional key details that we needed. When the message ended, the lights brightened and our time began!

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

I’m always jealous when we visit countries and they have basements in their buildings; I’ve always thought they were cool spaces and wanted one myself – one day. Because the games at MindMaze (at least at this location) are in the basement, access is more limited and you will need to go down stairs to get to it. Once in the game though, other than a few things to step over and crouch/duck through, it’s easy enough to move around.

MindMaze have taken what were probably awkward spaces and made them work for their themes. The professor’s study certainly had an air of authenticity to it thanks to the curved brick ceiling.

This game had a great sense of adventure and the tasks we were completing helped drive the narrative, and made sense in the context of the game. Even I understood the story on this one and we truly felt immersed in their world.

Considering the age of this game, it seemed to be in nearly perfect condition. In terms of wear and tear, there was only one puzzle that was showing any signs of wear, everything else looked perfect. After speaking with the owners, we know why, they’re constantly tweaking and evolving the game. Even though it’s ‘older’, they have plans for changing it even more to improve the overall aesthetic, gameplay and immersion.

PUZZLES

MindMaze themselves are quite happy to admit that this is their easiest game in terms of puzzle difficulty, which would explain why we flew through it in around 30 minutes.

There’s nothing wrong with an ‘easier’ game, it was actually a nice warm-up for our day. Difficulty is also subjective and can be affected by many things, like poor signposting or illogical leap – but there was none of that in Nautilus. The puzzles were fair, satisfying and everything was signposted well.

This is very much a family friendly game, and I would say that the difficulty level matches that, in a good way: observation, teamwork, communication, minor searching, and colours played a part in the puzzles.

There was one particular puzzle that had the opportunity to be extremely frustrating, and I imagine other puzzle designers would have made it so. MindMaze however, made it fun and removed any element of frustration. In its current form it took a few minutes to solve, but if they had been evil, this could have taken a long time to complete and really killed the momentum in the game.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Because we found the puzzles intuitive and fair, we didn’t need any help of hints, but if we did they would have come from a cool and immersive system that MindMaze had created – no walkie-talkies here!

To request a clue we would simply have to press a very specific button and an audio clue would have been delivered. Knowing how closely our game was being watched, I have no doubt that the clue would have come through right away.

This clue system is always present, regardless of where your adventure takes you. But make sure you don’t leave it behind – we nearly did on a couple of occasions, but fortunately it was very good about reminding us!

ANYTHING ELSE

Nautilus isn’t the big ticket game at this venue, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play it. If you’re travelling with family, then take the kids. If you’re a group of enthusiasts, then use it as a warm up.

This game has a lovely set, wonderful game flow, and enjoyable puzzles. Would we recommend it? Yes. Yes we would.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2 Players

Address: Opatovická 4, 110 00 Nové Město, Czechia

Website: http://www.mindmaze.cz/