Pirate Cave: Pirate Cave (Budapest)

A solid, but quick start to our Budapest trip

Ahoy Adventurer!

Arrrgh you ready to steal the pirates’ raft,, and find their hideout with treasure?

Budapest has historically been an escape room mecca, mostly thanks to the quantity of games, and to an extent, the price. We had been planning to go to Budapest for a while, and finally managed to work a plan to make it happen with a couple of friends of ours.

After an easy flight from London, we arrived in Budapest and got straight in an Uber to take us to the first escape room of the trip, Pirate Cave by, ummm, Pirate Cave. The journey was short and inexpensive, and we found ourselves on what felt like an industrial type of estate, or maybe a business park, standing outside the entrance to the venue.

We were greeted by our host, Richard, and escorted inside the building. There were toilets (that could be used before the game) and a small space to store bags and coats – which was useful seeing as we had come straight from the airport. After storing away our possessions we were shown a briefing video in the reception area, given some cool tattoos, and then we entered the Pirate Cave.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

We’ve played many pirate ship games, but I think I can count on one hand how many pirate cave themed games we’ve played. It made a nice change to be on ‘dry land’ in a piratey world and the set was both well designed and spacious. Like many pirate rooms, we started off in a smaller prison cell space, but once we were free of that, the game opened up massively and we had plenty of space to explore without getting in each others’ way.

Music from The Pirates of the Caribbean played throughout which added to the atmosphere and kept spirits up. This game also had one bit of set design that was simply delightful and shows that if you have the space (and the ability) adding stuff just for fun is never a bad choice. There are simply ways to move between spaces, and then there is the Pirate Cave way. Silly? Yes, in many ways.. Over the top? Definitely? Fun and a great addition to the set? Hell yes!

Ok, it doesn’t have Hollywood level of set design, but the rooms had walls that were suitably painted and extra bits to make it feel more immersive. Each area felt distinctly different to the one we had just come from and these worked together to help us feel like we were progressing through our own adventure story.

I can’t comment on the accessibility of this game so it’s probably worth asking in advance if that is a concern. But from what I can recall, there were some smaller spaces, and one or two parts that would probably require a little dexterity, and at one point one member of the team will need to be able to climb a ladder.

PUZZLES

All of the puzzles in this game were at least tangentially linked to the pirating world, and solving them would generally open a padlock or trigger a piece of tech. But there were quite a lot of nice and chunky mechanisms in Pirate Cave to get our teeth into. We managed to split up at various points and work independently on puzzles, but there were the occasional puzzles that brought us back together to solve as a team.

Puzzles followed the usual escape room tropes: searching, observation, teamwork, skill, touch, wordplay, directions, logic, riddles – the usual really. All the puzzles were fair though, and I can’t think of any that felt out of place or unfair.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Richard was a great host, and gave us a lovely welcome when we arrived and gave us a good debrief after the game. I don’t believe we needed any help, as the puzzles were fair and the signposting was good, but if we did need help there were a couple of clue delivery systems in place. The first system needed to be unlocked, and if you needed help you had to ‘earn it’, and then later in the game was a different system that again felt like a part of the story.

Unlike many games now-a-days, this game had a timer in the rooms so we always knew how long we had left. This is a 60 minute game, but I see from the website that this venue does have the option to give teams a little extra time if needed. We ended up completing the game in 22 minutes, so I don’t think enthusiasts will find it overly challenging and need that extra time.

ANYTHING ELSE

This was a good first Budapest game for us, partially because it was a fun and solid game, but also thanks to the proximity to the airport. This gave us a good feel of what we would encounter in Budapest, and if you’re heading to the city, Pirate Cave is a good game to have on your list.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 4 players – 22:06 taken

Address: Budapest, Fehér út 10, 1106 Hungary

Website: https://escapepirateroom.com/