An escape room with a dash of Dubrovnik history
In the medieval times, Dubrovnik was a small but powerful republic, which gathered a lot of wealth through trade and diplomacy. In 1667, after the Great Earthquake, a big part of the city’s treasure was buried under the ground.
Though it was thought to be lost forever, a secret society found it and hid it inside the Rector’s Office, now open as a museum, but no one knows where.
A young historian employed by the museum, who went rogue, asked for your help to crack the ancient mystery and agreed to be your eyes and hands inside the museum, as long as you share the treasure with him.
Find out interesting things from the past while solving the mystery, put your brain to work and figure out how to get to the treasure.
We’d heard the name ‘Puzzle Punks’ mentioned quite a lot in enthusiast circles, and personally I think it is one of the coolest escape room company names out there! Of course a good name doesn’t necessarily equate to a good room, but we had heard good things about their online rooms so we were hopeful.
Rather than simply having a GM that we interacted with, for this room we had a museum guide, Ivan. He played the part well and his interactions and input made the story feel much more real.
I’m not sure what the collective term for a group of bloggers is (an annoyance?) but we did this room with bloggers from two other review sites, EscapeTheRoomers and Escape Mattster so we were hopeful that we had the experience needed to be successful in unlocking the secret treasure of Dubrovnik.
CONCEPT/EXECUTION
There are a fair number of live avatar games available to play right now, and long may it continue, but not all were created equal. We’re quickly learning that there are different ‘extras’ that a company can put in place to really give your experience something extra. Two things that are becoming essential are the 360 degree view camera, and the inventory. Fortunately, this room had both.
The inventory system worked well with one person on the team responsible for logging the items. When we were exploring the room any items we would find that could be added to the inventory had clearly labelled codes that would be entered in the system. Once the ‘inventory master’ had entered the item it was available for the rest of the team to examine in closer detail.
The 360 view was another nice touch as this enabled us to get an idea of what was in the room before we then asked our guide to look at items. This photo was also interactive so we could click on certain items for a close up which made it much easier to solve some of the puzzles.
PUZZLES
I think if we were playing this room in real life we would probably get through it pretty quickly as a team. It plays out in a non-linear way which would normally enable everyone to work on different things. Online of course, that isn’t the case. We seemed to solve puzzles simply in the order we found them but I think we could have solved most of them in any order. The puzzles were mainly logic based and observational and we didn’t really need any ‘outside of the box’ thinking to solve them.
There were a number of padlocks and some tech, but also a number of tangible puzzles that needed physical manipulation; fortunately, our guide was up for the task. The puzzles were very thematic, and loosely based on the history of Dubrovnik (shipping routes, diplomatic missions, etc.) which gave an added interest to each puzzle we solved.
GM/CLUE SYSTEM
Ivan did a great job as our guide and where we often find that we’re in a rush to solve puzzles and get out, that didn’t seem like a priority here. As we were solving puzzles we were learning about the history of Dubrovnik, something that Ivan is clearly passionate about, and it was a joy to hear.
We didn’t need any clues for this room as we found it was on the simpler side, but if we did Ivan would have no doubt guided us subtly in the right direction.
After the game we were able to finally see Ivan (everything was POV prior to this) and have a chat about the room and the history behind it. Fun fact, some of the waiting area at Puzzle Punks is made from old props from the movie Robin Hood, no, not that Robin Hood, the other one staring Taron Egerton.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A simpler room, but filled with history and intrigue and still managed to pack in a few surprises thanks to the use of tech. Our guide, Ivan, did a great job in bringing the theme to life.
GOOD TO KNOW
- Number of connections: Upto 6 devices
- Price: 60€
- Devices: Laptop/Desktop
- Platform: Zoom
- Inventory: Yes
- 360º View: Yes
- Time Zone: CET (Dubrovnik)
Final Rating:
| Puzzles | |
| Concept/Execution | |
| GM/Clue System | |
| Value for Money | |
| Enjoyment |
Team: 5 players
Time Taken: 42:00
Website: https://puzzlepunks.com
*Disclaimer: we weren’t charged for this experience, but this has not influenced our review.
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