Escaparium: The Lost Island of the Voodoo Queen (Montreal)

When Voodoo meets Pirates!

The Admiral has given you direct orders to gather a crew to go in search of the Lost Island of the Voodoo Queen. Finding the right sailors might not be so easy as nobody has lived to tell about such an island or if it actually exists. If you find it, you shall seek and gather the knowledge to what is known as “eternal loneliness” from the Voodoo Queen; something the Admiral greatly seeks but for which you do not know the meaning of.

I often speak to owners and other enthusiasts in the escape room industry, and on this occasion it ended up costing us a lot of money. I stupidly spoke with Mark from Cryptology (if you haven’t played his games, you should) just after he got back from an epic North America escape room trip. In this conversation he couldn’t praise Escaparium highly enough. So of course, seeing that they were opening another new game which promised to be even more epic than the games that Mark played, we had to book a trip. So thanks Mark, that was a lot of money on flights, hotels, and escape rooms – all because of you!

To ensure we got the most from our Escaparium trip (and to make sure their new game, Magnifico’s Circus would be open in time), I spoke with Jonathan, the owner and mastermind behind Escaparium. We only had time for four games as we were playing with non-escape room people but the four we chose were all top quality. Jonathan suggested we played them in the order of opening, so first up was The Lost Island of the Voodoo Queen, followed by Wardrobe for Sale, The Forgotten Cathedral, and then Magnifico’s Circus.

We actually played The Lost Island on our first night in Montreal. We didn’t have time to fit in any others so it was just the one game for that night and we would return the following game for the headliners.

When we arrived we were greeted by a large waiting area and a wall (literally) of boardgames that we could play while we were waiting. I personally thought the lobby was decent as it was, but Escaparium don’t just do ‘decent’. They had recently had a flood so the usual lobby was wrecked and this was just a temporary space – but from speaking with Jonathan it sounds like what they have planned will really be something special!

We weren’t just greeted by the lobby and puzzles, randomly the escape room legends, Team S Squared (Sera, Sharon and Dave) were all in the lobby too! It was lovely to have a chat and catch up with them, although their North America road trip of a stupid number of games really put our trip to shame!

One thing that we noticed was different to the UK experience was that there was no health and safety briefing of any form, it was just ‘BOOM – immersion’. We were happily chatting in the lobby and then our pirate guide/GM appeared fully in character and whisked us away down the darkened corridors for our experience to begin.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

If there’s one word to take away from all of the experiences that we played at Escaparium it would be ‘IMMERSIVE’. Literally everything in this experience is designed to take you away into an alternate reality and immerse you in this often odd world that Escaparium have created.

This is one of those rooms that doesn’t just start with a generic door, it starts long before you actually enter the ‘room with the puzzles’. As we were shown towards the entrance, our GM had some wonderful dialogue and interaction that helped set the tone of the room and also indicate what our mission actually was.

The set for this game was epic, there’s no other word for it really. Ok, perhaps expansive? That works too. Even before the game started we were impressed, and this feeling never left us. Although at one point I managed to get a glimpse of how big the set was and my heart sunk a little thinking that we’d never get through it all in time (spoiler alert: we did).

This game just kept going. Every time we thought we’d discovered everything, we then found more!  The sounds, the smells, the GM, the theatrics, everything in this experience was designed to fully immerse us in the Lost Island of the Voodoo Queen.

PUZZLES

We played this game as a team of four, two very experienced, and two not so experienced – and this worked well. Early on the game is quite linear where puzzles had to be solved in a certain order and one thing led on to the next, but later on in the games things opened up more and we were able to solve things in pretty much whatever order we wanted (or we could divide and conquer).

Out of the four games we played on this trip to Escaparium I would say that this was probably the most ‘traditional’ escape room. Puzzles were very much front and centre and they drove the game forward more than the story did, that’s not to say there wasn’t a story, as there certainly was, but not in the same level as their other games.

So, the puzzles; searching, observation, logic, pattern recognition, treasure hunting, physical, teamwork and communication made up the bulk of the puzzles and each one felt perfectly suited to the theme.

The puzzles that we solved helped push us through the game and at certain points, after some solves, narrative was triggered to explain what was happening and drive the story forward. This was done very well and was again a hint at what was to come in Escaparium’s other experiences.

Solving the puzzles generally resulted in some form of tech triggering. Yes, although this was a pirate/voodoo themed game, there were very very few padlocks. Actually, thinking about it, I can only recall one keyed padlock in the whole game, and that felt like it was in the right place. No four digit combination locks in this pirate-y world!

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

I love a good clue system, and Escaparium have nailed it. I’m not sure if it is a spoiler to talk about their clue system as it was so cool, so I’m going to err on the site of caution and be as vague as possible.

Did it fit the voodoo theme? Yes. Was it available at all times? Yes. Was it well above the standard of a walkie-talkie? Oh my god, yes!

Ok, it was obviously our GM on the end other end of this cool clue system, and he did a great job. There were a few moments where we stumbled, and he was ready to get us back on track before any frustrations set in. Equally, if we wanted to explicitly ask for help, it was very quick to be provided.

ANYTHING ELSE

I love a pirate game, I’m not ashamed to admit that. This could possibly be my favourite pirate game that I’ve ever played. The puzzles, audio, GM, atmosphere and game design all pulled together to create a wonderful experience. Every little detail had been considered and perfected to ensure that nothing felt out of place – even the ending… ESPECIALLY the ending.

It’s worth pointing out that as much as we loved this game, in the grand scheme of things as Escaporium, it’s not even Top 3 – that is a testament to the quality on show there.

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 4 players

Address: 5545 Boulevard des Rossignols, Laval, Québec, Canada H7L 5S7

Website: https://www.escaparium.ca