Trapp’d: Legend of Drakon (Wellingborough)

“Where’s the Dragon?”

The village used to be a cheerful, bustling township in the midst of the Kingdom. Now, it is but a forlorn kenopsia. When the curse fell upon the district, nearly everyone fled in fear. There are only a handful of villagers who still occupy the town, too afraid to leave incase the looming presence that attacked the village all those years ago deems them dishonourable. That same formidable beast now resides in what was once a mighty castle just past the edge of the village. The once tall, proud standing turrets and flags now lay in pieces, broken and displaced. For the most part, the beast is a silent resident, only emerging to hunt food or remind the townspeople of his intimidating presence and complete control.

The cursed goblet was the cause of the heinous destruction. Everyone in all the kingdom, from the depths of the deepest valley to the peaks of the tallest mountain knew about the famed beast and his prized goblet. The goblet was just one of his many, many treasures but this piece in particular was special. They say it held the power to transform any cowardly boy into an almighty god, strong and respected. Feared across all the Kingdom. But the beast would never let anyone get close enough to confirm the rumours. He was a force to be reckoned with and they called him Drakon.

The few who still remain in a state of surviving know what must be done, but all are too afraid to attempt it. If only someone was brave enough to take the goblet from Drakons castle and release the kingdom from the creature’s immortal grasp!

The final day of our escape room road trip that saw us playing 59 rooms in two weeks, and we were slowly working our way back home, but not before stopping off at Trapp’d in Wellingborough to play three more games. We had just finished playing ‘Atlantis’ so next up on our schedule was Legend of Drakon.

We were actually quite lucky that we coincided our trip to Trapp’d with National Doughnut Day (that’s a thing, apparently), and if any team completed a game in less than 35 minutes, they would get a doughnut each. As it happened, we completed Atlantis in 28minutes, so we qualified for our reward!

But enough about the food. Trapp’d in Wellingborough is located conveniently close to the town centre so there is plenty of parking available, although none on site. We found the venue easily enough and when we arrived we were greeted by a couple of members of the team and shown to their waiting room. After playing Atlantis, we took a short comfort break (ate our doughnut) and then returned to the waiting room for our room briefing for Drakon. With no time to lose, we put our personal items back in the lockers and then headed down to the entrance to the Legend of Drakon.

Covid-19 Procedures: masks were required in all common areas of the venue, but we were told we could remove them in the game (we left them on). All staff were wearing masks and there was hand sanitiser in reception, although no NHS track and trace was in place. We did see one other team but never came into close contact with them.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

The first thing worth pointing out is that you are actually locked in this game, that doesn’t really bother us too much but it is worth noting. There is also step-free access to the game as everything is all on one level, with no crawling needed. I can’t say for sure that it would be wheelchair accessible, but it may be, although there is a tighter space later on in the game.

Once you do get in the room, the first thing that hits you is the smell, it’s kinda odd to describe it, sort of a musty stable-like smell, but that’s probably as the room did have a fair amount of hay in it.

Getting over the initial surprise of the smell, the next thing to take in is that the room is pretty sizable (and gets even better later). This would make it perfect for bigger teams as everyone can fit in, however as the game is linear it would make it challenging to split up so bigger teams may have people with not much to do. We played as a team of two and had enough to keep us both busy.

The Legend of Drakon had a great sense of exploration that worked well with the space and story. From starting off inside a building/room, we certainly didn’t expect to have the game take us on the journey that it did. For most of the game the lighting was decent, however, later in the game it became rather dim and hard to see the items we needed. When a padlock was also put on backwards it became even harder to unlock it. We weren’t given torches and later found out that they are apparently provided at the whim of your GM – I don’t agree with this approach, if it’s dark, give people torches!

The whole room is building up to one moment, one epic reveal where you finally get to see the dragon. Except I didn’t. Liz saw it for the briefest of moments, but as it was coupled with special effects and smoke that they seemed to be rationing, and with no torches, I never actually got to see the finale which was a bit of a letdown for me and made the last challenge close to impossible to solve.

PUZZLES

The puzzles were semi-thematic but they didn’t seem to fit overly well with the narrative, although one or two possibly did. I often miss the story in games, but even Liz didn’t think the puzzles particularly drove the story forward much.

The puzzles in this (massive) space were a mixed bag; observation, spatial relations, searching, smell, logic, and generally just following directions. None of the puzzles were particularly challenging but they were satisfying enough to complete. The majority of the puzzles resulted in combinations for padlocks although one or two things did use some tech.

Our only issue in this room (other than the lighting) was that one of the puzzles hadn’t been reset, and it was quite a large puzzle. We did call out to our GM to question if it was correctly reset but heard nothing back so we carried on. Eventually, after spending quite a while trying to follow instructions, which we didn’t need to follow, the GM chimed in to explain that it hadn’t been reset correctly and to ignore it. This of course raises other questions about how thoroughly the room was cleaned between teams if an entire multi-step puzzle wasn’t reset.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Our GM, Scott, was enthusiastic and welcoming and for the most part, just left us to get on with the game. Other than the reset error, we would have been able to play through this game without any help.

Clues would be delivered over the speaker system, which is a tried and tested way of delivering them, but it would have been a nice extra touch if perhaps they were delivered in character or ‘olde English’.

ANYTHING ELSE

Drakon was our least favourite game at Trapp’d Wellingborough, but that could have been because of the reset error which threw us off. Considering we completed it in 34 minutes even with that error, I don’t think this game is likely to challenge teams, but it is still good fun. If your Trapp’d GM provides torches for your team then you’ll probably have a more enjoyable experience – if not, you best get eating your carrots.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players – escaped in 34 minutes

Address: 50 Angel Lane, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, NN8 4LA

Website: https://trappd.com