Trapp’d: Maine State Prison (Corby)

Please, save us from this Prison

Hidden deep within the government system, there is a prison so disgraceful that officials refuse to acknowledge its existence. No one wants to be burdened with the task of rebuilding the facility to acceptable standards, it would be a mammoth job. The guards are extremely corrupt, the whole daily system is non-existent and the entire institution has been left to decay. This is the place for only the most dangerous, insane criminals. The criminals that the world only wants to forget about. Maine State Prison is the place of nightmares, and you’ve been sentenced to life.

We’d just completed Reanimation in a decent time so we were feeling confident that Maine State Prison would be a breeze. We were wrong. Perhaps we were tired or maybe the puzzles didn’t click with us, but we struggled with this room much more than we were expecting.

After being given our prison issue attire, our GM took us into our cell and gave us the room specific briefing. Unlike many prison break rooms, this wasn’t a split start and we found our cell to actually be rather spacious.

PUZZLES

We felt the puzzles is where this room really fell flat. There was a heavy search element to the room and some of the items we needed were very well hidden, one of them I can’t imagine many teams actually find without help. Couple that with the fact that the room played out in a linear fashion and it meant that if you couldn’t find something then you were stuck.

There was a little bit of maths involved but it was basic and they kindly provided paper to be able to jot notes down on. Really though, this was a search room; if your searching skills are a bit weak then you’ll struggle with this room.

It’s a fine line between set dressing and red herrings, and for us, this room strayed on to the wrong side of that line. The set was rather ‘busy’ and things that we’d dismissed as set dressing turned out to be integral to the room.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

First impressions were actually pretty good and the cell was suitably bleak to make you believe you were in a cell, however it didn’t take long for us to notice issues with the room. Firstly, this is an old room (and Trapp’d acknowledge that) so there was a lot of wear and tear in the room which made certain tasks harder.

Later in the room the feeling of the room changes and it actually became more worn down and there were warning stickers telling you not to do something or you’d get a time penalty (goodbye immersion).

They tried to do something fun to add a bit of a scare/humour factor and at first it gave us a laugh but then it just got really annoying and became a frustration really quickly. Couple that with an ‘atmospheric soundtrack’ that was played on a loop and we quickly found ourselves just wanting to get out for some peace.

Fortunately when the end did come it was a bit of light relief and enabled us to finish on a bit more of a high than we’d expected.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Our GM was doing his thing to try and add more tension to the room by creating the odd jump scare, but when he wasn’t doing that he was giving us clue after clue, and we sure did need them!

Like the other rooms at this venue there was no countdown timer in the room and this also meant no screen to deliver clues on. Trapp’d got a bit creative here and found a clue system that fitted in well with the theme and didn’t break the immersion. Although, at points there is a noise that notifies you a clue has been delivered and that was both deafening and very annoying.

ANYTHING ELSE

When it was new this was probably a decent room. Unfortunately in its old age it has lost its way and become a bit frustrating. Trapp’d tell us that this room is soon to be replaced; I wouldn’t rush out and do it before it goes, just wait for their next one.

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: Two Players

Address: 6 Priors Haw Rd, Northamptonshire, Corby NN17 5PH

Website: https://trappd.com