Review: Escape Room Extreme

RATING: 4 Keys RESULT: Loss REMAINING: 0:00

A swashbuckling adventure on the high seas, armed with not just a sword but also some clever, original puzzles makes this one treasure we’re excited to dig up!

Story

It is the beginning of the 18^th Century. You and your shipmates are navigating toward your home country after a bountiful trading trip. Anxious to return home with your riches and treasures, your Captain ignores the signs of the sea and steers the ship into danger. Fortunately, you survive a tumultuous storm at sea but your ship was broken into pieces by the unrelenting waves.

By luck and fortitude, all of you make it safely ashore onto a lone island that arose from the middle of the sea. You forage your way through a thick and unforgiving jungle, attempting to find suitable shelter, food, and water sources. One day lost at sea and two days on land, you reach the other side of the island and see a large ship anchored. Famished and thirsty, you approach the ship and are ambushed by a band of pirates. They force you onto their ship and don’t believe that all your treasure has been lost at sea.

You are locked in a room and in sixty minutes the pirates will be back. When the time is up and they return, your choices are either to take the pirates to your treasure, or…you perish at their hands…no matter that no treasure exists. Your only chance at survival is to escape the room located deep within the ship’s hold, before the pirates return. Crew, you must work together or put your fate in the pirates’ hands.!

I’ll be honest- we’ve been members of more pirate crews than I can even count at this point – but this may be the first the the pirates are seeking our treasure, not vice versa. Just the same, we’re clearly trapped in this space so it’s time to do what we do best and find a way out.

Scenic

The Pirate Ship is home to some moderate-level scenic decor – mostly in the form of wooden paneling and accents. The game’s two rooms still have a distinctive “office” flavor, thanks to their square box layout not typically found about an old galleon – but there was unquestionably effort made to attempt to disguise that as best as possible.

On paper, the room was certainly not our favorite pirate presentation – however, we were more than pleasantly surprised to learn the gameplay would almost completely make up for this scenic short-coming.

Puzzles

The Pirate Ship had some clever, enjoyable puzzles throughout the course of its voyage. Many of them were custom made, and featured some well-thought team-driven physical steps that required players to truly work together if they hoped to accomplish their task.

These types of physical puzzles are unquestionably much more fun than work sheets or solving riddles – so The Pirate Ship really did provide quite the pleasant surprise. Moreso, they many of them drew inspiration from The Pirate Ship’s storyworld to connect them in an organic way.

Physically maneuvering ropes, directing the captain’s wheel and even some good old fashion swashbuckling sword play really drew us into the spirit of The Pirate Ship and made us feel like active participants in this adventure.

Overall

Truthfully we didn’t know much Escape Room Extreme prior to our visit. We had some extra time on a day trip to the Tampa area and found them thanks to the trusty and reliable Escape Authority Map [shameless plug.] But while we walked into the virtual unknown, we walked out as big fans of both the product and the staff.

The venue’s owner, who happened to be staffing the lobby desk himself on the day of our visit was extremely welcoming, and very enthusiastic. Perhaps even more importantly he was instantly eager to hear our feedback the second we finished, and actually implemented some immediate changes to the gameplay based on our experience. This type of dedication to ones product is sadly something you just don’t encounter often, and as such something we always respect and recognize when we come across it.

Escape Room Extreme is proof that you don’t need a giant budget or crazy high-tech gags to create a truly immersive and more importantly FUN escape game. The Pirate Ship was – from start to finish – honestly a blast to play.