Logiclock Nottingham: Pirates in Nottingham

 

Outside the room

On to our final game and one that we’d been hinted at was pretty tricky. Thirteen games into our weekend, that was slightly worrying, but we’d topped up with caffeine and were ready to go.

I love games that take advantage of their local area to tell a story, and Pirates in Nottingham most certainly did… not. I’m not entirely sure why the game is called Pirates in Nottingham. Last I checked, Nottingham wasn’t very close to the sea…

That’s a minor quibble, though. More importantly, what would the room be like…?

Background

There has been a secret pirate house discovered in the heart of Nottingham which is full of treasures. Many people have tried to acquire the treasures, however the pirates have always caught them during the mischief and threw them into prison. Up until now, no one has left the pirate shelter alive. The time has come for anyone to outsmart the pirates’s leery mentality. What do you need in order to find the final key to escape? Common sense, communication and teamwork.

Inside the room

OK. This is piratey. Of the three games at Logiclocks, this was by far the best in terms of set decoration, with various materials and props used to give the impression of something piratical. It was by no means perfect – we were obviously still inside a building – but it carried well enough to transport us away and provided a nice backdrop for the room.

In terms of layout, they’ve gone down a very interesting route. One of the most exciting elements of escape rooms is the sense of exploration and the wonder of what’s behind the next door. Does that see us exiting the room or encountering another interesting space? They’ve done away with that entirely, showing the space pretty much as soon as you walk into the room. They’ve traded the exploration with teasing: you can see what awaits you but you can’t start playing with it till later.

If you’re into searching, then you’ll be in your element here, with plenty of tough hides and lots of red herring items to distract you. I can’t say that really excited me, so I wandered around a bit looking for puzzles to solve instead. There aren’t a huge number of puzzles and, while a couple of them were on the harder end of the scale, they were all logical. One of the puzzles was a hardish maths puzzle that really didn’t feel like it belonged in an escape room.

The end to the game was a nice finale – a real sense of theatre in how we escaped the room which showed significant flair over their previous two rooms.

Result

We escaped the room in 33 minutes without taking any clues.

Verdict –

This was a well decorated room with heavy lifting on the searching side and a couple of tough puzzles. Looking at it objectively, it feels like it should be better than Made in Stein, but I never really engaged with it as much. Perhaps that was just a preference for science over pirates, but I’d probably put it down to a lack of flow – the game felt like it stuttered more than most that I’ve played.

Overall, still a good game to play, and I’d have no worries about four enthusiasts playing it – just remember to be detailed in your searching!

Detailed Room Ratings

Venue
Host
Wow! factor
Immersiveness
Difficulty

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