Definitely the most mixed bag of the three rooms we played. The beginning was AMAZING, for sure my favorite part of the entire trip. Honestly, I think I would have liked this room more if the setup of the beginning had been the premise for the entirety of the room, because the flow worsened a lot once we were past the beginning.
The majority of the room honestly just felt nonlinear to the point of confusion. One of our biggest issues—which had also been present here and there in the 2 rooms we’d played before Tavern, but hadn’t bugged us all that much—was the lack of mapping with the locks and puzzles. There are simply too many locks and keys in this room to not have them labeled in some way. I know that having a ton of locks is the whole point of the beginning of this game, but that doesn’t make having to try a dozen different keys in the same lock any less aggravating. There were also a few puzzles, especially towards the end, that felt like pretty wide reaches in terms of how we were supposed to connect certain things to one another. I liked the base concepts of a lot of these, but they were leaps in logic that I don’t think we ever would have been able to make without help.
I don’t want to come across as having not liked this room, though. I genuinely did really like it! The set was my absolute favorite of the rooms we played, and I loved the more theatrical aspects of it. The lighting in particular was really really fun, and they hit a great balance of making things look dingy without actually being dirty or unkempt. Basically, this room had both the highest highs and the lowest lows for me, and it just sort of sucks that so many of the lows were towards the end of the room. I’d still absolutely recommend playing, even if just for the initial set-up—probably the coolest segment in any room I’ve played up to this point.
Flow got progressively worse as the room went on, but it starts off unbelievably strong
Extremely immersive, especially in the lighting and the set dressing. Very theatrical, puzzles felt well-integrated into the theme
Particularly interesting or different
Yes
Worth playing just for the beginning segment (assuming your group communicates well, that is) ((have I mentioned yet that I liked the beginning of this room?))
5 is the minimum for this room, although we were told that adjustments can be made for fewer players. We felt that 5 was maybe a little less than ideal for the beginning, but a little too much for the second half of the room, so it’s sort of up to you whether you’d rather be understaffed at the start or crowded at the end. Overall, though, 5 worked fine for us
Definitely would’ve freaked me out as a kid, but it’s nothing too grim. Just dark and quite intense at some points
Physically active
Not at all
Accessibility
Would probably be a bit hard to navigate with mobility aids, just due to the room’s layout. Any input from the GM is given over the speaker system, so you’d need at least one player who could hear clues and story scenes well enough to communicate them to everyone else. I believe there were one or two puzzles with color recognition as an aspect, but I didn’t work on those, so I’m not entirely sure. You also need to be able to bend down while in a seated position, although I’m sure adjustments could be easily made to circumvent that if it’d be an issue for someone
