The Pirate's Bay

To be blunt, this was probably the most disappointing room I played in Canberra. While I was fully aware this was a tacked on addition to the Missing Klues line up (courtesy of Indestroom), the implementation of these props and puzzles left so much to be desired. Vague pirate-like set pieces placed haphazardly in a generic space with carpet and a hessian ceiling felt very underwhelming indeed. It was clear that very little effort had been applied to bridge the gaps of story, puzzle flow and overall immersion. Pair this with the room volume cranked up to 96000 and now you have a headache to go with your disappointment. It’s not worth it. While The Pirate’s Bay is head and shoulders the weakest offering at Missing Klues, I still strongly implore you to play any of their other 4 experiences as they’re all made with so much more love and charm. Shoutout to Alex who was our Gamemaster for the day, he was really great to chat to all session!

An indestroom creation but one that I would say has some issues that could be smoothed out. The puzzles were okay, maybe a little confusingly placed but made sense in the end. The storyline was basically non existent and the sound in the room was unbearably loud. Like we could barely think it was so loud. The atmosphere of the room was the biggest issue for me with it really feeling like everything was just bought and placed into a room. There wasn’t really anything binding anything together and more felt like just a random space full of kind of thematic puzzles. I’ve seen some Indestroom designed games integrated into a space nicely with some extra additions and a focus on making the space immersive and this could be a much better room if this was the approach taken. Also don’t 3D print locks. Not one of my favourite rooms.

As it currently stands I think the room definitely has room to improve. The puzzles were varied with some interesting solutions throughout however the flow of puzzles was difficult to follow especially during those early minutes. Potentially this could be fixed by preventing certain puzzles from being available at the beginning however it being a multi linear room I can understand why it was set this way. The decor was minimal with the setting being nebulous at best. While there was an effort, the room felt empty apart from the puzzles that were placed within. Not only that but the sound within the room was almost earsplitting at times with myself and the younger members of the group needing to cover their ears. The staff however were absolutely lovely and they were very apologetic about missing elements within the room. All and all the staff were great the whole way through the session. As it currently stands I believe the room is incomplete and I'm not likely to recommend it. I also played it within its opening week so I have faith that it will be improved as time goes on.

This was a very basic room with no extra effort put into the room decor. I feel they just placed the puzzle in an empty room and put some hessian on the ceiling. We spent most of our time looking for a map that the game master forgot to place in the room. So after that was given to us we finished very quickly.