The Pirate’s Heart

I unfortunately had a negative experience in The Pirate’s Heart, made worse by my concerns not being taken very seriously by the GM and game owner(s). This was especially a shame, because I had completed both Haunted Hotel and Rikers many years ago, and loved them (the latter being one of my favorite rooms I’ve ever done). All this combined, I’m sad to say I cannot recommend The Pirate’s Heart to escape room experts nor newbies. Breakdown for reasons below: MY PERSONAL GAME: My partner and I unfortunately realized late in the game that our room had been improperly reset. Later in our game, there was a particular item the clues led us to search for that wasn’t in the hiding spot it should have been. We waved down the GM several times to ask, bc we started to think we were just crazy…and we didn’t want to risk breaking the set in an effort to search for it as best we could. After many, many minutes, the GM finally asked if we just couldn’t find the item where it was supposed to be. It took a while longer before being told where it actually was — and it had been misplaced elsewhere in the room during reset. I’m a game master too, so I get mistakes happen. But this ate at least 5 to 10 minutes of our precious time. When we asked the GM in person about this after failing the room, he sort of made it our fault saying something like: “well think of it this way - you could have just located it at any point!” I would argue that wasn’t the point. And I know that when I am a Game Master myself, I pause the clock or add time at the VERY least for something that is entirely my own fault. This is not something the players should be penalized for ultimately. WEAR AND TEAR: There’s no denying that the room’s decor and ambience are top notch (as are the other rooms here). However, many of the decor and prop pieces amount to visual clue information. One puzzle in particular requires you to observe certain things in the room that visually match each other. However, the wear and tear of these objects make it such that it’s not actually possible or logical to make these objects match each other. We eventually used escape room logic to find the solution, but again that shouldn’t be the point. There were also other significant wear and tear issues (bent puzzle pieces come to mind). Wear and tear does not normally bother me in and of itself, but… PRICING: …this room charges a premium. Granted it is a sliding scale and price per person decreases the more people you have, but who wants to do a room with 10 people these days? So my partner and I paid $81 EACH and change (inclusive of booking fees). As I said, I usually am forgiving of wear and tear (I get from GM’ing myself that people are monstrous wrecking balls), but when you are charging significantly more than any other escape room in the tristate area, it’s inexcusable not to repair your room, especially the parts that are important clues - furthermore make sure the rooms are reset correctly. MENTAL LEAPS: Not only if this room a LOT of puzzles (and largely linear, so also not great for big groups as a result, which doesn’t help keep your ticket price down), the solutions often require huge mental leaps. I don’t want to spoil anything, but some of these leaps were pretty egregious and go beyond wanting to facepalm and into “are you kidding me?” territory FOLLOW UP: When following up with the company by email to express all of the above, I was not satisfied with their reaction. My main concern above all was the GM not taking the room reset error seriously (and basically gaslighting us), especially given the room was such a hefty pricing premium to book. I also expressed my disappointment given how much I’ve loved past rooms here. With the pricing concern, I was advised via email that they price this way becuse most other rooms do not guarantee private experiences. However, that’s actually untrue, as in my experience the vast majority of the 60+ rooms around the country (and even in Europe) that I’ve completed have all been exclusively private bookings since the pandemic (a fact many Morty users here would likely corroborate). Adding insult to injury, they refused to acknowledge these errors, mistakes, and wear and tear. They did offer a tiny discount on a future game…but if this game is indicative of their other new games, I’ve much less interest in doing them than I would be in receiving a discount to make up for the sour one my partner and I had. It’s really the only time I’ve ever been an escape room where I wish I had gone somewhere else. This room has SO much potential. I LOVE escape rooms and I loved the original two rooms here. I have never gone out of my way to give this sort of feedback on a room before either. But in the immortal words of Tyra Banks: “when my mother yells at me like this, it’s because she loves me!” And to further quote: “take responsibly for yourself!” Until that happens, I sadly advise staying away from BrianXcape, which pains me to admit.

definitely the toughest room i’ve done yet. we had four (pretty experienced) escape room players and BARELY made it out. and i mean, we had like, seconds left. this is a challenging room with a lot of pieces, some of which become more confusing than anything, but the set design is absolutely beautiful. lighting in the room could definitely be improved. if you’re not as experienced with escape rooms or aren’t looking for as much of a challenge, i’d recommend the haunted hotel or rikers at this location. i probably wouldn’t play this room with more than four people, but i might not play with less — it’s HARD! even upon leaving we weren’t really sure what had just happened or how we had gotten to the end but boy did it feel good to get out of this one (I really thought we weren’t going to). Communication is key but organization might be more key in this one.