I want to be upfront and say that these reviews can be subjective.
Some of the problems with completing all of the rooms at a venue, especially one that you enjoy, are that you either have to wait until that venue adds/replaces a room or you never go back. Doldricks Escape Room in Kissimmee, Florida is set to open up a total of SIX different rooms. Back in early June, myself and my colleague were privileged enough to Beta Test (my only time doing this) their FIRST and only room (at the time) Super Bomb Squad Commandos Awesome! It easily became my favorite game I’ve played, up to that time…and then…I got to…wait. Wait for that second room. July came and went. August we heard some murmurs. September we got some unofficial announcements. October, things started getting Spoopy. It was well worth the wait because on November 4, 2018, my group of 5 bravely set sail for Doldricks once more to take on (take a deep breath) Captain Spoopy Bones and the Magnificent Quest for Some Other Pirate’s Treasure.
This time, they were much easier to locate as they were not officially open during my last visit and did not have a sign. “Well, well, well,” were the first words I heard as soon as I opened the door to the venue. We got there a few minutes early to just talk and share stories to reconfirm that the owners (Mike/Rick and families) are all about tweaking and testing their game to provide the best possible experience.
I already had astronomical expectations and I was worried about that. I was worried that somehow, someway, Spoopy (and we’re going to call it this from here on out) wouldn’t come close to the expectations. Thankfully, I was wrong…
The Story is presented to you in a semi-conventional way. At some point Captain Spoopy wasn’t in the form that he is currently in. He was the captain of a pirate ship and had discovered a map to “some other pirate’s treasure”. Getting greedy, his crew decided to commit the ultimate pirate sin…mutiny! The captain takes his current form (see game poster) and finds another ship to command, with captured prisoners (you and your team). Your goal is to break free of imprisonment, get to the stern, raise the flag, patch up the ship, destroy your former crews’s ship and FIND THE TREASURE!
Side Note: This was all presented on a light-hearted and comical cartoon video along with another feature (can’t give this away) that brought a Disney feel to the room. Because of some of the comedy and induced laughter, I may or may not have missed some important details of the story.
I listed about six objectives that were presented in the opening sequence. True to form, Doldricks stuck exactly to the script. Nothing came out of order (e.g. Didn’t find treasure before patching up holes in ship OR didn’t raise flag before getting to stern of ship) and none of the objectives were mysteriously left out. The story itself was a unique twist to a room theme that I haven’t quite yet grown weary of. This was my 41st room and 3rd Pirate Themed room. We all get the gist of how these rooms can go. Captured. Pirates. Treasure. The end. Do NOT get me wrong, I love this theme. It feels adventurous every single time. I just wanted to highlight how Doldricks was able to uniquely tie in additional storylines that didn’t escape the world of pirates.
The owners let me know that this room was also THREE times larger than their first. I had border-line obsessively checked for any pictures or hints on how the room would look. Pictures of planks of wood, posted on social media, are about as detailed as we were allowed to preview. But, it didn’t surprise me one bit that we would be fully immersed into the ship of Captain Spoopy. Because of the room set up and the story line, I do not think there is any way less than FOUR people could successfully complete this adventure.
When it came to the inside of the ship, there really wasn’t a lot to see and I imagine in the world of pirates, this was also true. Everything inside of the ship served a purpose to the adventure (even if it wasn’t remotely obvious when you first observed the item).
Once you broke out of the inside and onto the stern, we experienced a level of immersion that I have never experienced before in a room. Focus on “level of” because I have been to some very immersive rooms in Los Angeles and Orlando. The feature in here was just on another level and something I had and have never seen in another room. Even small, humorous details such as sea gull droppings, were present. I think the only thing that could’ve made this room even more immersive was a giant ass fan blowing a salty breeze your way (and no, I don’t expect this from a room).
As mentioned earlier, everything served a purpose to the objectives and puzzles. You do experience quite some time as a split team and you definitely need the help of each other to move forward. The puzzles started out quite basic and single stepped and increased in complexity and technologically. Again, everything either tied in with the world of Captain Spoopy OR was literally one of the objectives stated earlier.
The adventure had TWO pinnacle puzzles (they were all great, but these two stood out). One was inside of the ship and the other was on the stern. The first one involved both teams (while you were still split) and you most definitely had to communicate. It was physical, mental, visual and the pay off was extremely rewarding. (However, I didn’t really see the result until the game was over, as the main result was in the OTHER room that I was not in).
The second puzzle involved more tech and that oh so impressive feature in the stern. To be efficient, you needed at least three people working on this (thankfully we had five). This one also made use of some technology I had seen in one of the highest rated rooms in Los Angeles…BUT in my unbiased opinion, this room did it better.
Lastly, I would say the entire room was fairly NON-linear. Yeah, you eventually needed to use everything you had found/discovered and solved to move forward, but a lot of stuff could’ve been completed in a different order than what we had solved them in.
Overall, Captain Spoopy Bones amazed us in every category. Puzzles still stand out in my head, a week later, as I write this. We were fortunate enough to go through the room and ask questions since the team split didn’t allow me to see everything. By doing this, things made even MORE sense than before.
The minimum allowed in the room is four players. We had five and escaped with 8 minutes and 16 seconds (a record which I’m sure is already broken by now).
It is my pleasure to highly recommend Spoopy as the first game/adventure rated as a 10 out of 10. If you are in Central Florida and have time for ONE room, this is it.
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