The Tale of the Heartless Pirate
The drive to Bad Steben which takes you to a small town in a lovely rural area and once there we headed for the address which appeared to be a small commercial building in a mainly residential area. We entered the venue and walked into the Dream Lab, where we were greeted by a pristine white room with a rather medical-looking receptionist. For a second or two I thought we’d wandered into some sort of cosmetic surgery business and not an escape room. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they receptionist had offered to wax Heiner’s legs!
But we had entered the Dream Lab, where they can place you and your team into the same lucid dream using their unique technology. The reception area and the staff were perfectly dressed for the theme of the venue, and immersed you into the theme from the second you walked in.
We were then briefed on the procedure to enter the team’s dream, which was a wonderfully interactive briefing. We chose to into the world of pirates, at the moment that’s the only choice, but the Dream Labs are expanding their range of dreams and there will be other adventures soon.
As for the room…I mean dream… well it was more than fabulous. The transition taking you from the waking world to the collective dream was very well executed and gives the team a moment to prepare for entering the pirate world… and what a pirate world it is! We arrived in a rather seedy looking pirate bar, which is located on an old, docked ship.
As soon as we entered, we all started laughing at the various props and décor. If you’re a fan of the Monkey Island games or the Pirates of the Caribbean films then you’ll immediately see some nods to those, but there are also many escape room and sci-fi influences in there too. But it’s not all about those references, after all we were there to find treasure!
As I’ve already said, the set is amazingly detailed, even the smallest of details were perfectly themed and beautifully made. If you play this room then please take a look at the lights above the bar… they’re a little detail in the room, but they are so lovely. Later in the room we moved through an area where we didn’t need to interact with most of the props, but every detail was perfect, so much so that I was convinced one food item was real as I could actually smell it.
We progressed well, the only hints we got were on search fails, or in my case giving a vital item to the one person who couldn’t use it and then forgetting where it went! But that’s another story! The adventure ended with a unique set of puzzles which gave us all a satisfying conclusion, its not often I applaud at the end of a room, but I did here. Then as we’d completed our dreamy adventure, we were then awakened back into the real world….
The puzzles we encountered were all fun and varied and we needed to both work and communicate as a team throughout. The transitions are great, and the interactions… I want to tell you so much about the characters we encountered, but what I will say is that one character we interacted with made me laugh so much I nearly wet myself, and another character was so fabulous that I wanted to take them home with me.
This is a fabulous adventure for lost pirate treasure, it’s got everything you need, a scary bad guy, lots of humour, great puzzles and even a few dodgy-looking sea cucumbers!!! Its epic and well worth the journey to the venue!
