Escape Room Review: Doldrick’s Captain Spoopy Bones lives up to the hype

This past week I finally made it back out to Doldrick’s Escape Room in Orlando Florida to try a game that has been on my short list for quite some time: Captain Spoopy Bones and the Magnificent Quest for Some Other Pirate’s Treasure.

Captain Spoopy Bones is a tongue-in-cheek premise for an escape room that delivers on tricky puzzles with a heavy focus on communication. The titular captain is, as you might suspect, a skeleton who starts the room by regaling the players with a story of hidden treasure (belonging to some other pirate), a mutinous crew (to be dealt with later) and some hapless prisoners tasked with saving the day (you).

As the game begins, your team is separated into two groups and each placed in a different cell aboard Captain Spoopy Bones’ ship. The initial puzzles require a generous amount of communication (a theme present throughout the experience) between the cells and compartments as neither area has all the information necessary to solve any of the puzzles it contains. Rather, it’s by discussing what you can see and passing items back and forth that you can begin working your way through each of the room’s various challenges and progressing the story.

We won’t be going into any specific spoiler, but the game pleasantly delivered on all the tropes one would expect from a pirate based adventure with a healthy amount of surprises and “ah ha” moments all the while keeping the light-hearted and silly nature of the room front and center.

Indeed, by nature of the room not taking itself too seriously (a trait shared by all of Doldrick’s rooms I’ve been able to experience) it is able to get around the question of “Why are there puzzles all over this pirate ship?” (The answer of course being “Because the weird skeleton pirate captain with the funny name said there should be. Duh.”)

Doldrick’s is a bit pricier than some other escape rooms I’ve been to, but for our group, the experience was well worth it. Captain Spoopy Bones is a 75 minute room, a bit longer than a typical experience and our group of seven mostly experienced escapers completed it with around 15 minutes to spare, no clues used, and only one or two nudges.

Doldrick’s has a welcome policy of allowing as many clues as necessary with no penalties and knowledgeable game masters who will respect whatever level of prompting or nudging you request. We requested only to make sure we finished the room to ensure we got the full experience, and for the game master to use her judgment and familiarity with the room to nudge us if she realized we were falling behind and wildly on the wrong track. A task she performed admirably.

Captain Spoopy Bones incorporated technology well and in ways that enhanced the game experience without feeling superfluous. The tech in the room worked very well for us and was exceptionally impressive, especially considering this experience is several years old at this point. The room featured a number of tactile puzzles requiring manipulation of actual in game objects which is a welcome exception to staring passively at equations and attempting to solve math problems for the majority of a room (though there was at least a little of that.)

We did note some heavy wear on some of the props which required handling. This is understandable considering the nature of those props and they must require constant replacing which they were close to being in need of again. We also found one key that had a little difficulty opening the lock it was meant for, probably being worn down with age. When the key didn’t work initially, we actually set it aside for a while before eventually trying it again only to find out it was in fact the correct key.

Lighting was also a little low and our game master assured us that there would be enough light in the room, though we could use our cellphones for extra light as needed. An offer we definitely took her up on. We also wished there had been some sort of white board or other system to take notes as we deciphered puzzles though our ever present cell phones solved that problem as well.

All told, Captain Spoopy Bones and the Magnificent Quest For Some Other Pirate’s Treasure was a delightful experience which more than lived up to the hype. The room is clearly a labor of love from designers who built the experience they wanted to see with the humor they enjoyed, and they knocked it out of the park.

The difficulty of the room was higher than average, so caution is suggested if attempting this room with fewer than about four players and with younger children. We were pleased the room included enough to do throughout so our group of seven rarely found itself without enough to do. The puzzles flowed naturally and there were only a couple points where we truly felt stuck (a condition that was often alleviated with more communication. Mea Culpa.) In the end, the room was challenging and enjoyable and now ranks highly on each of our respective top 10 lists.

For more information and to book an experience of your own, visit doldricksescaperoom.com. Note that this room is always private. You will not be paired up with strangers.