Escape Room Review: Carter’s Haberdashery finds gold

The Attractions Magazine team was invited out to Escape Artists in Sanford, Fla. to experience “Carter’s Haberdashery and the Curse of the Ancient Gold”. Escape Artists has been around as an escape room for quite a while and has been on my list to check out for a long time due to such good things I’ve heard over the years. Did the game live up to the hype or was it just fool’s gold? Read on to see! 

Carter’s Haberdashery Storyline

Carter’s Haberdashery is set during the late 1800s in Skunkwater, Arizona. Legend says that an ancient temple full of gold lay somewhere near the town. This was only ever an old story until one day a treasure hunter named Carter showed up and built a haberdashery in a very specific location, after which he disappeared without a trace.

Rumors abound that Carter had found the location of the secret temple and managed to get inside, although exactly what became of him is still a mystery. According to his notes, the sun is only in the right position for exactly 60 minutes (how about that?) and if the gold isn’t found in that time frame, it will be locked away until next time the sun is in position. Players start their game in the titular haberdashery at exactly the right time and must solve puzzles to discover the temple and ultimately the gold!

Theming and Layout

Scenically and thematically, Carter’s Haberdashery is fantastically appointed throughout with interesting visual and tactile elements that served to immerse us in the world. The haberdashery itself was full of old west bits and bobs and was an absolute joy to ransack looking for clues. The temple scenes were equally fun to explore and look at, and felt plucked right out of an Indiana Jones movie. The props all felt pretty good to handle, both sturdy and functional when needed. I don’t consider it a spoiler at this point to say that an escape room has multiple rooms (indeed it would be rare to find an escape room without such a reveal).

I do want to mention the various rooms here though because this is one of the first times that I was unable to identify exactly what would pop open to take us into the next room. It was such a simple thing, but it delighted me because I’m someone who expects secret doors and looks for the tell-tale signs, and I was still truly surprised when they opened. This was a refreshing change and added some legitimate suspense as I tried to spot the next opening.

Puzzles and Clues

Hints and nudges are freely given out in this room with no time penalties or such added, although they do ask you stay to three or fewer hints in order to get on the leaderboard. Regardless of your goals, the game masters will respect whatever level of support you request from handholding, to small nudges, to completely hands off. Based on our small team size and desire to make sure we saw the entire room, we asked for some nudges to keep us on pace based on the game master’s familiarity with the room. The nudges we received were often about hidden clues we overlooked although, at least once it was about a puzzle we were solving correctly, but which had a bit of a finicky activation method.

For their part, the puzzles themselves were a nice variety, including scavenger hunts, code deciphering, building puzzles, and logical deductions. I’m not sure I saw any completely unique puzzles in this room, but nothing felt overused. After the game, while chatting with our game master, (who was very knowledgeable about the game and shared the passion for escape rooms we love to see from employees at the “mom and pop” venues), we did have to ask about a few puzzles and gameplay moments that hadn’t made sense to us in the moment.

Overall Fun

“Carter’s Haberdashery and the Curse of the Ancient Gold” is a solid escape room we had a fun time playing. Our team of two experienced escapers managed to make it out with exactly 13 minutes left on the clock. The room has a recommended group size of two to six, and while we never had any particular difficulties only having two people, there was often more than enough for what we recommend: a group size of four to six.

Those with difficulties around mobility, visual acuity, or hearing should definitely speak with the game master before playing to ensure that accommodations can be made. For more information or to book your own experience, visit EscapeArtistsSanford.com.

• We like to use the Morty app (Morty.app) to track and rate all of our escape room experiences. You can find our reviews featured in the editorial section of any room we’ve done. And of course you can follow us on Morty at @Attractions!