Company:
Breakin’ Escape Rooms

Location:
89 Holloway Road, London, N7 8LT

Synopsis:
From the depths of the sea a ship rises with a skeletal figure spearheading its bow, striking fear into the hearts of the bravest of sailors. The dreaded ship, The Flying Dutchman makes sail once again, led by its fierce captain. Davy Jones once was a man, but he was cursed by the woman he loved to roam the seas and ferry the souls of the damned to the other side for eternity. A most precious artefact has been stolen from his ship, and now he wants it back. You were one of the pirates that stole from Jones’ locker, but you were left behind when the Dutchman’s crew discovered you. Now you must find your way within the ship and manage to escape before the time runs out and you become part of Davy Jones’ undead crew… forever!

Date we visited:
30 August 2017

Price at time of visit:
From £16pp off-peak and £25pp peak

Goats attended:
Daiman, Jenny, Paul, Bharath

Did we escape?
Yes, with 2 clues

Value for money

6/10It’s probably a bit better value than their other games due to the fact that it feels the most well-crafted but still pricey for what it is.

 Daiman

4/10At £27 pp this a high price room. However it’s the best room out of the games they have there on theming. I also think it’s really good as a first timer room.

Jenny

5/10At £27 each, it’s slightly above average for a London room. The room itself is average but a bit forgettable.

Paul

4/10A bit expensive for what you get and nothing to shout from the rooftops about.

 Bharath

Theming

7/10This was a well themed area with wooden walls and floors, lending the sense of being on a pirate ship. Also, though no-one else seemed to recognise it, I really appreciated the fact that one of the Pirates of the Caribbean themes was piped through the speakers – I don’t know why but it added to the experience!

 Daiman

8/10This room was far better than their other rooms, and kept to the pirate theme well. The theming was very strong throughout and they even kept it going on in the games.

Jenny

7/10The room pulls off the ship/pirate theme well and the games are tied in quite nicely.

Paul

7/10The room has been “decked” out well (no pun intended) and matched the puzzles and skill games in there.

 Bharath

Uniqueness

5/10There isn’t much that sets this room apart from any others apart from the fact that the theming is at a much higher level. There was one puzzle that I thought was cool and integrated into the theme really well. A bit more thought had gone into this game.

 Daiman

6/10There’s no standout moments in this room or special effects but due to the strength of the theming I’ve marked it higher.

Jenny

5/10There’s nothing that unique here, like with most of Breakin’s rooms. It’s enjoyable but nothing to write home about. Best to go here if you’re new to escape rooms as then you have nothing to compare them to.

Paul

5/10There are no wow moments in this room, it’s a general, linear escape room.

 Bharath

Puzzles

5/10There were very few, making this, on paper, the easiest game at Breakin’. Would be anyway if it wasn’t for their obligatory physical game! This particular one, though I found it fun, was time-consuming and punishing if slight mistakes were made. It also only required the participation of two players, creating a blatant bottleneck. That said, I liked how on-theme everything was in The Flying Dutchman.

 Daiman

3/10The games were quite simplistic and took no real brain power however there seemed to be a few glitches on some of the puzzles that delayed the escape. This room is not great for a large group as some of you will be standing around.

Jenny

4/10There’s a nice selection of puzzles, but the only one with any wow factor is badly implemented (more on that below) which has cost them on this score.

Paul

3/10The design of this escape room meant there were moments where you were standing around as other teammates were doing this skill game. As it’s quite a difficult skill game a lot of time was spent on it, which made it more frustrating for the people who could not get involved as the skill game was designed for two people.

 Bharath

The good

The theming was pretty neat and married beautifully with the puzzles.

 Daiman

The theming was really strong and remained throughout.

Jenny

I’m struggling to find something to put here. It’s not a bad room, apart from the poorly implemented game, I just found it all pretty forgettable.

Paul

Out of all of the Breakin’ rooms this was the best themed.

 Bharath

The bad

There was a very low number of puzzles in this room and the bottleneck created by the inclusion of that physical game needs to be addressed though I appreciate that it’s a balancing act as you don’t want it to require too many people in the event that some games are underpopulated with players.

 Daiman

I felt this room was designed for large groups and feel some players could be short changed.

Jenny

There is one skill game which takes quite a while to complete but only requires 2 people. There is nothing for the rest of the team to do whilst this happens so they sat around and got bored. There should be other puzzles for them to solve in the meantime.

Paul

The big skill game of the room is flawed and it needs other puzzles in there to keep people occupied.

 Bharath

Overall scores