Hamburg, Feb 2025
Hidden in Hamburg have games on two different ships; Neptune’s Curse is set on the Rickmer Rickmers, which meant a brisk ten minute walk from the Cap San Diego where we played the previous one. This ship is a late-era sailing ship, over a century old, and it’s worth taking a look around the museum areas while you’re there. But then again, the game itself gives you a good look at the ship, including areas where visitors holding only a normal museum ticket can’t access – because unlike the first game we played with this company, Neptune’s Curse is designed to take full advantage of its shipboard setting.
In this one the god Neptune is demanding that you find and return his trident, stolen years before by the captain of the ship and hidden somewhere on board. His cabin seems a good starting point, and this is the actual captain’s cabin of the ship, preserved in all its glorious authenticity but also full of things to solve and surprises to reveal. As with the other Hidden room we played, each time we solved something the lights dimmed in confirmation of our progress, often with a voiceover to move the story along.
There is a lot to do in this game – the normal suggested number of players is 6-7, though enthusiasts won’t want that many – and it has plenty of meaty, interesting puzzles. I did think a couple of the puzzles felt like the same ideas repeated from The Golden Skull, but even where it uses a familiar idea, it puts a clever twist on it. The puzzles use not just the nautical theme but the physical layout of the space in innovative and surprising ways, building up to a satisfying ending.
A small quibble is this room’s extensive use of bolt locks. These are of course very well suited to the setting, but have the usual drawback that they’re a bit ambiguous which direction you should enter the code in. But that’s only a very small bit of grit in the smoothly running gears of the game.
We booked two rooms at Hidden; on the strength of these, had time and money allowed, I’d happily have continued on to play everything else they offer. Neptune’s Curse was the more challenging of the two, with a little more emphasis on intellectual sophistication over physicality (although it was still quite a physical game, especially in the amount of movement needed to navigate around the space). But it’s a treat for puzzle lovers, and shines for its use of the space and setting; the reputation is justified as one of the absolute must-plays in a city blessed with a surfeit of excellent games. 
