The Escapement: Pirates of Polaris

YES, YES, YES!!! This was our favourite room at this site! Such great puzzles and immersion! Often escape rooms forget that a good puzzle is worth more than a fantastic set, and luckily, this room had an abundance of both! Thank you to our GM, Tom, for making this experience unforgettable from start to finish!  

Had such great fun in this room - amazing that they used legitimate ship parts for this! Really great hosting adds to the experience, and music/sound effects are on point. Puzzles can be a little easy, but I was pleased to see that there's little hand-holding or telling you which order you need to do things in. 

We had a lot of fun in Pirates of Polaris! The set is absolutely outstanding, with parts of a real pirate ship built into the game. That was the absolute highlight of the game for us, you really do feel immersed in the game due to the authentic, epic set and well-themed puzzles, some of which I've never seen before. 

A few minor issues with one prop not working and there being no timer which I never personally like. This room is also extremely key heavy, which detracted from the experience slightly for me. We still had tons of fun though, it's a great room and I would recommend playing!

Adam was a brilliant GM, huge props to him as he was really fun, friendly and great in character. Even when the prop wasn't working and he had to intervene, he did so in character which I liked. 

I do feel however, that the games at The Escapement don't need to be 75 minutes. We were told that they have a 75 minute timer to allow everyone more than enough time to complete everything (so everyone escapes), which takes the fun out of it a little as it was essentially a guaranteed win. 

An excellent game that may be our favourite pirate game to date. The puzzles were very logical with some really unique ones and a fantastic premise and atmosphere.

Last puzzle was anticlimactic. Good fun though! 

Had high hope's for this game after completing the pit. The puzzle are on theme but sometimes feel illogical. The room was quite dark which made things tricky to find things -not in a fun way. Our host was less experienced and gave us answer when we didnt ask for them. 

Absolutely loved the storm timer, such an atmospheric and beautiful set all the way through, and really great hosting!

A really fun game. Lots of cool puzzles, really great immersive hosting and truly beautifully made. 

The full run through of the puzzles after the game is complete is really not needed - this is not a 90 minute game, it is just a 90 minute experience.

A very impressive set. Immersive from start to finish. The hosts here really do get into character which makes the experience come to life as soon as you enter. 

We found the puzzles on the easier side but enjoyed solving our way through the pirate ship. 

A great room with a fantastic set and some interesting puzzles.  We really enjoyed it.

One if those rooms that really clicked for us. Final puzzle is a little finickity else would probably be 5 stars. 

Such a great set. So immersive. Great fun!

Another brilliant room by The Escapement. Great hosting, great theming, really good quantity and range of puzzles. We struggled with one part but it didn't detract from the overall experience. Highly recommend 🙂  

Amazing design of the room which leaves you fully immersed. Our host was excellent and only gave help when specifically requested, as well as a great run-down of the game after finishing (the obligatory Escapement experience). Puzzles were excellent and well themed, although I wish a couple had slightly better signposting to avoid us needing a hint (might've been us being morons however). Overall, a fantastic game and I think slightly tops Mutiny (Tulleys) as my favourite pirate escape room. 

A beautiful room with some great props, but this room just did not do it for me as it seems to have done for so many others. The main issue for me was light level, yes its thematic, and yes most other teams don't have a problem, but my 50 year old eyes could see b*gg*r all... the flickering of the lamps is very atmospheric but my eyes had problems adjusting to the varying light levels, so frustration set in from the start as I couldn't find anything.

The puzzles were good and logical, but we had a couple of reset issues that confused us a points as we had the items before we should have, and as other reviewers have said something to write on would have helped too. But our big problem was seeing the detail we needed, especially on the last puzzle.
 

Such a strong room! Just one request for the last puzzle that would put it over the edge - pen and paper! Memory is key in the last puzzle and mine is very poor! Other than that, a really well-themed and well thought out room!

This is definitely the best pirate themed room I've experienced, the themeing and set design are brilliant, immersive and creative. Puzzle wise there is everything for every type of player and all fit with the story and theme. The last puzzle was a great ending for achievement and wrapped everything up nicely.

Great set loved this room! 

Had fun. More signposting needed for certain sections but a good fun family game.

Really enjoyable and well-themed room. I'm a sucker for pirate themed rooms, but it does feel like the team at Escapement have gone the extra mile with the decor and real and replica items in the room to make it feel incredibly authentic. In terms of difficulty, we were a team of one experienced three newbie players, and got out in around 45 minutes.

Excellent room. Amazing set design, great puzzles with some nice physical elements. We had a new GM under supervision who did a great job giving us the occasional nudge when we had made some search fails. Very immersive with how the puzzles truly fit the experience. Found it a little hard to see some areas although I understand the GM can control the brightness if needed and it is not a dark room in a frustrating sense at all. Absolutely worth a visit. 

Very fun adventure in a room designed with real parts from a vessel. A joy to play through and would recommend to others. Ask the owners about the Original Polaris!

WOW some of the most amazing theming I have ever seen! The puzzle was great but the final puzzle is extremely challenging for a team of 2. But still highly recommend 

Some very exciting puzzles.  Really liked the idea of the storm timer!