DarkMaster Escape Rooms: Shamley’s Toy Makers

It was time to return to the Darkmaster, for their third birthday offer was a great opportunity to get back down as we were passing through. Shamley's is a massive game, and certainly is a 90-minute game and not a 60-minute game disguised as a 90-minuter. Puzzles were mostly coherent, with a number of aha moments. We were stumped by one non-puzzle aspect of the room which felt like poor design upon reflection rather than just us being silly. If that aspect would have been different, I would have felt much more satisfied with the room as a whole. I also felt the ending, whilst unique, was also quite weak. One puzzle is in the wrong place in the room and so the pacing felt off from the start. Good puzzle, wrong place in the room . This puzzle's answer was also not quite satisfying since it didn't feel clear and found ourselves working out the answer from the most solid pieces of the answer (yes slightly confusing but if you play you'll understand).

This is now the second visit to DarkMaster, and the second time we have left feeling like the GM could have had a little bit more enthusiasm and just felt like with a little more oomph, it could have really made this room. Briefing was very, well, brief, the greeting was fairly standard, and the end of game entry and debrief really felt forced and a little on the awkward side. It's for this reason I can't give any more than the 3.5 stars here.  It's probably a high 4-4.3 star room, with slightly more from the GM.