Room Escape Artist

Harry Potter & the Prisoners of Ms Jamie.

Location:  Austin, Texas

Date Played: February 1, 2019

Team size: 4-8 kids (ages 7 and up)

Duration: 45 minutes

Price: $60 per group of 4 kids plus $15 for each additional kid

Ticketing: Private

Emergency Exit Rating: [B] Emergency Key*

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

The Scholar Ship escape rooms were created especially for children by an educator. They are designed to help groups of kids work together to solve puzzles in a themed environment.

Harry Potter was one of the many games offered at The Scholar Ship. The game consisted of locked boxes, props, and clues, which were set up in the escape room space. These can then be swapped out for a different escape room games. Harry Potter nodded at the fandom.

We were impressed by The Scholar Ship. Harry Potter was clearly crafted with care to give children the opportunity to puzzle and triumph together. If you’re a parent in Austin, we recommend you check out these escape rooms and the other educational games they offer.

If you’re an adult escape room fan, this game is not designed for you.

Who is this for?

• Primary school children
• Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle

Why play?

• Designed by an educator for children
• Adorable concept

Story

We were there to help find Colin Creevey’s stolen camera.

Setting

The Scholar Ship is a multi-purpose learning and entertainment space for primary school-aged kids. They have VR, and room for crafts, science experiments, and whatever else Ms. Jamie cooks up.

In the back of The Scholar Ship was a room that Ms. Jamie populates with different locked boxes and puzzle components that make up her escape games. The space itself always stays the same. She adds different puzzle content and props for each game.

The Harry Potter books and a Quidditch broom were among the few items that marked this game as a Harry Potter experience.

Gameplay

The Scholar Ship’s Harry Potter was an escape room designed especially for groups of children. It had a moderate level of difficulty, for the intended audience.

Core gameplay revolved around searching, observing, making connections, and puzzling.

Analysis

➕ The Scholar Ship escape rooms were created by an educator especially for children. The concepts, structures, and puzzle types were designed to excite and involve kids and enable them to work together.

➕ Harry Potter didn’t set us up to relive an epic moment from the book/ movie series. Instead, it set our puzzling around a minor character from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Potter fans will recognize the character and the prop at the center of our mission. It was a charming, relatable story that played into the fandom.

➕ Every aspect of the experience was designed around the needs of a group of kids. The introductory Power Point explained how to work together in an escape room and how to approach the types of locks and puzzles the group would encounter. There was even a bathroom in the escape room.

➖ We found the initial instruction from our gamemaster as to how to get started to be misleading. By following the instruction, we didn’t follow our normal play style and were needlessly tripped up.

➕/➖ Harry Potter wasn’t a permanent fixture. The Scholar Ship uses the same physical room to house all of its escape room scenarios. They swap out the locks, boxes, and puzzles for each theme. The space was purely a container for the content and didn’t have anything to do with the experience. Harry Potter was unapologetically low tech and low production. Although this design lacked the excitement we’ve come to expect from escape rooms, kids feel comfortable in the space. It’s more like a classroom puzzle game than an adventure game. Because of this design, the games can be mobile. The Scholar Ship sets up escape rooms at schools and events.

➖ We came across a few unintended red herrings, due to the nature of the multi-purposed space. These were frustrating.

➕ Harry Potter was playful. It included some charmingly obvious red herrings – nobody will be confused – and we can imagine children delighting in these. We enjoyed them.

➖ We escaped the room… but did the story resolve? This wasn’t readily apparent. The story was more thematic.

➕ The Scholar Ship offers more than escape rooms. It’s an activity space for children. They also offer VR, Xbox, and sciencey activities. It’s a neat place that was clearly designed with care for its target audience.

❓*The Scholar Ship takes safety seriously. The door is locked, but it’s a transparent door. Anxious kids can see out. There is always a staff member in the room with the children. The staff member has a master sheet with door combo. There are always other staff, parents, and kids on the other side of the door who could open it at any time. Parents can also watch the kids in the escape room through a security camera. We listed “Emergency Exit Rating: [B] Emergency Key” because the players cannot simply walk out the door or push a button to free themselves, but The Scholar Ship does not fit neatly into our categories for traditional, adult escape rooms.

Tips For Visiting

• There is a parking lot.
• This escape room is explicitly designed for groups of children. It is not for adults or habitual escape room players.

Book your hour with The Scholar Ship’s Harry Potter, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: The Scholar Ship comped our tickets for this game.