Room Escape Artist

Which way to the plank?

Location:  Austin, TX

Date Played: October 19, 2023

Team Size: 2-7; we recommend 2-4

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $40.95 per player for public booking; between $44.95 and $59.95 per player for private booking

Ticketing: Public (pay more for private)

Accessibility Consideration:  N/A

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

Aside from the clever, authentic tasks that bookended this experience, Pirates of Tortuga was a mediocre room dressed up with a rich façade of atmosphere and gadgetry. Newer players (like one of my teammates) may enjoy their first experience with certain puzzling and pirate tropes. These will be less impressive to more experienced players, leaving the room’s faults in plainer view.

Based on our two experiences at PanIQ Room Austin, set appearance and tech seem to be the company’s focus. Here, the set made a strong first impression with its wooden walls, pirate-y soundtrack, and purposeful entry space. However, after an initial sequence where props and tech interactions integrated to delightful results, much of the set felt sparse or less intentionally designed. We always felt like we were in a pirate ship, but we weren’t always sure what part of the ship we were in.

The puzzling experience was also uneven. The highlights involved using props in realistic ways, giving our actions purpose and the game forward momentum. However, an ambiguous early-game puzzle broke that momentum quickly, and the rest of the game offered fits and starts of straightforward connections intermingled with wacky and underclued uses of other items. Ultimately, this created a split personality of logical problem-solving and left-field thinking that was jarring to navigate. Even though the company advertised this as an easy room, we took a lot of hints.

As Austin locals, we do hope to check out the harder games at PanIQ Room someday to better understand the company’s full offering. However, in the oddly large realm of central Texas pirate rooms, there are better options than Pirates of Tortuga, so I’d seek my treasure elsewhere.

Who is this for?

• Pirate fans
• Newbies willing to take hints

Why play?

• To have some fun pirate-y interactions

Story

We had foolishly wandered into the realm of Tortuga and been promptly captured by pirates. We needed to escape our captivity before they returned to their ship and did something bad to us.

Setting

We found ourselves locked in the ship’s brig. Everything in our surroundings fit the theme, though it wasn’t always clear why they were grouped in particular configurations.

Gameplay

PanIQ’s Pirates of Tortuga was a standard escape room with a low to moderate level of difficulty.

Gameplay consisted of observing, making connections, and searching.

Analysis

➕ A creepy yet adorable first puzzle set high expectations for the rest of the room.

➕ The set made a strong first impression.

➖ A ghost puzzle and distracting prop unnecessarily obfuscated an early puzzle, undermining the momentum earned from the beginning sequence of the game.

➕ An oversized dexterity task was satisfying to manipulate.

➖ The cluing on one set of puzzles seemed inadequate given the number of unnatural actions required to complete it.

➖ The color mapping on one puzzle was imprecise and obscured by redundant options of the same color.

➖ Flaky tech forced us to repeat a late-game interaction several times before triggering the solve.

➕ The room’s final sequence recaptured the cartoonish realism from the game’s opening act. For all the game’s flaws, ending on a high note left a good impression.

Tips For Visiting

• There is plenty of parking right outside of PanIQ Room.
• There are many favorite Austin restaurants nearby, as well as the iconic Peter Pan Mini-Golf.
• If you’re familiar with the Austin market, you might notice that PanIQ Room took over the location that was previously Lockout. Even though they kept some of the themes of the Lockout rooms, they created their own experiences for those themes. This room was completely different from Lockout’s The Cursed Ship.

Book your hour with PanIQ Escape Room’s Pirates of Tortuga, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.