Room Escape Artist

The Tale of the Heartless Pirate is one of Bavaria’s best escape rooms. Here are our other escape room recommendations in the region. While not exactly near by, if you’re playing escape rooms in Germany, consider a trip to Berlin or Hamburg. Here are our recommendations for Berlin escape rooms and Hamburg escape rooms.

Rated Arrrrrr for Reverie

Location: Bad Steben, Germany

Date Played: June 21, 2024

Team Size: 2-6; we recommend 2-4

Duration: 75 minutes

Price: From €29.75 per player

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: All players must enter a small space and briefly crawl

Emergency Exit Rating: [A] Push To Exit

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

I don’t know whether I’ve encountered another escape room that was both as ambitious and as meticulously polished as The Tale of the Heartless Pirate.

Upon our arrival at their facility, a Dream Labs technician explained that we’d be participating in a lucid dreaming experience, then escorted us to a polyhedral DreamPod which would shepherd us into our selected fantasy. The world that ensued was as cohesive as it was vivid. In all too many escape rooms and immersive experiences, the premise of a dream or a psychedelic trip is an excuse for an incoherent sequence of random scenes. In contrast, Dream Labs utilized dreaming to clearly define the magic circle, as well as provide a neutral overworld.

The Tale of the Heartless Pirate was clearly the work of obsessive perfectionists with the skills and resources at their disposal to ensure that every tiny detail was near perfect. I don’t use the word “perfect” lightly, nor do I think it’s possible to achieve absolute perfection. Yet, I’m not sure whether, in the 600+ escape rooms I’ve played, I’ve encountered an experience in which each dimension was so finely tuned relative to what it was trying to achieve.

The production design throughout The Tale of the Heartless Pirate was inspirational. Every surface within the walls of Dream Labs was thoroughly developed, with a sharp contrast between clinical white research facility and warm, wooden pirate world. The latter looked old and weathered without ever actually being dirty or splintery. The set was impressively yet not irresponsibly expansive, and each new space we passed through was efficiently used. Beyond physical production, The Tale of the Heartless Pirate was an audiovisual marvel, with lush original musical scoring and lighting that was picture-perfect from every angle. Our interactions with a fantastic actor further brought the world to life.

The Tale of the Heartless Pirate was designed in partnership with THE ROOM Laboratories, and their style shone through strongly. In my review of Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor, I debated the distinction between explicit puzzle and narrative task. Regardless of which label feels most appropriate, the interaction design throughout The Tale of the Heartless Pirate pushed even further in that direction of hyper-streamlined, creative actions that fit both environment and narrative. Even as a hardcore puzzle enthusiast, I still appreciated and enjoyed this style. And thinking more broadly, I believe that experiences in this style and at this caliber have the potential to massively expand the audiences drawn to escape rooms.

Dream Labs is located in the middle of nowhere, and that nowhere happens to be an adorable little village in northern Bavaria. A 3- to 4-hour drive from either Berlin or Munich, this is not the easiest escape room company to get to. Since my visit, Dream Labs has already opened their second game, a tech-heavy cyberpunk adventure entitled Metropolis 2099, and their third and final experience is in progress. It was well worth the long drive even just to play The Tale of the Heartless Pirate, and with 3 experiences hopefully all at a similarly high level, Dream Labs will be an escape room destination worth traveling any distance to visit.

Who is this for?

• Adventure seekers
• Scenery snobs
• Story seekers
• Any experience level
• Fans of Monkey Island and Pirates of the Caribbean

Why play?

• End-to-end immersion
• A cinematic environment
• Creative interactions
• Treasure!

Story

As participants in a shared lucid dreaming experience at Dream Labs, we entered our DreamPod and descended into a swashbuckling adventure full of priceless treasure and ruthless pirates.

Setting

The Tale of the Heartless Pirate began at the Dream Labs facility, a pristine white lab punctuated by mesmerizing LED trails. Once inside our dream, we were transported to a rustic pirate tavern. The walls were covered with framed photos of past guests of note. The tavern was past its heyday though it still felt thoroughly lived in, with an unstrung fiddle and a poker game in progress hinting at previous festivities. In the corner, a rickety vending machine dispensed rolled-up treasure maps.

Gameplay

Dream Labs’ The Tale of the Heartless Pirate was a standard escape room with a low-to-moderate level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around story-driven tasks, solving puzzles, and interacting with an actor.

Analysis

➕ The Tale of the Heartless Pirate consistently had a strong sense of place, and the density of environmental storytelling was extraordinary. Every tshotshke, every texture, every sound, and every lighting choice was carefully calibrated to communicate nuanced information about the world we entered.

➕ The gameplay skewed more toward narratively meaningful tasks and interactions than explicit puzzles, yet there were still plenty of ahas to be had. We encountered varied styles of play, including actor interactions, environmental observation, creative problem solving, and asymmetrical information sharing. Throughout this all, the flow was impeccable and there were no breaks in the action or immersion.

➕ The Tale of the Heartless Pirate told a specific and compelling story within a common escape room theme, all while striking a strong balance between adventure and humor. Fans of the Monkey Island franchise will especially appreciate certain Easter eggs, yet no outside knowledge was required to experience a full and coherent narrative.

➕ Holy shit. A communication puzzle showed how humor, delight, and celebration can be elegantly imbued in an otherwise fairly straightforward interaction, all while furthering the story.

➕ An oversized interpretation of a common mechanical puzzle type blew my mind with its precision of execution and environmental context.

➕ A magical transition translated the power of our imaginations into reality. It was equal parts playful and impressive.

➖ One of the most memorable areas of the set was effective in its storytelling yet underutilized in the gameplay. I wished we’d been able to spend more time here.

➕ Dream Labs commissioned some truly stunning metalwork that would be equally at home in a gift shop or a fine art museum.

➕ The Tale of the Heartless Pirate featured one of the most effective uses of projection mapping that I’ve seen in an escape room. Top-notch voice acting and other sensory effects further helped bring the story to life.

➕ In one segment of the experience, a quippy character served both as museum tour guide and hint system. When an escape room creates a memorable hint delivery mechanism like this, I love seeing it also utilized for non-hint purposes so all players, regardless of whether they take hints, get to experience it.

➕/➖ An exhilarating finale provided a satisfying and scintillating resolution to our grand adventure, yet it could have been even stronger with a final beat of emotional resolution. A heart-wrenching character arc had already been clearly established earlier in the experience, and even a line or two of audio dialogue could have tied together the story not just with action but also with emotion.

➕ Dream Labs paid careful attention to its preservation of the magic circle. The entire experience was framed as a lucid dream, allowing players to come as themselves while also providing a welcoming sandbox for unfiltered imagination. Layered thresholds shepherded our entrance to and exit from this inner world. By providing sufficient time and space at the tail end for some meditative decompression, the core experience had space to breathe.

Tips For Visiting

• The Tale of the Heartless Pirate is playable in English and German.
• Given Dream Labs’ rather far distance from any major city, you might want to stay the night. If so, there are multiple solid lodging options within close walking distance.

Book your experience with Dream Labs’ The Tale of the Heartless Pirate, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Dream Labs provided media discounted tickets for this game.