Present, in August 2023, were: Granny, The Ant, Panda, Cynical Panda Crew

Let’s talk about climaxes. The one thing all good games shouldn’t do these days is to leave you unsure whether you have actually completed it. It definitely shouldn’t be dependent on the GM walking in and telling you. The endgame should give a clear sense of achievement (or failure) of your goal, preferably with the associated adrenaline buzz rather than frustration. As the industry moves away from the “get the last key and unlock the door” model, and with more complex game narratives, it can be more difficult to get a theme-appropriate exit. But there are so many options, with sound and lighting effects, that can give drama and punch to any kind of ending, to leave players on a high. A newly-built version of a well-established game has no excuses for not getting this right. Sadly, on this occasion, the finale was so unsatisfying it really did leave us with that sinking feeling of disappointment.

Rewind, then, to our visit to Houdini’s Milton Keynes. It had been open a week (yes, yes, I have a rule of not playing a brand-new game unless test/reviewing, but our alternate scheduled game had been cancelled) and I was excited to have more choice in the local area. Titanic was the most family-friendly option, with decent reviews from the Southampton branch, and we had a 50% discount, so what could go wrong?

Duh, it’s the Titanic and, appropriately, it was a bit of a disaster. More so for the frustrations – there SHOULD be a good game here; many of the ingredients were present and correct. But, somewhere, the execution is listing badly and taking on water.

We were slightly alarmed right from the start when our GM assured us they were going to be on-hand throughout. Absolutely no personal criticism of them – very friendly, organised, clearly watching our game closely. But, a bit too closely, as they kept popping into the room to offer hints and encouragement. This seemed to be Houdini’s clue system. There was a perfectly good vintage telephone (connected) in the room, that wasn’t used for anything else. That seemed like the obvious option for contact with the GM. But instead, the choice (or was the phone broken?) seemed to be the door opening every 10 minutes (with the associate bowling alley noise bleeding in) for an out-of-character intervention. For some inexperienced players, this might be reassuring, I suppose? As we are quite an introverted team, we just found this uncomfortable.

Turned out, it wasn’t just for clues, though. The GM’s appearances were also used for puzzle reveals. In a couple of instances, we would solve something, and instead of unlocking an object, the main door would open for us to be handed an item. This seemed like a bonkers bit of off-theme game design, particularly when there were definitely more obvious ways to progress the game. It made us feel like something else was broken and this was a workaround.

And there was our big gripe with the finale. There was quite a large set-piece type item, with a clearly associated puzzle, which we kept trying to fiddle with, concluding it must be used later in the game. There was also a bit of machinery that we “solved”, but didn’t seem to do anything. We stood and stared at this for a minute or so, checked the room for other potential puzzles (a couple of things we hadn’t really used). And then the GM came in and said “Congratulations, you’ve escaped the Titanic!”. I’ve never seen two teenagers’ faces say “WTF?” quite so loudly.

“You seem a little confused” said our GM, conversationally, as we wandered back to the lobby. Well, yeah. What did we solve to get out? What did that machinery do? We didn’t do that set-piece thing? “Oh, that’s broken, sorry about that.” Dude, no.

I don’t think this game is unsalvageable in its present form. There’s so much that could be good here. The build is beautiful (although we all chorused “Grandma’s carpet” on walking in). There are a lot of cool, quirky features. I liked most of the puzzles in the first room, some fun and unique ideas, well sign-posted. It just feels like it is being run by people who don’t know what they are doing, and are ploughing on regardless, ignoring the towering icebergs of broken tech. And to have a Titanic ending so completely lacking in drama is quite an achievement in itself.

• Storyline: Presumably meant to be “Get off the boat”. Some tasks made sense, but then just…stopped.
• Theming and Set: Classy and with some fun props. Not the biggest space, a team of 4 is the max.
• Searching: One dumb search fail on our part.
• Puzzles: A couple of nice ones. Definitely some GM-activated, in more ways than normal.
• Physicality: Going to sound weird, but did need sea-legs for part of this. I have chronic motion sickness and I actually found it a little nauseating. This is vastly overstating their special effects, by the way. But it was a clever feature. Also had to duck/scramble – work around available for that.
• Scare factor: Perplexing, yes. Scary, no. Exciting? Also no.
• Company Age Guidance: “8+”.
• Age suitability: 8+ with plenty of adult assistance would be fine here. Suitable for the bowling alley demographic.

Houdini’s website