Southampton is well known as a port city, but in the world of aviation it also known as the birthplace of the Spitfire. In 1940, following the bombing of the Vickers Supermarine Factories at Woolston, Spitfire production was dispersed to more than 30 sites in and around Southampton.
It is therefore fitting that there is a local escape room based on saving a Spitfire factory. The City Adventurers flew down to play Operation: Spitfire at Sneaky Dog escape rooms.
For this Escape room adventure our mission was to “Abort the Bomb and Save Our Spitfires!”. The website said the game was for 90 minutes and difficult. However, it was not until we arrived that we were told the game only has an 8% success rate! Alarm bells started to ring in our heads.
As you can see from the photo we did not manage to diffuse the bomb in time.
Why do we think the success rate is so abysmally low? Read on to find out!
The Plot
It’s the summer of 1940. The Battle of Britain is about to begin and we are outnumbered and outgunned. Our best hope is our Spitfires but a German spy is planning to destroy the Spitfire factory.
The spy has been apprehended but the plan is already in motion. You must infiltrate his hideout, decipher the abort code and broadcast it before it’s too late.
You have 90 minutes until the bomb detonates.
Operation: Spitfire review
The Venue
The Sneaky Dog venue is situated near the site of the former spitfire factory. So a good use of local history to produce the escape room theme. Our Games Master was one of the owners who took over the business last year. They only have two physical rooms but loads of VR escape games available. They also produce puzzle games to play at home.
There is a car park behind the venue so parking is fairly easy. Once inside the building we made our way upstairs to the reception for a briefing. The games are on different levels but there is a way to get people with mobility problems into the VR games area without climbing stairs. Useful to know if we take someone back to try a VR adventure.
The Mission
The GM told us a basic outline of our mission – A German spy had been discovered planning to destroy the Spitfire factory. Our job was to find the code to disarm the bomb. Easy enough, having defused “bombs” before, or so we thought.
We said, as we always do, that we like having hints and nudges to get us through the game if we are falling behind time-wise. We prefer to see the whole story and attempt all the puzzles. That is when we discovered this game only has an 8% success rate!
OK, so it was always going to be difficult as there were only two of us and it said it was a difficult room. But 8%! Alarm bells started ringing in my head. Such a low success rate usually means there are red herrings all over the place, poorly designed puzzles that don’t make any sense, puzzles that require leaps in logic, puzzles designed to make you fail, bad lighting, time-wasting challenges….To have such a low success rate implies there is something wrong with the room.
But we were already there, and we’d paid the money to play, so there was no backing out.
The Game
We headed up to the spy’s sitting room. An audio introduction was played then we were free to explore the room and start solving puzzles. The decoration and props were good. Very WW2 themed. There was even a propaganda film playing in the background.
We needed a slight nudge that we could take some things apart and then we were off and running. A good variety of puzzles and a great use of physical solving. We knew this was a multi-room game – not really a spoiler as there was obviously a locked door in the corner we would need to open. So we spent our time methodically working out way towards that.
I must say we were on a roll. Sometimes you have an off day and the puzzle solving ability just isn’t there. This was not one of those days. We worked well together, with minimal hints, for 73 minutes. And that is when the wheels came off, so to speak.
We were down to our last puzzle in the two rooms, when we got the warning there was only 17 minutes left. We hadn’t noticed a timer in either room and felt we had been working reasonable smoothly. We assumed that now was the time to open a secret store, find the code for the bomb and save the day.
Alas, we were very very sadly mistaken.
****Spoiler alert****This multi-room game has too many rooms to complete and the third/fourth room is the hardest of them all!
Having made it through the secret door to a third room and a fourth room behind that our hearts sank.
We were not surprised at very low success rate. Having completed two good rooms we were faced with a small room and an adjacent large room crammed with puzzles. Not only that, but the level of puzzles ramped up at end just when you expect them to be straight forward conclusion puzzles.
We looked around in dismay. There was so much still to do. Too much, especially with a small team, and the fact that we had less time allocated to the ending section compared to the earlier, straightforward sections.
A Room (Or Two) Too Far
Even though we had limited time we still attempted the final section of the game, knowing the game was lost.
We had gotten through 2/3 of our mission but the last 1/3 had too much in it for us to complete. We wondered if we could have completed the game if we had been a larger team. Say 5 people. But then again maybe not, as the final section had a major puzzle flaw, so even having extra people, would not help.
****spoiler alert*****Unlike other escape we have played, you need to use the same prop twice. Not only that, but you need to use it again immediately after having used it to solve its first puzzle.
We’ve played other games where we have been warned that a certain prop will be used twice. Often the GM will repeat that during the game when we find that particular prop. However such information was not given to us for this game.
We found out about using the prop twice in rapid succession during the after game debrief. Having used the prop to gain a code, you have to immediately input it into the same prop. This gets you a vital clue that tells you how to start solving the last room!
Apparently most teams fail this challenge. I’m not surprised.
The fact that most teams miss this vital clue should be an indication that the vital clue needs to be more obvious. Unless, of course, the venue likes teams failing.
Did I feel angry or cheated that we lost? Not at the time.
We had completed two very good rooms and had fun throughout. There was still so much to do we were nowhere close to finishing.
The problem with the low success rate initially appeared to be due to the very difficult additional rooms at the end.
However, looking back, we concluded that even if we’d had a larger team and more time, failing to find the vital clue would have made me annoyed.
So is the problem bad puzzle design? Does it need better sign posting? Do you need better information from the GM that a prop needs to be used twice or that you’ve only solved part of the puzzle?
I think it a combination of all of these points.
If you want to take your own (large) team Operation: Spitfire can be booked at Sneaky Dog escape rooms.
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