Haunted Harbor

Haunted Harbor
Escape Ventures, Winter Garden
Review by Michael W. Merriam

Rating: It’s terrific

(color-coded rating soon to come, but we rate it highly)

The Haunted Harbor is a stormy revitalization of a classic room from the old Escape Goat catalogue. The maritime setting is better described as suspense than horror. (I don’t remember any jump scares.) It looks good, and the storyline is strong enough to equal, without fighting against, the wonderfully constructed wharf. Like the best rooms, its story gives is a premise, not a plot. Ultimately, there’s a complete narrative once you assemble the pieces of the villain’s origin story. The lore was so convincing, I felt guilty for not remembering more about the fictional ghost mariner more clearly from… was it American History class, where I should have heard of him? Or some book of folklore I once read?

Neither, the lore was created just for this room, but it feels authentic and antique. The dead central character is based on a real and living member of their design team, and the only reason I thought I’d heard it somewhere before is because it feels so natural and native to its setting. I recommend the room to game writing students, just to get a sense of story balanced well against mechanics. If you can’t really focus on that aspect of Haunted Harbor, it won’t hold you back. The core activities are searching and exploring. 

Cunning puzzle-craft and scenic intensity aside, this experience retains the feel of a classic… erm… you know what? I’ve run out of upbeat ways to say “there’s lots of four-number codes you have to put into a padlock, it’s cool and retro, and there’s other input systems deeper in”, but that’s not a concern for everybody. Even so, if you truly feel burned out on spinning padlocks, the venue has some other rooms you might like more, in terms of puzzles. It would be a shame not to immerse yourself in the visual experience of the harbor, though. And for historians of the art form, the classic padlock-input-system is part of the magic, and the respect it pays to the original. When Escape Ventures saw this venerable room, they didn’t say “let’s gut it and just build something new”, they said “this is a classic song, and we know our band can cover it”, and they did, and it’s great. 

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