Break Out Myrtle Beach – The Curse of Volcano Island (Review)

Location: Myrtle Beach, SC

Players: 2-10 (We recommend 3-5)

Price: $28 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

What a beautiful island! Pity about the curse.

Theme:

After your plane crash-lands over the Atlantic, you and your fellow survivors piled into a life boat and began floating, hoping for sign of land or rescue. Your pilot has spotted an island in the distance, and you paddle towards it in the hopes it is inhabited, but unfortunately when you arrive the whole place is deserted. Even worse, you find evidence that the island is likely cursed as well! Your presence on this forbidden land has been noticed by some greater power, and you’ll have to break the curse quickly before the volcano in the distance explodes!

First Impressions:

We have very much enjoyed Break Out Myrtle Beach’s sister locations in Charleston, SC, (Elite Escape Games, Break Out Charleston, and Charleston Escape Game,) so on our most recent trip to Myrtle Beach, visiting Break Out was a no brainer! Our first steps into Curse of Volcano Island presented the excellently immersive set design we’ve come to expect from these locations, and we were thrilled to start our escape!

There’s that excellent Break Out polish!

High Points:

Beyond the aforementioned set design, Curse of Volcano Island seeks to create a highly immersive experience by utilizing a great soundtrack and awesome lighting effects. All these touches combined really bring the adventure life in the best possible way. The game is set up semi-non-linear fashion, with a few puzzles or interactions to solve available during any given stage of the game, which generally lead towards a puzzle to open up the next stage. This would keep a mid-size group entertained and engaged throughout, as many of the puzzles require a fair amount of teamwork to solve. Most of the room is set up in such a way that progress is easy to gauge naturally and within the theme, with new props being obtained and new areas opening as the team solves their way towards saving the island, and themselves! Perception is challenged throughout the game, and outside of the box thinking is not only encouraged, but required to best the many original puzzles that are housed inside!

The game flow works excellently for the most part, with intuitive revelations to be uncovered constantly. The density of puzzles and fantastic integration within the theme will keep most groups happily engaged, though the maximum of ten might make for too many cooks in the kitchen when enthusiasts are involved. Technology is seamlessly integrated within the room, and creates an atmosphere of magic while still providing excellent feedback during play, keeping groups on track during the entire experience. The storyline is engaging, and while mostly front loaded, the climax is appropriately satisfying, and tied everything up nicely.

The volcano belches smoke on the horizon!

Low Points:

At one point, a small process puzzle may stymie progress and leave larger groups with little to do. Our team somehow bypassed this one with what must be the luckiest run of events leading to a lock opening extremely early, but we still solved a portion to confirm how the puzzle is solved. Luckily, after our accidental advancement within the story, our GM confirmed our incredibly unlikely guess was a freak accident, and advised us to ignore this particular box so we didn’t accidentally derail the experience for ourselves! There are a lot of really intuitive puzzles and interactions, but for two or three moments in which cluing becomes very sparse, and you’ll either know just what to do or you won’t, and these portions of the game can really grind everything to a halt. Our Gamemaster was very helpful in hinting us back on track, but for the most part these sections seemed to require outside hints rather than relying on information intuitively gathered from the room itself. There are a few points at which it feels like deja vu when a puzzle type is repeated, but this isn’t overly egregious, and overall, the puzzle or interaction is changed up enough that it doesn’t become repetitious.

Verdict:

The Curse of Volcano Island is an immersive romp, if minorly uneven in parts. The story and set design are amazing, as usual, and the puzzles are original and engaging, though the flow tends to suffer from time to time due to some deficiencies in cluing. However, I recommend giving it a shot as on the whole our escape was a lot of fun! You can book your time on the island here!

7.5/10 (Good)

Full Disclosure: Breakout Myrtle Beach provided media discounted tickets for this room.