1911 · about 35 minutes · 4 days

Polar Expedition: The Fourth Depot

A polar expedition escape room: a sextant with a cracked mirror, a sledging diary, a ledger that does not add up, and a ship that sails in four days.

Buy the link for your group$10for the whole group
~35 minfor a group that talks1 to 6players, one linkNo appany phone or laptopMedium

Latchkeys › Escape rooms › Polar Expedition: The Fourth Depot

The situation

You are holding a sextant with a cracked mirror and a page torn from a sight book, and the man who wrote the page is somewhere south of you on the Barrier, looking for the specimen box. Ferris went out alone along the depot line four mornings ago to fetch the box from the fourth depot, and a dog came back yesterday with the page in its harness, a leaf of his diary pinned to it, and nothing else, and it is you who has to go and find him and the box. The ship sails when the light goes, in four days; after that there is no ship until spring, and whoever is not aboard winters here with whatever they have found. You are the navigator, and you have not been able to feel your left hand since Tuesday.

OBJECTIVE  Find the specimen box and get it to the coast before the ship sails.
CLOCK      The ship sails when the light goes: four days.
PRIZE      The specimen box on the sledge, and the ship still there.
  • polar expedition
  • 1911
  • a sledging diary
  • the Barrier
  • four days
  • online escape room
A brass sextant with a round glass lying on a dark canvas sheet on the ice beside a curled page of pencilled figures, a canvas tent with its door open and an empty sledge with slack traces behind, under a low rose sun, as a hand-coloured glass lantern slide in sepia and ice cyan. Nobody in it.The empty Barrier at sledge height, a snow cairn with a small black flag on a pole in the foreground, old sledge tracks half drifted over around it, a blue shadow at its foot and an empty wooden sledge standing on the snow to one side, under a sepia sky, as a hand-coloured glass lantern slide in sepia and ice cyan. Nobody in it.A snow cairn with a bamboo pole and a torn black flag on a flat ice plain, a ration tin at the cairn's foot and a small tent pitched beside it with its door open, a long blue shadow behind the tent and a band of rose on the horizon, as a hand-coloured glass lantern slide tinted sepia and ice cyan. Nobody in it.

Play it with your group

$10for the whole groupBuy the link for your group

You get a link. It works for everyone in your group, on any device, and it does not expire.

  • About 35 minutes
  • 1 to 6 players, one price for the group
  • Phone or laptop, nothing to install
  • No account, nothing tracked
  • A key on every step if you get stuck
  • The link does not expire

Questions people ask

Can we play it together over Zoom or a call?

Yes. One purchase is one link, and the link works for everyone in your group at once. Share your screen or all open it; there is nothing to sync, because the puzzle is the pages and the answers you work out together.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. It was built for a phone first: every lock is a text box or buttons you tap, nothing needs a keyboard, a mouse or a printer.

How long does it take?

About 35 minutes for a group that talks; longer if you like arguing. There is no timer and nothing is scored.

What if we get stuck?

Every step has its own key: a nudge first, then a harder nudge, and the answer only if you ask for it. Wrong answers say something in the story rather than just no.

Do we need an account or an app?

No. The link opens in any browser and nothing is installed. Nothing is tracked while you play, either.

Is it suitable for children?

The stories are eerie and never cruel; nobody dies on the page. The puzzles need reading and a little arithmetic, so about twelve and up on their own, younger with an adult.

Can I play it alone?

Yes. It was written in the second person, so it works for one as well as for six.

What if it does not work for us?

Write and say so, and you will have your money back. The link does not expire, so there is no rush to use it.