The race mode that turned a big booking into a contest between friends.
In short: Head-to-Head was Dead Man's Chest's race mode. Groups of five to eight were split into two crews, each got an identical cursed chest, and the first to break the curse within the time limit won. It retired along with the room.
Head-to-Head turned Dead Man's Chest from a shared puzzle into a contest. It applied to any booking of five to eight players: instead of crowding everyone around one chest, the gamesmaster split the party in two and gave each half its own identical chest.
Both crews faced the same locks and riddles against the same countdown. Nobody could win by waiting for the other side to slip, because the prize went to the first crew to break the curse, and a crew that ran out of time lost to Davy Jones as well as to its rivals.
The format depended on the game living inside a chest. A full room is hard to build twice, but a chest can be copied exactly, which is how Dead Man's Chest could offer a fair race between two crews.
A booking of five to eight was divided into two crews when it arrived.
Each crew took its own copy of the cursed chest, with identical puzzles.
Both crews raced the same time limit, with gamesmasters on hand for clues.
The crew that unlocked Calico Jack's secrets first won the race.
Head-to-Head retired with the room in November 2024. Groups who liked the rivalry can still split into two crews across Pirates and Pirate Island at the same Escape This venue and see who escapes faster.
Mostly a single chest. The 2024 listing for Dead Man's Chest said players focused on one treasure chest instead of searching a room, with its locks, riddles and hidden compartments carrying the whole game. That made it quicker and more frantic than a usual room, and it's why two matching chests could be raced against each other.
Dead Man's Chest took a single crew of two to four players, and groups of five to eight were split into two rival crews for its Head-to-Head mode. Those numbers come from the room's own 2024 site. One answer on that site wrongly named a different room, but its room details and booking notes agree on these sizes.
Head-to-Head was the competitive way to play Dead Man's Chest. A booking of five to eight people was divided by the gamesmaster into two rival crews, each handed an identical cursed chest, and both raced the same countdown. The first crew to lift the curse won, so your friends were opponents as well as the clock.
On arrival. The gamesmaster split the booking into two crews before the Dead Man's Chest game began, so a party of six became two crews of three. Each crew then worked its own matching chest, with the same locks, the same riddles and the same time limit as its rivals.
Any booking of five to eight players. Dead Man's Chest treated two to four people as a single crew; book more than four and the game became a race between two crews, up to a maximum of eight. That rule appeared on the room's 2024 booking page.
By lifting the curse first. In Head-to-Head Dead Man's Chest both crews chased the same goal on identical chests inside the one time limit, so the winner was whichever crew unlocked Calico Jack's secrets before its rivals. The clock still mattered: if neither crew finished, Davy Jones won instead.
Not in a matching-chest format that this site can confirm. Head-to-Head retired with Dead Man's Chest, and Escape This's earlier briefcase race has closed as well. A large group today can book Pirates and Pirate Island at the same venue in two crews and compare escapes afterwards; teamescape.com.au handles bigger events.
Dead Man's Chest has gone, but its first two chapters are open in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. Pick a room, pick a venue and see live session times.