One Week in Barcelona: 12 Escape Rooms with Unboxd Experiential Events

At some point I will write a review for an individual experience, but today is not that day!

Back once again with a veritable smorgasbord of offerings, for the third time within one year I have completed another Unboxd Euro-trip. Back in Spain again, but this time, in the city that has my heart – Barcelona (I have lived there, dontcha know?).

Our trip was made up of 12 rooms (4 for each of the 3 days we were there), included a mix of mainly TERPECA-rated, and some newly opened experiences. This was not a normal Escape Room trip however – oh no! – this was the horror trip. Of the 12 rooms we played, 4 of them were pure horror experiences, 6 of them were somewhat anxiety-inducing to varying degrees – leaving only 2 of them which were just jolly good times.

Since my first review with the The Escape Roomer, where I wrote about the Acid Bath Murders – another horror experience – I’ve become full horror-convert, and now actively seek out to play the most intensely psychologically degrading-experiences possible. This trip satisfied that itch, and then some.

Since we don’t tend to cover non-UK escape rooms in depth on The Escape Roomer, and in the interest of brevity(ish), here are some quickfire(ish) reviews of the 12 rooms we played.

The City Escape Room: The Tavern

⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Kicking off with one of said jolly good times – La Taberna is located about 30 mins out of central Barcelona. Starting in – exactly as its translated namesake suggests – a tavern. La Taberna has an absolutely legendary status within the industry, storming into the TERPECA ratings at 9th place overall in 2023, it is indeed a thing of legends. A very memorable introduction involving a live actor / our gamemaster, fantastic puzzles, huge space to roam in, and several incredible setpieces, there’s no other word for La Taberna than epic.

The only criticism we had with the game is that in the final area, because of the nature of the acoustics, it was impossible to hear what was going on during the last sequence, but overall it didn’t affect our enjoyment.

CruPoint Legacy: Nightshift

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

First of the horror experiences, and my lord, it set the bar high. Nightshift had a particularly interesting backstory, because it was heavily influenced by a real-life psychiatric hospital located not too far away in Sabadell. Borrowing real props and some of the decor, our games host did a great job of telling us the eerie tale involving dark secrets and scary happenings when the hospital was still operating.

Much like the IRL story, the game housed some real secrets, with a few very innovative puzzles – always a bonus in horror rooms. But truly the crowning moment of the experience was given to – what I imagine everyone talks about as ‘that moment’. None of us had seen anything like it, it caught us majorly off guard, and we continue to talk about it to this day, as undoubtedly many people do. Hats off to the creators, because that is exactly the kind of thing that gets you business!

Abduction 3: The Exam

⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Utterly convinced I’d played 4 years previously in Madrid, I started the game thinking I’d just stand back and watch everyone else solve everything. The first fifteen minutes or so, I kept repeating to myself, ‘hmm, I think I remember this? I’m sure we have to do this… hang on, oh no that’s not right, hmm, oh dear, oh no, my memory really is shocking.’ It was only when we got past the first section that I realised I had, in fact, never actually played this game.

Anyway, now I’ve used up most of my words rambling about my terrible memory – how about the game itself? It was extremely enjoyable – nothing spectacular, but just very good, satisfying puzzles throughout. I did like the fact that because it was called exam, in which we were being tested, it basically meant that there wasn’t any particular theme, it meant that the designers could get very creative with the puzzles.

Abduction 4: Enterprises

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Batman really is a cool character isn’t he? Abduction was one of the slickest Escape Rooms I’ve ever played…it oozed style, essence, and had some really clean puzzles. I’m also still actually not sure if this was an officially licensed game (I’m 90% sure it’s not), but it felt genuinely like being in the Batcave.

This was a very, very physical game, which involved a lot of (unnecessary) climbing around. There was one activity that even required swinging – and hanging – on monkey bars for a timed puzzle. It wasn’t too difficult for me, but that’s because I’ve spent a lifetime hanging on things [/bragging mode deactivated], but I have no idea how most people would be able to do it – I can only think the gamesmaster must override it? Either way, the physicality of the room has to be offputting for some.

The batmobile was a bit of a waste of space! Talking of space, it was quite a poor use of it – it’s criminal for these european escape rooms to be able to have so much space and not utilise it in the optimum way whilst us poor Brits have to suffer through playing inside boxes that cost a fortune (can you tell I’m burned on the state of the UK industry?)

Escape Barcelona: K.O.N.G. Protocol 4.5 stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

At the time of writing – K.O.N.G. protocol is the latest offering from Escape Room mega-company, Escape Barcelona – known for mega-games and mega-rer-immersion. This game achieved those criteria, and then some! The space just kept going, and going, and there were some very enjoyable set-piece narrative moments which forced us to stop and really appreciate the surroundings (something which I don’t think happens enough in general!).

Definitely my favourite of all their experiences, there was one unbelievably silly moment that happened towards the end that I will never forget. It wasn’t without its flaws though. Some of the puzzles were a bit fiddly – particularly an electronic sequencing one which could have been signposted better (I think the gamesmaster ended up overriding). Either way, having played most of their games, I think this is their best, for sure.

Escape Barcelona: Cybercity 2049

⭐⭐⭐

Playing Cybercity was a great example of how appreciation for quality can be completely marred by what has come before (well, to be fair, it also shows what an infinite budget can do). A couple of years back, this game was considered to be pretty ground-breaking – and for good reason. The setting is fantastic, they use some great tech (when it works), the story is fluid, and there is a lot of variety…however, after our trip to Germany to play Metropolis 2099 earlier this year, Cybercity fell completely flat for me.

With a practically-identical setting, vibe, and some obviously inspired moments *cough* lift scene, the problem is that Metropolis 2099’s game IS Cybercity, but turned up to 11. (I’m not going to use this space to gush again, you’ll have to check my review of that if you want to know exactly why).

It’s very difficult for me to give a balanced review as a result. It’s definitely a good game, but I was permanently locked into compare-mode, and I think that marred the experience. My, uhh, recommendation would be: whatever you do, don’t play Metropolis 2099 before you play Cybercity.

Seriously though, I would actually recommend reading some other unbiased, un-tarnished reviews!

Kadabra: Poison

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The more I reflect on Poison, the more I realised this was my favourite room of the trip (despite how few words I ended up writing for it). Minimum narrative / immersion, maximum puzzles – both from the perspective of quality and quantity, this room had so many satisfying surprises, that I had a perma-smile on my face from start to finish.

Also, I just want to give a shoutout to Kadabra – for a room that’s been going for so long as well, they’ve done a wonderful job of keeping it immaculate. It really bothers me when escape room owners don’t keep on top of maintaining props and decor, so max points for that – v. excited about their Aladdin-themed room opening next year!

Whitechapel Escape Room: Whitechapel

⭐⭐⭐💫

The second pure horror game of the trip, Whitechapel is based on the story of Jack the Ripper – of which my ignorant ass knew nothing – so it was nice to get a little bit of an introduction to the tale from our host during the preamble.

I say nice, the introduction took about 20 minutes of standing there in the dark shuffling back and forth across the floor whilst the host laid on the banter. I know the rest of my team enjoyed the back and forth, but for someone who just wants to get into the action, I found this a bit stressful – but not horror-> adrenaline-> good stress, this was attention-span-of-a-gnat-> noradrenaline-> bad stress.

Anyway, once it was finally over, we had a great time – there was one terrifying moment where I drew the short straw and had to keep a button held down in a room I knew had two exits, and if you know horror games, you know more than one exit equals halp!

One particular highlight was watching our ‘I’m never ever doing a horror experience ever’ friend walk down what seemed to be a never-ending pitch black street at the start.

I felt for you buddy, I really did. ~winky face~

Can Bruna: Cellular Odyssey

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Jolly experience número dos (that’s Spanish!), and the furthest distance away from Barcelona, Cellular Odyssey was exactly the type of experience that made me fall in love with Escape Rooms in the beginning. A family business and true passion project – hand made, beautifully crafted set, story and puzzles, Can Bruna – the company – had been operating since the dawn of Escape Rooms, so they obviously knew their craft.

Sadly, I believe they are closing down, so if you haven’t, you should really try and make the trip – we all agreed that it was one of the most unique and lovingly-made experiences we’d ever done.

Arcanum: La Posesión

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Prior to arriving, David B – gracious host of the Unboxed tours – told us to prepare our butts for an absolute top-tier horror experience, so our expectations were already pretty high, and I can report after finishing this room that I’m glad we did indeed, prepare our collective butts.

There are some experiences in life – particularly horror ones – where you leave wondering how the hell it was possible that that single person could be in so many places all at the same time, and La Posesion was no different in that respect. Despite being shown many of the tricks they utilised after we finished, I’m still not entirely sure I believe them.

Remember that time earlier where I said I had to hold down a button in a room in whitechapel? Well there was one moment during this experience where my body was telling me I was actually going to die. My senses have never been more fooled!

This is an absolute must play for lovers of horror rooms, cannot recommend it enough!

Golden Pop: Jurasico

⭐⭐

I’d been to this same venue to play La Catacumbas many years ago, and it remains to this day one of my favourites, so I was already expecting quite a lot. Add dinosaurs to the mix, and you can be assured the hype for me was comfortably sitting in the off-the-chart territory

Sadly, I can’t say Jurasico lived up to it. Yes, the space was massive, yes it had dinosaurs, and a handful of the puzzles were ok, but their selling point of it basically being a real living jungle with real soil and real plants did not help tip that balance in its favour.

I’m pretty sure that anyone that ends up playing Jurasico is going to end up developing some kind of spore-borne respiratory problems at some point in the future – the air was filled with a dampness that didn’t feel good at all. Not to mention, several of the plants in there seemed to be dying from some kind of ‘maybe growing a garden underground wasn’t such a good idea’ disease…

Add that to one of the weirdest, most pointless and drawn-out introductions ever, we didn’t have the best time!

Krematorium: Malum

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thankfully, what could have been a disappointing end to a trip was flipped on its head with our final game, and final horror-fueled adrenaline rush; in every possible way, Malum was simply amazing. (Note: I’m pretty sure our host was an actual imp?)

Built into a ginormous warehouse which seemed to extend forever, we were utterly captivated from start to finish. Great puzzles, great flow, terrifyingly extended periods of running back and forth, it truly was the best way to finish our tour.

Unfortunately, owing to a miscommunication and – in all honesty lazy game-mastering – we did miss out on what could undoubtedly have been the best specific moment of the trip. That’ll just have to remain with Nightshift I’m afraid…