Category Archives: International

Hidden in Hamburg: Golden Skull

Hamburg, Feb 2025

Hidden in Hamburg are famously based not in a normal venue but on board a pair of ships, permanently moored at the docks. The Golden Skull is on the Cap San Diego, a retired cargo ship that is also a museum, entry to which is included in the price of… (more)

Big Break: The Toymaker

Hamburg, Feb 2025

Each of the three rooms we played at Big Break were thoroughly enjoyable, but The Toymaker was the one we’d come for, and it was indeed in a class of its own.

The premise is that you’re in the store and workshop of a legendary toymaker, who has devo… (more)

Big Break: Time Travel

Hamburg, Feb 2025

Time travel is often a mix and match sort of theme, and so it was here – essentially a sequence of mostly independent mini games, each with its own style of decor and puzzles. Given the whole of history to choose from, some designers go for more obvi… (more)

Big Break: Insomnia

Hamburg, Feb 2025

This is a premise that at another venue could easily have been a horror room: plagued by insomnia, you undergo experimental therapy to enter your own dreamworld to defeat your inner demons, before you’re trapped there forever. But while this does hav… (more)

Team Escape Hamburg: Aus Versehen Apokalypse

Hamburg, Feb 2025

This was a game that I booked primarily for logistical reasons, looking for something that I could squeeze into a small afternoon gap in a tight schedule of games. So I didn’t have particularly high hopes for it, particularly since Team Escape is a m… (more)

Escape Republik: Nakatomi Plaza

Barcelona, Jan 2025

Picture it: it’s your first day at work as an escape room host; the only escape rooms you’ve played before are the two you did as training for the job, you’re the only one there, lots of the tech is failing, and of all the teams that could be playing… (more)

Unreal Sant Martí: Distrito 111

Barcelona, Jan 2025

Like almost all the Unreal games I’ve played, with Distrito 111 you’re expected to enter the game exactly at your appointment time; you enter straight into the first area of the game, put your things in a trunk and begin playing without seeing any ve… (more)

Unreal Vilapicina: The Wonders of Agrabah

Barcelona, Jan 2025

Unreal have a lot of different branches in and around Barcelona, most with only one or two rooms, and sometimes with alternate names suggesting they started off as independents. I suspect that may be why there’s quite a bit of variation in design sty… (more)

Escape Barcelona: KONG Protocol

Barcelona, Jan 2025

I went into KONG with high expectations – not only is it in the current TERPECA top 10 (!) but the most recent game before it from Escape Barcelona, Cybercity 2049, remains among my personal all time favourites. Plus there’s the name – does “KONG” re… (more)

Open Mind: 11S

Barcelona, Jan 2025

Escape rooms can be educational or raise social awareness; they don’t have to be just for pure entertainment. There are some topics that are definitely inappropriate as escape room themes, and there are some that are reasonable if handled with care a… (more)