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, you get us. So I’m sympathetic for the very nice young man who was clearly trying to do his best under difficult circumstances. But yes, the game as we experienced it was a hot mess.
Nakatomi Plaza is based on the movie Die Hard, in which a group of terrorists takes over a tower block on New Year’s Eve. The pre-game details left me thinking we were a terrorism response team disguised as maintenance workers, but I think actually the premise was that we genuinely were maintenance workers, caught up in the situation. With no sign of Bruce Willis it’s up to us to foil the terrorists, via a lot more puzzle solving and a lot less shooting than I remember from the movie.
The first section went smoothly, but about a third of the way in we found panels unexpectedly dropping open without us doing anything, other things that didn’t trigger when they were supposed to, a device accidentally left uncharged, and various other issues that left us in increasing confusion. An experienced host could have salvaged the various tech failures with skilful interventions; ours was doing his best, but tended to handle them by just trying to skip us past to the next step, which only added to the sense of a room gone haywire.
Under better circumstances this would clearly be an impressive room. It’s much less action-centric than I’d expected from the premise, but includes plenty of drama and builds up to what sounds like it should have been an impressive climax. Each sequence of puzzles takes place in a different setting, fitting into a storyline that starts slow but then gathers speed. Purely on size and sophistication of the set design it would compare well to many top UK rooms, albeit not to some of the gigantic creations we played in Barcelona in the same week, and some of the puzzle props were clever and delightful.
Even if set up and run perfectly I’d still have quibbles with several of the puzzles, and with the flow linking the different areas. But those would be small things that weakened an otherwise cool blend of puzzles, action and story. I don’t know to what extent the operational problems we saw were an unfortunate fluke versus a common occurrence at the venue, though I’m going to assume the former. In most cities I’d say that it’s probably worth giving this room a try in the hope that it goes more smoothly for you, and you can appreciate the game’s strengths more easily. But in Barcelona, with such a wealth of superb games to choose from, I’d suggest looking elsewhere, unless you’re running short of acclaimed rooms to fit into your schedule. 
