Warsaw, Mar 2017
Although we didn’t notice it when we played, be warned this game includes offensively anti-semitic language.
An avalanche has unearthed the entrance to a lost Nazi bunker that may contain hidden gold, and for reasons I never quite grasped you have a one hour time limit to find it and get out.
Appropriately, this begins with you needing to break into the actual bunker before trying to crack its secrets. This is a design that often works well, giving the team a warm-up and an early couple of victories in a more confined area before they’re let loose on the rest of the game.
As with Black Cat’s other room, there’s heavy use of hidden electronics for invisible puzzle mechanisms, which could seem incongruous with the theme but in practice worked unobtrusively as we played. The outwardly visible components combine cables and 1940s hardware with period maps and some alarmingly authentic Third Reich literature.
We managed to short-circuit a couple of sections of the game, both of which would have awarded us more information useful in solving puzzles that we successfully cracked anyhow. Even so it didn’t feel lacking in content. And it was great content, with an impressively solid entrance gate, fun physical elements, good decor, and puzzles that were pretty much always creative even if occasionally a little anachronistic.
A good escape room should finish with a satisfying final puzzle and a dramatic ending that makes it clear the players have triumphed. Bunker does this very well. Be warned that the room requires a little more physical agility than a typical escape room!
Generally this was a pleasing room, with no major flaws and good décor. I have a slight bugbear with the most physical part of the room, which I felt lacked workmanship / finishing. However I disagree with Toby on the electronics, all of which I feel were achievable with the technology achievable at the time. For once the use of padlocks actually felt appropriate! Well worth doing.