Sofia, Apr 2024
A Bulgarian room with a Spanish name, El Patrón (think ‘The Godfather’) is based around 80s drug lord Pablo Escobar. We were DEA agents, and apparently we were trying to find a ledger full of evidence, though we may have lost track of that during the game and focused on picking up cash instead. In any case, this isn’t a score-based or particularly story-driven room; you solve puzzles until you reach the finish.
The puzzles are of course heavily themed around drugs and the Colombian narcotics trade. There were some puzzle weaknesses, though our host ensured they didn’t interrupt the game flow. One tool gave insufficiently accurate numbers for a maths equation, which would have been a complete blocker, but before it was, we were given an adjustment to apply to make sure our total was correct. For another step we had instructions to return an item to the place we’d found it, without which a following puzzle wouldn’t have been solvable. But although the explicit instructions for these were inelegant, they successfully avoided problems.
Although themed with enthusiasm, the spaces here felt a bit dim in earlier stages and a bit cluttered in later stages, partially thanks to some distraction items. At the time I came out of it thinking it was a bit old fashioned in style but still a solid experience with some fun moments, where the weaker points were successfully covered by the hosting. But in retrospect, quite a surprising proportion of the puzzles had, not problems exactly, but ways in which they weren’t quite crisp enough, and were less satisfying to solve as a result. It was still a fun game to play, but I wouldn’t say it’s one to seek out. 
