Category Archives: International

Teorema: Atlantis

Sofia, May 2018

When researching games to play in Sofia and when chatting to local owners, more than once I heard Atlantis described as the best game in the city, stated not as a personal opinion but as an uncontroversial fact. The justification for that became clea… (more)

3Keys Rooms: The Secret Bar of Al Capone

Sofia, May 2018

Playing two Prohibition-themed games in two different cities in the space of a couple of days, I found both takes on the theme thoroughly successful in different ways. This version by 3Keys boasts an extended game length of 70 minutes and a play area… (more)

Dextrophobia: vol. 2

Sofia, May 2018

This curiously named game is second in a series that currently numbers three in total, each in a different location in Sofia; I chose to play the second one because that was the one I’d noticed recommendations for. Despite the implied continuity, Dex… (more)

Endorphin Games: BlueLab

Sofia, May 2018

Not many escape room briefings ask players whether they have any experience cooking class A drugs, but BlueLab is based on the Breaking Bad television serial, and presents you with an industrial chemical laboratory in which you need to work out how t… (more)

Escape Arena: The Last Adventure of Indiana Jones

Bucharest, May 2018

By what I can only assume is a curious coincidence, every time I’ve played an escape game hosted in a pub it’s turned out well. (And no, I don’t drink before playing games, so it’s not because of the reviewer equivalent of beer goggles!) Perhaps less… (more)

Trapped: The Black Pearl

Bucharest, May 2018

I think I’m yet to see a pirate-themed game that didn’t look impressive, and Trapped’s game is no exception, with a black wood aesthetic and deliberately creaky floorboards. In fact, the main way in which it doesn’t resemble the inside of a galleon i… (more)

Trapped: What If?

Bucharest, May 2018

Many of the escape game owners I chatted to in Bucharest were themselves enthusiasts, who gave mostly overlapping recommendations for games to play in the city. Trapped’s What If? was an exception to that, a game that was mentioned usually as a ‘love… (more)

Locked Up: Chernobyl Reactor 4

Bucharest, May 2018

When people say escape games these days are increasingly experience-led, Chernobyl is a great example of what they’re talking about. While it’s as filled with puzzles as any other escape game (and more so than most, since this is a 75 minute game), t… (more)

Captive Escape Room: Captive Outside Reality

Bucharest, May 2018

The premise for this game sounded both intriguingly abstract and worryingly simple: after a “session of collective incantation” (Saturday night karaoke, perhaps??) you are suddenly spun away into a different reality and trapped there. My default expe… (more)

911 Escape: The Judge

Bucharest, May 2018

We very nearly missed out on playing The Judge, after attempts to confirm our booking by phone and email failed to get through and we found ourselves outside a rundown doorway that gave no outward appearance of concealing any escape room company insi… (more)