Room Escape Artist

Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor is one of the best escape rooms in Berlin, Germany. Here are our recommendations for other great escape rooms in Berlin. While not near by, if you’re playing escape rooms in Germany, consider our recommendations for escape rooms in Bavaria and escape rooms in Hamburg.

May the ghosts be with you 👻

Location: Berlin, Germany

Date Played: August 4, 2023

Team Size: 2-6; we recommend 2-4

Duration: 75 minutes

Price: 152 € for 2 players to 228 € for 6 players

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: All players must climb and crawl

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

THE ROOM’s Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor struck a deep chord with me. This theatrical tour de force pulled inspiration from Ghostbusters and The Twilight Zone in telling the story of a washed-up opera singer who’d gotten a bit too lost in her final role. As paranormal investigators who *totally* already knew what we were doing, we aimed to free her soul.

From an immersively layered intro sequence to a massively unforgettable final act and everything in between, the experiential architecture of Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor was innovative on countless levels.

At every opportunity, both gameplay and environment developed the narrative in believable, specific, and internally consistent ways. By populating the world with complex, multidimensional characters and establishing our relationships to those characters, our own roles consequently felt important as well.

The space itself was gorgeous, intricate, and teeming with adventure. With a mix of seamless tech and theatrical trickery, our surroundings were alive and responsive. We stayed in a flow state from start to finish, effortlessly weaving our way through spaces, interactions, and cutscenes without disruption, always feeling like the main characters while actually being guided by the invisible hand of impeccable multisensory signposting.

Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor was as daringly innovative, narratively ambitious, visually striking, and emotionally engaging in 2023 as I can imagine it was when it first opened in late 2018. I arranged a 12-hour stopover in Berlin for 5 escape rooms, and truth be told, a detour from just about anywhere in Europe would have been worth it only to experience Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor. If you enjoy story, adventure, and humor, this cutting-edge masterpiece is not to be missed.

Who is this for?

• Story seekers
• Scenery snobs
• Adventure seekers
• Narrative-driven puzzle lovers
• Any experience level
• Fans of Ghostbusters and The Twilight Zone

Why play?

• Top-notch drama, adventure, and humor
• A detailed, expansive set
• Mind-blowing transitions
• Remarkable lighting, sound, and special effects

Story

In 1987, the Carl Bonhofer asylum was struck by lightning and burnt down, with the sole fatality being the resident of the basement floor: former opera singer Anna Morana.

As new ghosthunter interns, our boss Brandon Darkmoor sent us to that very basement, a locked-off area of the building that now also houses THE ROOM’s escape rooms on its upper floors, with the mission of freeing Anna Morana’s soul.

Setting

Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor was set in the ghostly remains of a mental hospital. Multiple rooms branched off of a long, spooky hallway.

The environment was at once sterile and vividly detailed, with countless more small touches the closer you looked. Every color, every material choice, every texture, and every prop was meticulously designed to fit the world. There was a careful chaos to this world, as though it had been frozen in time, long left empty, and was yet still oh so alive.

Gameplay

THE ROOM’s Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor was a particularly theatrical escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around solving puzzles, making connections, and interacting with an actor.

Analysis

➕ Above all, Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor told a compelling story. Nothing felt extraneous; each cool effect, fun task, character interaction, and environmental observation was imbued with meaning and served a clear narrative function.

➕ The set design demonstrated a staggering level of detail and polish, further enhanced through masterful lighting, sound, projections, and scent design. Every small detail held up to scrutiny, nothing slipped through the cracks, and these details came together into something much greater than the sum of their parts.

➕ A remarkably high density of magical interactions, breathtaking scenes, and dynamic gameplay would have been impossible to fully automate. So much love and attention goes into running each and every game of Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor, and it really showed.

➕ A brilliantly layered intro sequence blended into the outside world on multiple fronts and seamlessly plunged us into the narrative. This sequence utilized existing elements of THE ROOM’s facility, turn them into a strong advantage instead of having to explain them away.

➕ Equipped with a set of zanily thematic tools, each member of my team was instantly immersed in their roles as ghost hunters. These creative items both drove forward the gameplay and shaped how we moved through the space as a group.

➕ A humorous user manual and various other documents were justified within the story and never felt like a run book. The relevant parts were emphasized to ensure we never had our head buried in the text, yet rewarded us with jokes and Easter eggs if we chose to read more.

➕ Some mind-blowing transitions advanced the story in bold and unexpected ways. THE ROOM showed off a keen awareness of human psychology in the subtleties of how they pulled off these effects, maximizing their effort-to-impact ratio.

➕ Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor elevated a common escape room setting, selling the illusion markedly better than just about any other implementation I’ve seen. This doubly served to deliver some of the funniest moments of the experience.

➕ A lived-in environment felt deeply personal. Our actions in this space directly empowered us to form a strong empathetic connection with a character.

➕ By the final act, Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor more than delivered on its central narrative premise. This scene was delightful, unforgettable, and larger than life.

➖ The unique tone of Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor resulted from toeing the line between multiple mystery-oriented genres. One final tonal shift was amusing but came off as a somewhat cheap gag — a departure from the more serious playfulness established up to that point. With a clearer narrative setup earlier in the game, this moment could have retained its humor while also providing a stronger and more authentic emotional payoff.

➕ THE ROOM took post-game team photos that looked like movie posters, or perhaps like Goosebumps book covers. By controlling the lighting in an otherwise dark space and guiding our poses, they were able to capture clear, professional photos within the game’s moody ambience.

❓ Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor prioritized experience, adventure, and narrative over traditional puzzling. In fact, in his REPOD episode, creator Chris Lattner asserts that these interactions are tasks rather than puzzles. Though this is ultimately a matter of semantic preference, I personally would categorize them as “narratively- and environmentally-integrated puzzles with clear signposting.” You’re guided toward a specific interaction, but not told directly what to do or how to do it. The logic of the world serves as implicit cluing, leaving the opportunity for contextually meaningful “aha” moments — which for me are the defining trait of a puzzle, and which is lacking in other escape rooms that I’d consider to actually be unsatisfyingly task-based. Hairsplitting aside, if you’re looking for a more traditionally puzzle-centric escape room experience with layered puzzles that clearly look and feel like puzzles, book The Lost Treasure instead.

Update 1/19/24: If you enjoyed this article, we hope you’ll check out our interview with Chris Lattner, former CEO and creative director of The Room on Season 1, Episode 7 of The Reality Escape Pod.

Tips For Visiting

• Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor was spooky and passively scary in moments, but never actively scary.
• Review our tips for playing escape rooms with actors.
• Read the confirmation email carefully to know where to go for the start of the experience.

Book your hour with THE ROOM’s Ghosthunter Brandon Darkmoor, and tell them that Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: THE ROOM provided media discounted tickets for this game.