Room Escape Artist

We recently took an escape room trip to Spain, exploring 17 games in Barcelona, Valencia, and Madrid.

The reviews are about to start publishing and will continue for the next few weeks. And not to steal our own thunder, but they are broadly positive reviews with a number of Golden Lock Award winners.

With that in mind, I wanted to take a look at what we saw from the broader market and discuss some of the unique differences and trends that we observed. These will be a mix of lessons for traveling enthusiasts (for an in-depth focus on traveling player tips, Lee-Fay Low wrote a great piece about visiting Spain already) and considerations for owners.

In general, our trip to Spain was incredible. I say that because this report will largely focus on challenges.

Comedy

There is a lot of discussion about the horror games of Spain – and they are certainly prevalent – but we were pleasantly surprised by the volume and quality of the comedy games.

We encountered a lot of well-crafted, genuinely funny games and moments. In the end, that was one of the biggest highlights for us.

Confusing Different Modes

In horror games, it’s common to have selectable intensity levels at the point of booking. This is really cool because it makes it possible for less adventurous players to play these games.

That said, there were two major points of confusion:

1. “Tension Mode” was frequently an option… but at some companies “Tension Mode” meant that it was the scarier version, and at other companies “Tension Mode” was less scary. The lack of consistency was bewildering.
2. It was difficult to tell which game mode best reflected the designer’s preference or intent.

We were reading the websites in translation, but even so, a bit more clarity on the company websites would have gone a long way.

Cold Starts

Top escape rooms in Spain are almost without exception cold starts. By that I mean that you enter directly into the game right off the street. No lobby, no bathroom, no rules video. REA writer Richard Burns has written about this approach.

It’s a neat approach because it pulls you into the game world in a powerful way.

At the same time, we sometimes found practical reality came into conflict with the cold start. Due to the nature of our travel and our ridiculous rental vehicle (more on that later), we often found ourselves in the middle of a cold start holding our backpacks… and on some occasions just wishing that we could pee. It’s hard to get sucked into the game world when you are holding your real world possessions… or have a bladder full of urine after a long car ride.

Also, due to the cold starts, we frequently found ourselves standing outside of escape rooms in residential areas. It turned out that loitering was fine… but sometimes the weather made these waits more challenging.

Overtime

It seemed to us that in Spain, you don’t really lose escape rooms… or at least you don’t lose the games of the caliber that we were visiting. The games were narrative focused, and the staff made sure the teams saw the stories through to their conclusions.

This is a really cool feature, and something that we support.

The issue that we found is that there is a sort of dishonesty about game length that can quickly become a logistical nightmare.

We are careful planners and try to ensure that we always have the appropriate time buffers to comfortably make all of our bookings… and ideally have good meals in between. It was difficult when random games would run 30+ minutes beyond their advertised timing. I’m not complaining about the extra time, it’s appreciated, but better transparency about game length would go a long way.

When & How To Pay

In the United States, paying for an escape room is simple and consistent. With rare exception, you pay for all of your tickets in full when you book the game.

In Spain, we usually paid a deposit upfront and then paid the remainder on-site. We usually paid at the end of the game (on account of the aforementioned cold starts). Some companies took credit cards, but many required cash.

Due to the fact that this payment model is unusual for us, we often forgot (especially in more adrenaline pumping games), and this would lead to an awkward moment where a gamemaster was staring at us with their hand out acting like we were trying to get away without payment. It wasn’t a problem, but it could get uncomfortable.

Additionally, we were traveling with a volume of cash that was… disconcerting.

Filthy Games

In a Room Escape Artist first, our Spanish reviews will have a Filthiness Scale… or the broom rating.

• 🧹🧹🧹🧹🧹 = a game that desperately needed cleaning
• 🧹 = a game that was reasonably clean

It was common for us to emerge from a game looking like we had just done demolition work. We would be covered in dirt, grime, and dust in ways that we’ve never experienced before. Additionally, we found that the bathrooms rarely had the right grease cutting soap or enough paper towels to get cleaned off. As tourists, this sucked, because we would then have to walk into a restaurant looking like our hotel is inside of a vacuum canister.

These games were so lovingly built; I wish that they were maintained with the same level of care.

Speaking to some Spanish enthusiasts who had played these games when they were new, they seemed truly surprised by this situation.

Fire Safety

I have no clue how careful most of these games have been about fire safety.

If you asked me to place a bet, I would assume that most of the games that we played were not especially fire safe… but it is difficult to assess these things as a player.

A few people told us rumors of companies making alterations after their game had been fire inspected. I don’t know if this is true, and I am not in a place to assess this.

I will issue the same word of caution that I did to Polish escape room owners back in 2017: if you are ignoring fire safety, you’re gambling with your players’ lives, you’re gambling with your business, and you’re gambling with every other escape room business around you. It feels like Spain has learned very little from the Poland fire, and much as I enjoyed the games, I found this disturbing.

Physicality, Accessibility, & Target Demographics

Spanish games were considerably more physical than what we typically find both in North America and in other places we’ve traveled. Some of this was really cool… and some of it felt gratuitous and poorly executed. A few examples:

• Most of the crawlspaces were on hard, unpadded surfaces… some even had us crawling on metal. Our knees were bruised for weeks after our trip.
• Nearly none of the crawlspaces had bypasses.
• Many of the crawlspaces had uneven dimensions… and it was common to have inclines and declines within the crawlspaces.

Basically these games ignore all of the best practices in crawlspace design… and then invented a few new interesting challenges.

In addition to a lot of crawling, there were plenty of instances of wall climbing/ descending… and platform leaping. None of this was bypassable.

Our conclusion was that Spain is not an accessible market. If you are not fully able-bodied, and eager to tackle physical challenges, then please do not go to Spain to play escape rooms.

This led us to wonder who would be the target demographic of Spanish escape rooms. More than in any market we have visited, it felt like Spain actively did not want older players. I have no idea if this is incidental or intentional, but would love help better understanding the factors and motivations at play.

Reuse of Themes & Mechanics

Even amongst the 17 games that we played, we saw a fair amount of reuse of themes and mechanics. This is pretty common in a given region and isn’t unique to Spain. However there was a uniqueness to those themes and mechanics as we hadn’t seen a lot of it done outside of Spain… so it had an interesting impact on the trip.

We often found ourselves asking the question, “Who did it best?”

If we had played like locals, picking up a game here and two games there over time, this would have felt less pronounced, but that’s not the nature of escape room tourism.

Parking

In most cases, parking was a significant challenge. We aren’t new to European travel, and we’re New Yorkers… so we get it. Old cities weren’t built for cars.

In our case, our car rental company didn’t have the smaller vehicle that we had reserved and instead stuck us with an oversized SUV. In addition to the tremendous inconvenience… we looked like GIANT idiots. Thanks Sixt!

No Photos

Whenever we visit a country for the first time, it’s a bit more difficult to get good game photos… but Spain was on a completely different level.

For many of the upcoming reviews, we will have some of the weakest photos in many years. Our requests were treated with remarkable indifference. It’s a shame, because most of these games were beautiful… and they are either completely undocumented or poorly documented.

I suspect that a number of companies will be surprised when they see how we handle games when we have no photos.

Is Spain Right For You?

There is a way to read this piece that feels more negative than we intend it. We absolutely loved our trip to Spain and expect to return repeatedly… but it was a more challenging and exhausting trip than any other we have taken for escape rooms.

Our hopes here are twofold:

• That this information helps players determine whether Spain is right for their level of fitness, risk tolerance, and play style.
• To spark a dialogue about some of the design decisions in top Spanish games.

These two topics are near and dear to our hearts as they live at the center of what we have been doing here at Room Escape Artist for a decade.

This conversation is one that we regularly have in our Patreon Discord with our backers and their support is what enables all of the work that we do.

Special shout out to those who joined this month: Josh and Heather, Arcturus Wang, Kimberly L, Gem Chien, Dominique Fruchtman, Miranda P, Mark, BRENT E POPE, Jess Noone, Amanda Basmajian, and Sida

To those of you reading who have the means, we hope you’ll consider joining this wonderful group of supporters.

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