Room Escape Artist

La Taberna is one of the best escape rooms in Barcelona. Here are our recommendations for other great escape rooms in Barcelona, Spain.

Special ingredient

Location:  Barcelona, Spain

Date Played: April 21, 2024

Team size: 2-7; we recommend 4

Duration: 120 minutes

Price: from €60 per player for teams of 2 to €35 per player for teams of 7

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: This game includes climbing ladders, crawling, maneuvering through obstacles, and one person getting into a cramped space. It’s also possible to get wet.

Mess Meter:  🧹🧹🧹 (out of 5)

Emergency Exit Rating: [F] No Emergency Exit

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

For more on our trip to Spain, here’s our field report.

REA Reaction

It’s called The Tavern, and it is a tavern, but that was merely the tip of the iceberg. The City Escape Room has gone out of their way to preserve what’s really going on in this game, and we’ll respect that because the reveals were stunning. Epic, really.

Epic is the best way to describe The Tavern. We adventured through many scenes, all interconnected, but wildly different from one another, yet still anchored to the same game world.

The City Escape Room made us feel powerful. The Tavern explored scale from massive to compact, each time keeping the environment and our shifting place within it relevant to the game and our conquest of it.

At 2 hours, The Tavern was a long game. In two of the later segments, a lack of feedback and some opaque interface design stifled our momentum. The gameplay dragged when we most needed energy. With some minor tweaks, The Tavern would create more power going into the finale.

The finale really struck us. It was the punctuation mark that the journey demanded. We don’t always get that in escape rooms… although we really wish that the sound system managed this finale better.

Travelers from all over the world have been awed by The Tavern, and rightly so. If you enjoy grandiose and bombastic, you won’t want to miss this one. Pull up a stool inside the unassuming tavern at The City Escape Room.

Who is this for?

• Adventure seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• Scenery snobs
• Best for players with at least some experience

Why play?

• The size and scale of the adventure
• Incredible sets and effects
• Collaborative, interactive puzzles
• An engaging, funny character

Story

We entered a regular tavern – the type of place where you pull up a stool and the bartender tells you stories. We wanted to learn the real story behind the tyrant Neil Parker. It began 400 years ago… and it was pretty epic.

Setting

Our adventure began in small port-side tavern, the kind frequented by sailors, pirates, and brigands.

It’s difficult to discuss this game without spoiling truly wonderful reveals. Suffice to say, the set design was spectacular.

Gameplay

The City Escape Room’s The Tavern was a standard escape room… of epic proportion. It was huge.

It had a moderate-to-high level of difficulty. The individual puzzles weren’t exceptionally challenging, but there was a lot to do, even for a 2-hour experience.

Core gameplay revolved around searching, observing, making connections, and solving puzzles. Some segments leaned heavily into actor interactions. In other scenes, we relied on communication and coordination.

Analysis

➕ The opening scene was phenomenal because of the character who presided over the tavern. The actor was skilled at weaving in and out of our experience, letting us solve, while also bringing everyone into the experience. They were funny and elevated our energy.

➕ The Tavern escalated spectacularly. The City Escape Room has tried to keep the nature of the adventure beyond the tavern a secret, but it’s easy to find out where this tavern leads. Whether or not you know what you’ll find, the reveal will be dramatic. The set was especially imposing given our entry point, which made our subsequent journey deeper into the scene that much more exciting.

➕ The sets were gorgeous throughout The Tavern. There were many sets, ranging in size and scale, and all detailed. They were realistic, without necessarily using real components that would corrode the game. We especially enjoyed when they leaned fantastical, with interactive set components. The effects for certain sets rocked.

➖ One early set was underdesigned and underutilized. This was a wasted space.

➕ One set was its own spatial puzzle, requiring teamwork and communication. Another set was calibrated for the team size, requiring us each to solve it in steps.

➖ We sometimes struggled to maneuver as a team of 5, given the size or layout of certain sets. While the puzzle flow can support a team of this size, the layout cannot always accommodate.

➖ The Tavern faltered a bit in later scenes where the cluing or the interface design was not entirely clear and didn’t provide enough feedback. Momentum slowed. One segment seemed to rely on the gamemaster providing extra instructions. There was an opportunity to create a crescendo where momentum built toward the last reveal and through the concluding puzzles into the finale.

➕ Throughout our adventure, we met a number of other characters, all played by the same two actors. They each felt distinct. They were all entertaining.

➖ At times The Tavern had a lot of background noise. The speakers were not clear enough. The audio quality undermined the finale.

➕ That said, the finale was epic. The lighting was particularly dramatic and really made the scene.

Tips For Visiting

• There is street parking available.
• Sushiko is an excellent, convenient meal option.
• This game was fully playable in English. The actors had a high degree of fluency in English.

Book your session with The City Escape Room’s The Tavern, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.