Room Escape Artist

Bavari Sacrilegio is one of Bavaria’s best escape rooms. Here are our other escape room recommendations in the region. While not exactly near by, if you’re playing escape rooms in Germany and considering a trip to Berlin or Hamburg, we have recommendations for Berlin escape rooms and Hamburg escape rooms.

Rite brained

Location: Dorfen, Germany

Date Played: June 22, 2024

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

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: 35€ per player for 2 player to 24€ per player for 6 players

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: Nothing of note

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

Escape Room Dorfen’s Bavari Sacrilegio was a puzzle lover’s paradise. And as a puzzle lover, I adored the unabashed abundance of ahas.

The gameplay in Bavari Sacrilegio had two structural features which would typically be red flags: a run book and a large number of puzzles available in parallel. Impressively, Escape Room Dorfen designed both these elements in elegant ways that led to smooth, satisfying puzzling.

Though there was a decent amount of reading, the “explorer journal” trope in this case provided densely diegetic narrative signposting that allowed us to navigate an intricate puzzle structure. All documents were quite well written, which was especially impressive given that we may have been the first players to try the English language version of the game. Puzzling was consistently tactile and rooted in the environment, and I can’t recall any moments when my head was buried in the journal through a cool interaction. I’m not sure how Escape Room Dorfen pulled this off, but they did.

Given the openness of the puzzle structure, Bavari Sacrilegio required an unusually high level of organizational skills from players, especially in its first act. The signposting was all very clear and parallel puzzle threads never crossed, yet had we not kept careful track of dozens of loose papers and props, we’d have been quickly doomed. I personally enjoyed this style; however, teams that shy away from reading or prefer more sequential gameplay may have different experiences. Though as long as you have one player to take charge of documents, you’ll be fine.

Bavari Sacrilegio‘s set design was of as high quality as its puzzle design, and we marveled at the level of detail and realism throughout. This was a beautiful space to puzzle in. Given the style of gameplay, we also deeply appreciated multiple diegetic seating options.

With the concurrent release of Bavari Sacrilegio and Johanna, Escape Room Dorfen has created an impressive double header which is a massive leap ahead for the company, particularly in set design and immersion. Though there’s currently no explicit transition between the two experiences, they meaningfully exist within the same world, and my understanding of certain characters and entities established in Bavari Sacrilegio enhanced my experience afterwards in Johanna. I highly recommend playing both games back-to-back in this order.

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Scenery snobs
• Story seekers
• Best for players with at least some experience
• Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle

Why play?

• An abundance of creative, tactile puzzles
• Intricate production design

Story

As legend goes, a sacrilegious priest had founded some sort of secret society right in Dorfen. Hot on the trail of a local historian’s investigation into the matter, we attempted to locate the secret society’s hidden chapel.

Setting

Bavari Sacrilegio took place in the study of a local historian. The warm glow of a stained glass window illuminated a large wooden desk. From countless thick old tomes to an assortment of white busts, you could smell the erudition.

Gameplay

Escape Room Dorfen’s Bavari Sacrilegio was a standard escape room with a moderate-to-high level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around solving puzzles and making connections. Multiple puzzles were always available at once, so organization and communication were key.

Analysis

➕ Bavari Sacrilegio especially stood out for its creative puzzle design. This was unquestionably a game by puzzle lovers, for puzzle lovers. The puzzles were tightly thematic and elegantly integrated in the environment. With multiple puzzles available in parallel at any given time and a metapuzzle concluding each stage, the puzzle structure was rather idiosyncratic for an escape room, falling perhaps somewhat closer to that of a puzzle hunt. That’s not to say the puzzles were unusually difficult, though they did require a high level of organization.

➕ /➖ A historian’s journal guided a majority of the gameplay. While a “run book” like this would be a clear negative in most escape rooms, Bavari Sacrilegio thoughtfully implemented this document to provide narrative framing and a starting point for each puzzle while still ensuring that almost all of the actual puzzling took place in our surroundings. The journal enabled a different cadence of puzzle-solving than is typical in a more sequential game. There was a fair but not unreasonable amount of reading, much of which was integral to the gameplay. Though all this, there were opportunities to embed more storytelling in the environment, and some players may align less smoothly with this text-centric play style.

➕ I love how Bavari Sacrilegio was rooted in real local history, while also taking plenty of creative liberties. This game, along with Johanna, told stories specific to this company’s location in Dorfen, and they so clearly emerged from a love of the local lore.

➕ Bavari Sacrilegio may have emphasized puzzle over adventure, but they certainly didn’t skimp on the scenic design. Every prop, set piece, and texture felt just right, with an impressive level of detail. I was impressed by some wooden surfaces that were painted to look like marble — and even further impressed to learn that, to produce this effect that apparently is common in local churches, they’d hired an actual church painter. Talk about realism!

➖ The shelves in the first space of the game were fairly empty relative to how lived-in the space felt otherwise.

➕ Bavari Sacrilegio included multiple hint delivery systems, each thematic to the space we were in. Major kudos to our game host for improvising one of my favorite hints I’ve ever received in an escape room. After performing a certain interaction X, I was called over to speak with a character who congratulated me on doing X so well and offered that, as a reward, I’d get to hold a certain prop Y for the rest of the experience. And guess what was hiding under Y? The item we were search failing on.

➕ Sound and lighting crescendoed into some utterly divine moments.

➕ Escape Room Dorfen went to town with their use of high-quality 3D printed components. I especially enjoyed a satisfying progression that made us feel as though we’d truly built something.

Tips For Visiting

• The full title of the game is Bavari Sacrilegio, Whom God Has Rejected, in reference to a local saying: “whom God has rejected, he sends to Dorfen.”
• Bavari Sacrilegio contained religious themes, both historical and fictional.
• Bavari Sacrilegio is available to play in German or English

Book your hour with Escape Room Dorfen’s Bavari Sacrilegio, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.