LOCKED Bremen – Last Night – Escape Room Bremen
Bremen / 3 – 7 Players / Price: 19 – 28 Euro per person / Rating: 6.9
Location: Breitenweg 53, 28195 Bremen
Date of Play: 04.06.2022
Team size: 2
The live adventure game provider Locked, which is known for its crime, thriller and horror rooms in Bochum and Bremen, has an escape room in Bremen called Die Letzte Nacht – Filmriss mit Folgen (Last Night – Hangover with Consequences), which is also aimed at players who are not into scary games. We took a closer look at this room. Read here whether it was rather exhilarating or whether we ended up with a hangover.
The Locked Escape Rooms are located in Bremen on Breitenstraße, a kind of high road that initially confused Google a bit and sent us in circles at first. If you’re a non-Bremer and understand the street layout, you can get a parking space right on the street in front of the store if you’re lucky, or you can just walk a few meters from Bremen’s main train station.
In addition to the Escape Rooms High Voltage and Charon – Obolus für den Fährmann , which are also available in Bochum, players in Bremen can expect Room 669 – Key of Fear and the aforementioned non-creepy Escape Room Die Letzte Nacht – Filmriss mit Folgen.
It should be said in advance that at the time of our visit, the concept of the story and puzzle tour was being adapted for the room and, as you will read in a moment, will certainly be optimized here in the future.
The reception at Locked was nice and open-minded. Lockers for bags and cell phones are mandatory here, and those who are thirsty can buy drinks here. The waiting area is functional and coherent.
Our game master gave us a short standard briefing in the lounge area before leading us to the door of the adventure The Last Night – Hangover with Consequences. Here she introduced us to the actual story of the room, although it was hard to follow as apparently next door in the room a group was having the horror of their lives, screaming and laughing.
Last Night
The cult bar “Krokodil” was for decades the meeting place for wild nights. You and your friends are in Bremen for the first time and hear about this unique location. When you arrive there, you learn that the old building is to be demolished the next day. This is to be celebrated with a proper farewell. A legendary night begins, which will go down in Bremen’s cultural history. But the next day you experience a rude awakening. Alone, with no memory of the night and in a dark room, you come to. What happened? Are you still in the bar? A bad feeling comes over you.
The Room
After the game master closed the door behind us, we found ourselves in a rather dark drink cellar. We were greeted by a recorded voice that turned out to be one of our party members and was to accompany us on our mission out of the room. For the most part, the setting of The Last Night is compelling and the location of said cult bar is atmospheric and appropriately staged. Much of the story is told by our unseen companion via voice-over, which felt a bit odd in the way it was used in the interest of coherent immersion. Also, the room is a bit clairaudient at the beginning and you could hear the group from the next room, which made getting into the room a bit difficult at the beginning, and the finale was unfortunately more confusing than exciting. This was mainly related to the puzzle guidance.
The Puzzles
The puzzles themselves fit well into the context of the room and the story itself. They are varied and thus a good mix of cognitive and mechanical puzzles. The puzzle guidance itself was actually the bigger weak point in the room in The Last Night. Here, an attempt was made to turn a non-linear puzzle structure into a linear one with the aforementioned use of our invisible companion. Unfortunately, this did not succeed and led to confusion on our part. For example, the tasks to be solved did not always match what we heard from our companion. Either we had already solved the tasks before or we did not have the complete information for other tasks at hand. On the other hand, the haptic or acoustic feedback of triggered mechanisms or opening “doors” was sometimes missing.
The Gamemaster
As if we weren’t confused enough by our invisible companion’s clues, unfortunately, our game master’s clues were added to the mix. The room doesn’t just rely on voice acting, some of which gives automatically or manually triggered clues within the story. But Locked additionally relies on a monitor in the room, through which there were written clues from the game master. With this, the confusion was finally perfect. For here, too, clues were given that were either redundant or not perfectly timed.
When resetting the room from a previous game, a puzzle was forgotten that gave us unhindered access to an important item. Since it was obviously an item that would become relevant later, we asked the game master if we should reset it, which she answered in the affirmative via monitor.
Conclusion
The room The Last Night – Hangover with Consequences is an adventure that does not rely on horror and thriller. Atmospherically and story-wise, this can be a really successful experience, especially in a larger (party) group. The newly introduced element of the voice-over, which is supposed to guide us through the room accordingly, was unfortunately not an enrichment at this point, but rather an obstacle to fully immerse ourselves in this room. There should have been a rehearsal or two here beforehand. The actual experience and coordination with the puzzles will certainly be refined over time. At this moment, the room seemed rather unfinished and led to frustration on our part.
Escape Maniac Transparency Promise: We were invited by Locked Bremen and did not have to pay for playing the Escape Room “The Last Night”.
