CruPont Legacy: Nightshift (Barcelona) 

Not for the faint of heart

Since the beginning of the 20th century, St Mary’s Hospital, located in the county of Sabadell, opened its doors to the public with a seemingly benevolent purpose: to treat children, adolescents and social outcasts with mental problems.

At first glance, it was nothing more than a hospital like any other.
Unfortunately, far from being the country’s model psychiatric hospital, it became, under the direction of Dr. Loeb, the epicentre of the most cruel, terrifying and macabre experiments.

Fifty years after its closure and abandonment, St. Mary’s still stands, but its dark secrets remain.

The company Securest has been guarding the premises ever since to prevent intrusions. A few days ago, however, contact was lost with the night watchman, Peter Strahm, and nothing has been heard of him since…

Securest has hired you to investigate the hospital and find out what happened to Peter.  You must find any evidence or information that might shed light on his disappearance and the secrets that still lurk in the shadows of St. Mary’s.

We first started discussing our trip to Barcelona in February 2024 – nearly a full year before we actually visited the city. When we did finally nail down dates, we started sourcing game recommendations from everywhere, looking not just for the games that people were already travelling for, but also for some new games, ones that people weren’t talking about yet… but should be. One of those games was Nightshift.

Nightshift was formerly part of the Unreal Room Escape chain (the same company that is responsible for District 111, amongst others), but the creator has since struck out on his own, rebranding to CruPont Legacy. In our initial planning stages, we had already decided that we would be making the trip out to Sabadell from Central Barcelona, but when the 2024 TERPECA was released in December, Nightshift debuted at #40, cementing our decision.

After a morning spent rolling around in the mud, and escaping the dinosaurs of Jurásico, we had just enough time to hop on a train out to Sabadell, and find some lunch before we were due to start our “night shift” at St Mary’s Hospital…

Although the back story is different, the set of Nightshift contains real furniture, props and artifacts from El Hospital del Tórax, a real hospital in Tarrasa (a suburb of Barcelona), with quite the reputation. The hospital was established in the 1950’s to treat patients with respiratory diseases (T.B., Lung Cancer, etc.), but was eventually abandoned as a health centre in 1997. Whilst in operation, El Hospital del Tórax had the highest suicide rate of any hospital in Spain as patients would reportedly choose to leap to their deaths from the 9th floor to the gardens below rather than continue to suffer –  no doubt fuelling its reputation and the rumours of hauntings and paranormal activities in the hospital. If you believe in such things, then perhaps those objects present in Nightshift are part of the reason why the game has so much atmosphere you can feel it before you even set foot in the building.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

We arrived outside the venue a few minutes early, and rang the bell. At exactly half past, the door clicked, and it was time. We stepped through the door, and into another world. Although we had just walked into a warehouse, I was totally sold on the fiction that we had just arrived outside an abandoned hospital in the dark of night. We deposited our belongings in the designated trunk, and once the lid was shut, our shift began.

When done right, a game with a live actor is already likely to be more immersive than their non-actor counterparts, but there are so many other factors that go into taking a game from ordinary to extraordinary. The sights, sounds, and even smells of our surroundings worked in tandem to ensure the outside world was forgotten. The set was robust, and each space we discovered helped a story unfold. Of course, being a horror game, it is dark, and sometimes one may find oneself in a total blackout, but the darkness never hindered game play, and the lighting design was so cleverly constructed that we always knew exactly where to head.

The sheer size of the space that Nightshift encompasses is overwhelming, and it’s not hard to imagine that you are really trapped in an abandoned hospital with 1,500 rooms. As we progressed, the space became a sprawling maze, with twists and turns, ups and downs, and I felt as though I was losing all sense of reality and direction the longer the game went on. And at the final, adrenaline fuelled sprint for the exit, I honestly had no idea if I was indeed running to the exit, or even further into hell.

PUZZLES

More often than not in horror escape rooms, the puzzles are secondary to the terror. Nightshift defies this trend with clever, engaging, and complex puzzles that need to be solved in spite of the scares. Observation, team work, scavenging, logical and lateral problem solving skills, not to mention spatial relations, and pattern recognition were just some of the types of puzzles we encountered throughout our time in Nightshift.

In a way, Nightshift almost felt like a game of two halves. At first, things played out in what I can only describe as a manner very typical of escape rooms. The puzzles were all nestled perfectly within the theming, but, with the exception of a few, although they were excellent examples of escape room puzzles but still felt like an artificial construct placed there purely to block the way, rather than a natural extension of the scenario. But as the game continued, there was a shift, and the challenges and tasks we encountered evolved, along with the narrative,  ensuring that each thing we encountered sucked us further into the world that has been created, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.

Whatever the puzzle type, however, the sign posting and telegraphing were clear, giving the game a wonderfully logical flow, with some fantastic “Ah ha!” moments, at least, before the running and screaming started again. While the majority of the game flowed in a linear manner, there were moments of non-linearity, presenting a bit of a dilemma: to split up, or stay together?

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

It’s worth noting that Nightshift is available to be played in two modes: either “Terror” or “Mystery.” Essentially, do you want to play with, or without a live actor? We played in Terror mode, but given some of the mechanics of the game, I would be incredibly interested to know how the game actually plays in Mystery mode. With that being said, I would personally recommend Terror mode. It was 100% worth it.

But, taking into account our choice of Terror mode, I have to say that the performance of our host/GM/tormenter was nothing short of incredible. If I had been told that there were four or five entities lurking within the shadows of St Mary’s Hospital, I would have believed it, for he was everywhere and nowhere all at once. But of course, not all of the spirits within St Mary’s hospital were evil. Some were watching our progress very closely, and willing to chime in with a disembodied nudge, or a shift in lighting to help us get back on track if something didn’t click right away.

ANYTHING ELSE

It was hours before my heart rate slowed once we finally escaped from Nightshift; in fact, it’s now been weeks since we played, and I’m still not sure I’m recovered. Nightshift was a game that had it all – fantastic puzzles, a vast and sprawling set, and an intense atmosphere.

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 4 players

Address: Carrer del Bruc, 125, 08203 Sabadell, Barcelona, Spain

Website: https://www.crupontlegacy.com/