Enigmik: NW6 Bunker (Barcelona)

Classic escape room fun

A secret Bunker and a mission: Steal and destroy NW6.

Enter Dr. Smith’s NW6 Bunker. You’re in luck, you can take advantage of the guards’ shift change to enter, once inside it’s up to you.

The Bunker has a secret access through a place where beer tastings take place, we have prepared an alibi to let you enter.

When we planned our escape room trip to Barcelona, NW6 was one of the games that wasn’t on our list. However, on our list was The Brewery at Enigmik (which is a solid game in case you were wondering). After playing The Brewery we had a bit of time to kill so three of our group decided to book in to play NW6 (the final member of our team went off to do cultural things and meet up with a non-escape room friend, shocking).

We had a little downtime between games while our host got things set up, so we just enjoyed the Spanish winter sun a little, then at the allocated time, we rang the doorbell. Our host, Raquelle, greeted us, once again in character, and despite sharing an entrance way with The Brewery, things somehow felt different.

We received our briefing from Raquelle and were then shown to the entrance area to the room. I must admit, this early part of the room took us much longer than it should have – but that was 100% on us being idiots. Once we were in the room proper, we were advised that we had to then split up and enter separate doors (we split into 2 + 1).

In our rooms the game started properly, and it was time to find out if NW6 was worthy of being added to the list with the other extremely high calibre Barcelona games that we were playing.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

I’ve no idea how old NW6 is, but its best ranking in the TERPECA awards was to get two nominations back in 2022 (it only got one nomination in 2024). The level of the Barcelona games is very impressive, so it’s not easy to compete and I can see why NW6 isn’t as highly rated as others. Saying that, if you were to put this game in the UK, I think it would likely be a firm favourite among enthusiasts. The set design was decent, nothing was broken, the interaction with the GM was enjoyable, and the gameplay was solid. NW6 has all the required elements to be a decent game, it just doesn’t have the ‘wow’ that other games in the city have.

Quick Edit – I’ve just looked around a bit and have seen a review of this game from 3 years ago where the reviewer is stating the game was already nine years old at that point! This grandad of a game is aging very gracefully!

I’ve not been in many real life bunkers (but I have been in a few), and generally they all feel a little grimey, rough around the edges, and generally like places you wouldn’t really want to spend that long in – and that’s pretty much how NW6 felt. Although, I could have happily stayed longer in this game as we had a lot of fun.

The game also felt like it was quite accessible. I don’t recall any steps, the doorways seemed to be of normal width, and many of the puzzles were (in my non-expert opinion) accessible in terms of height etc…

PUZZLES

The first puzzle for NW6 Bunker required a little improv to get into the venue – fortunately I was with a couple of actors, so that was a breeze (if you’re not an actor/improv specialist, I don’t think you need to worry). Other than that, there is one more hurdle to gaining entry to the room – well it shouldn’t be, but for us it was #idiots.

Once in the room, we encountered a good number of puzzles that were thematically fitting with the room. At times the gameplay was quite open and we found our team of three splitting up and working on different things, before finding the inevitable choke points that brought us back together.

The puzzles involved; teamwork, communication, observation, searching, logic, pattern recognition, and nothing overly physical. I saw nothing overly physical, but the use of space in NW6 Bunker was very good and we certainly built up our steps moving back and forth between spaces.

Despite being an older game there was a decent amount of tech present, although also some good old fashioned padlocks for good measure. I’ve seen some reviews mentioning this being a harder game, but I’m not sure. As a team of three, things seemed to click, but it was quite a puzzle fest, so inexperienced teams may get a really good mental workout. Saying that, there was help available in the game if you knew where to look.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Raquelle did a wonderful job of switching characters from the character we had met in The Brewery, to the one she played in NW6 Bunker. She was truly lovely and seemed genuinely happy that we were there playing, and enjoying their games.

From what I recall, if we needed any help in this game, it came from our GM over the speaker system (in character, obviously). I don’t recall needing much help so I think we gave her a pretty easy ride.

When we completed our mission, she was there to greet and congratulate us, and was willing to give us a walk through of the game just in case we had missed anything that our teammates were solving.

ANYTHING ELSE

Unlike many of the games we played, this wasn’t perhaps as immersive as some, and was what I would say was more in line with a traditional escape room experience, and a traditional escape room experience was exactly what we were looking for that day.

NW6 had decent set design and some really fun puzzles. It’s not a ‘must-play’, but if you have time, it’s a fun experience that you likely won’t regret.

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 4 players

Address: Rosselló 508, 08026 Barcelona

Website: https://www.enigmik.com/en/