Escape Arena: Bat’s Shadows (Poznan)

No Jokers here!

After the mysterious vanishing of Batman, Gotham turned into chaos. The trail leads to villains hiding in the old sewage plant, but no one knows what they’re up to. It’s up to you to figure it out.

The secret mission awaits! Prepare for traps, dark secrets and choices affecting the fate of the city. The mission is going to be risky, but if you’re careful, you may be able to accomplish the task in one piece!

When we planned our trip to Poland we consulted the TERPECA awards as we always do, and that helped flag three games that were Top 100 in Poland. But we don’t want to only play games that everyone knows are good, we like to go off-piste and find the up and coming games. One such game we’d been hearing about was Bat’s Shadows by Escape Arena, so we added it to the list.

Somehow in adding Bat’s Shadows to our list we also added Galaxy of Secrets, Gambler’s Den, and Viking – all at Escape Arena, whoops!

The venue for Escape Arena is on the southern side of Poznan but was easy and cheap enough for us to get to in an Uber (we relied on Uber a lot for this trip). Despite the outside looks of the venue, we were welcomed by our host, Kris, like we were long lost friends. We spent a lot of time talking about escape rooms, probably more than we did actually playing them.

Unlike the other games at Escape Arena, Bat’s Shadows didn’t have a proper dedicated waiting area, but I believe this was under construction. It didn’t matter though, Kris came to collect us, as a detective (maybe Commissioner Gordon? I’m not sure) and showed us to the entrance to the sewers. It was here that we received our briefings and then we sent off to work out what had happened to Batman.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

There’s no doubt about it, Escape Arena have really upped their game with the set design in Bat’s Shadows. I’m not saying the other games were bad, far from it, but this game was just the next level.

Set design really was the stand out feature of this game, and it made us feel like rats in a maze. Accessibility is pretty much a non/starter – with ladders and extensive crawling, this is not a game for those who are less mobile.

We’ve often seen that intellectual property law seems to be a bit looser in mainland Europe, so if you’re a fan of the DC universe then you’ll definitely be in for a treat here. There were Easter eggs galore, and I’m pretty sure I missed most of them.

Noise, music, and sound was used very well to help enhance the experience but it never became overpowering or annoying. A few nods to the past and the history of comic books was a nice touch too.

Ever since a tragedy took place in a Polish escape room back in 2019, the industry over there has been subjected to more rigorous safety measures. There is one specific design that escape rooms use a lot in Polish escape rooms now that we didn’t notice until it was pointed out, it’s quite clever as it adds to the safety of the game, but if done well, you probably won’t even notice it.

I’ve not been in too many evil lairs in my time, but if I had I imagine that one thing they’d have in common would be a labyrinthine like layout that meant you’d never really know where you’d end up next, and that was certainly the case for Bat’s Shadows. At one point I went completely the wrong way to do something as I missed something that had changed – sneaky.

PUZZLES

It’s always easy to look back on puzzles when you’ve completed a game and think they were on the easier side, and it’s true, Bat’s Shadows didn’t have the hardest puzzles we’ve seen, but they were enjoyable to solve and all felt like they belonged in the game.

There were a lot of things in the game that were simply set dressing, but it was easy enough to be able to discount them and move on – definitely not red herrings.

Other than the navigation of the space; observation, teamwork, pattern recognition, logic, skill, searching, and audio made up the bulk of the puzzles.

It’s probably worth pointing out that one or two of the puzzles also used colour in ways that could make it challenging for those who are ‘colour-impaired’, but it wasn’t a lot, and they were generally quite clear.

Not sure if it should come down to set design, puzzles, but one puzzle that we had to solve relied on a cool custom prop that shows the attention to detail they’ve gone to. We’ve encountered this type of puzzle before, but we’ve not seen it taken to this level before in terms of giving us this cool prop to help us ‘solve’ it.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Kris was a great host for all of our games, but it was clear to see that he reserved most of his passion for Bat’s Shadows, and I can see why, it’s a game to be proud of.

I can’t recall ever having to ask for help in this game, but if we had it would have come over the speaker system from wonderfully cute Riddler dolls located in the room.

ANYTHING ELSE

I can see why this game is getting conversations about TERPECA recognition, it’s a really solid game that has fun puzzles and a great set. Is it TERPECA worthy? Possibly. Should you play it regardless? Yes, definitely.

When we visited Escape Arena they were working on a new game relating to the Spiderman universe,  and our host believes that game will surpass Bat’s Shadows. If it does, we’ll be impressed, but we’ll definitely be back to check it out when it opens!

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2 Players

Address: Krauthofera 55, 60-202 Poznań, Poland

Website: https://www.escapearena.pl/en