Escape Arena: Galaxy of Secrets (Poznan)

In a Galaxy Far Away…

As secret agents of the Rebellion you are going on a mission that is going to decide the fate of the entire galaxy!

Our intelligence reveals Hutts cooperate with the Empire – they are about to strike a massive attack to crush the Resistance once and for all.

Your objective is to infiltrate Jabba’s home planet and retrieve the secret plans of the assault. A cosmic journey awaits you, but beware – the bounty has already been put on your heads!

May the force be with you!

Generally when we’re planning an escape room holiday, we look at the TERPECA rankings and that will generally guide what we book. But sometimes we need ‘filler’ games to make the trip worthwhile – and for those we either ask friends, or pick something because of the theme.

You may not pick up on it from the name but you probably will from the main image for this review, it’s a Star Wars themed game. We sadly missed May the 4th by a couple of weeks, but C’est La vie!

We had planned to play three games at Escape Arena, but ended up playing all four of their games back-to-back: Galaxy of Secrets, Vikings, Bat’s Shadows, and Gambler’s Den. In case you’re wondering, Bat’s Shadow is the main game that took us to this location.

Escape Arena is on the south side of town and is easy enough to get to using an Uber, which we did. When we arrived we were greeted by our host Kris. Kris was our host for all the games we played, and we had many wonderful chats with him throughout the day.

There is a main waiting room but we were soon whisked away to a secondary waiting area specifically for the Galaxy of Secrets. We were able to pack our belongings in the trunk provided, and then spend a little time looking at all the cool Star Wars props. Our next stop was essentially a cool little movie theatre where we received our mission briefing – on typical Star Wars fashion.

In no time at all, our host returned and we were soon smuggled on board the ship.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

If you’re a fan of Star Wars then “this is the game you’re looking for”. If you enjoy the Star Wars universe then I’m sure you’ll find lots of Easter eggs that likely went over our heads – but there’s no outside knowledge needed.

Ambient noises and music were played throughout which helped enhance the enjoyment, and the layout of the game was such that we were never sure where we were going to go next.

I’ll admit, going into this game I really thought it was going to be a tacky fan game; but I was really pleasantly surprised by how much fun it was. Ok yes, it realised heavily on Star Wars, but at its core was good set design and enjoyable, although not overly challenging puzzles.

The game is not really accessible due to stepping, climbing, crawling, and some tight spaces. It also has a split start element, although we were out of our confinement very quickly.

The only minor irritation we had with this game was a light that was flashing off and on for a while and it got a bit tiresome. It would have also have been nice to have a stronger end to the game, but it is what it is.

Translations were perfect and we had no issues at all. Anything we needed to understand had been translated to English, and everything worked as intended.

There was one bit of extra frivolity added to the game which I imagine a lot people would really enjoy, simply for the novelty. You don’t have to use it; but it would be rude not to, right?

PUZZLES

I wouldn’t say this was the most challenging game out there, in fact I believe our host said it was the easiest game at the venue, which would explain why we got through it in good time. It was really the perfect warm up game for our Escape Arena trip.

Larger teams of enthusiasts will fly through this game. We were quick as a two, but in a bigger team I think it could be blitzed quite quickly – although there are mechanisms to try and slow down teams.

The puzzles weren’t out of this world, but they were fair, fun, and well signposted: searching, skill, logic, teamwork, decoding, wordplay, and observation.

Solving the puzzles gave us combinations for padlocks or triggered tech. But again, thanks to good signposting we pretty much always knew where we were going next.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Kris (I may have the spelling wrong, but that’s what I’m going with for now), was a really lovely host and one of the most enthusiastic we encountered on our trip. We were at the venue for a long time and I think we spent more time chatting than we did playing games.

Galaxy of Secrets is one of those games that clicked with us, so much so that we didn’t need any help. Judging from the other games we played, if we did need help, it would have come in quickly as Kris was paying attention. Our helper on this occasion was Master Yoda who would have used his wisdom to get us back on track.

ANYTHING ELSE

I had low expectations for this game and I came out having really enjoyed it. It had good puzzles, was light hearted, and it was really enjoyable to be immersed in the Star Wars world.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2 Players

Address: Krauthofera 55, 60-202 Poznań, Poland

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