Mr Lock: Superheroom (Bydgoszcz)

One for Superhero fans

The world is on the verge of extinction… It only depends on you whether it will survive.

Your eternal enemy has been reborn and seeks revenge. From behind the scenes, he is assisted by a powerful and mysterious master of crime, who made him even stronger, and deprived you of superpowers. Together, they want to bury New York under millions of tons of sand. And this is just the beginning…

The last hope of humanity is you! You have never faced such a challenge. You have a chance to win

In this battle only if you join forces.

Wear superhero capes and save humanity. Get to the 75th floor of a wrecked skyscraper and regain your superpowers. Defeat the super-villain and save the world.

Our trip to Bydgoszcz had two surprises. The first surprise was that we went to Bydgoszcz as it was never part of our original Poland trip, and second, that we played Superheroom as that was also never on the list. But we’re certainly glad that these surprises happened – Bydgoszcz is a beautiful city and Superheroom was a lot of fun (spoiler alert).

We had been strolling around town and randomly walked past Mr Lock, so we knew exactly where to go when we booked in. When we arrived we climbed the stairs (we couldn’t see a lift) and at our allotted time the door opened and we were greeted by our very enthusiastic host.

The lobby for Mr Lock is sizable and decorated with various superhero ephemera. For our game we had a great GM, but we sadly didn’t get his name, and he appeared to have a trusty assistant behind the desk too, but we also didn’t get her name.

Generally briefings for games are bland and to the point. But the enthusiasm that our host brought to even the most dull of briefings made it a joy to behold, and that was before it got even more theatrical with the mission briefing. This was a very good first impression!

At breakneck speed we followed our host down the corridor and stood outside the entrance to the game. We were given one final tool which could supposedly be of use, and then we were on our own. It was time to get our superhero on!

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

There’s no denying it, this was a cool room and the use of space was really quite clever. I would question how it plays out with larger teams, but as a team of two, it was pretty much perfect.

It’s clearly set in an odd blended superhero universe, but that’s fine and you don’t need to have any knowledge of superheroes to be able to compete the game. We knew nothing more than the various Marvel / DC movies and still enjoyed (and succeeded). I gather if you do know more about the superhero world you may appreciate more easter eggs.

Mr Lock were clever with their room design in Superheroom. It’s easy to say that you’re on the 72nd floor of a skyscraper and then it just feels like a normal space, but thanks to an extra design choice, it had that little extra something that made it more memorable for us.

Ambient noises throughout helped to add to the immersion, and there were a lot of extra sound effects and theatrics during the game – most notably when something was accomplished. Nice reinforcement to know that we had done something right.

PUZZLES

For the most part, Superheroom was an open game and non-linear which suited us quite well. Ok, there were points where you had to solve in a certain order, but plenty of it was open for you to decide what to solve next – and no superhero knowledge, or superpowers needed!

With a nice little progress bar it was easy to see how many of the key puzzles we had completed, and more importantly, how many we had left to go. We didn’t need super strength, super reactions, or super intelligence (although that would have helped) to solve the puzzles here. They were all fair, and solvable to us non-superhero humans: observation, pattern recognition, spatial relations, teamwork, communication, touch, skill, searching, and a bit of logic.

Solving the puzzles gave combinations for padlocks or tech and when we solved something we instantly got feedback to let us know we had succeeded. The puzzles were also very fair, and well signposted, although at times we didn’t see it right away, it was always there.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

I’m sure we’ve probably had a host as enthusiastic as our host in this game, but I honestly couldn’t say who. It’s even more impressive considering English was not his first language, and everything still came across perfectly. If you want to see how a GM can really make a game, this is the one to watch.

The GM was great and if we needed help, or just to be told we could do something we didn’t feel like we should do, he was always ready and waiting. Really my only disappointment with the clue system was that it was a walkie-talkie and not something perhaps a bit more in keeping with the theme – bat (mobile) phone anyone?

ANYTHING ELSE

This game is well regarded, but I was suspicious of how good it would actually be. We’re so pleased we added this as a bonus game to our trip. The game itself was enjoyable but the GM took it to that next level.

Fan of superheroes? Play this game. Fans of good escape rooms? Play this game. It really is just a fun time, with a bit of superhero fun thrown in.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2 Players – around 14 mins remaining (70 min game)

Address: Gdańska 49, 85-005 Bydgoszcz, Poland

Website: https://mrlock.pl/