Wyjście Awaryjne: Operation: Metro (Bydgoszcz)

Does Bydgoszcz have an underground??

For days, rumors of a planned terrorist attack had been circulating around the city. When the media published a statement from the terrorists, those rumors turned into a grim reality. Taking the threat seriously, city authorities and emergency services scrambled to identify the attackers or their intended target. They refused, however, to yield to the perpetrators’ absurd demands. Their efforts proved futile. By morning, news flashed around the world that explosions and sustained gunfire were being heard at the ‘Plac Teatralny’ metro station. Being stationed closest to the scene, you were the first to arrive—only to discover that this was merely the opening act of the entire spectacle.

We headed to Bydgoszcz on the recommendation of Ken from The Logic Escapes Me and it turned out to be a great recommendation, not only because of the escape rooms we played, but the city itself is beautiful and I think it was our favourite city of the three we visited on this trip (Bydgoszcz, Poznan and Wroclaw). The city itself was lovely to stroll around, and the local food was truly wonderful!

We had initially only planned to book three games in Bydgoszcz, but as our flight was surprisingly on time we had spare time on the day we arrived so we booked in a bonus game at Mr Lock, to play Superheroom. But the main event for this city was always supposed to be the games at Wyjście Awaryjne (which translates to Emergency Exit), where we had booked their three games that were available in English; Shadow of the Pyramids, Operation Metro, and Sea Tales.

All three of these games had ranked in the 2025 TERPECAs, albeit in the positions of 273 (Sea Tales), 279 (Operation Metro) , and 355 (Shadow of the Pyramids). So not high positions, but still respectable. And each game in its debut year in the awards positioned in the Top 100, so we had high expectations that they would be decent games.

The venue is easy to find, as it is pretty much right on the river, next to one of the most famous statues in the city, but it is up a number of flights of stairs so I’m not sure how accessible it is as we couldn’t see a lift). As this was our second game of the day, we were able to hang around the waiting area while our host, Jakob, got the last bits of our game ready.

After a little wait, it was time to get down to business, to save the city of Bydgoszcz. Jakob gave us our briefings in the waiting area, informed us we only had 75 minutes to complete our mission and then kindly left us in the sewers where we received a further briefing from our commander.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

As soon as we stepped from the corridor we entered the very authentic looking, but fortunately not smelling, sewers of Bydgozcz! The set design in this first room was good and set the scene for what was to come, it also fit the narrative perfectly. There were ambient noises in this first area and that was a theme that continued throughout, helping us believe that we were in the underground.

The room didn’t have big and open spaces, but the spaces it did have were well used, and as a team of two we had plenty of space to move around. Operation Metro has an official maximum capacity of 5 people, and I think that’s probably ok. There will be areas where things may be a little cosy, but generally larger teams shouldn’t suffer too much. The fact that this game has many non-linear moments, with the inevitable choke points of course, allowed us to divide as needed, but also move on if something wasn’t clicking immediately – which is good for larger teams too.

I love it when a game has a focal point in the set design and the game revolves around that – and Operation Metro certainly has that. The give away is in the name, but I’ll leave it at that for you to work out what it is.

Everything in this space felt like it belonged in the space, and having spent a good amount of time on various underground networks, the only thing it was missing was hordes of grumpy commuters!

PUZZLES

A team’s powers of observation are absolutely critical for success in Operation Metro. Not so much because of sneaky scavenging, but mostly because the solution to a puzzle will be right in front of you… as long as you take notice of your surroundings.

Several times we got hung up on something, only to have the answer practically slap us in the face a moment later. In fact, we almost failed the very last challenge of the game due to our lack of observation. We thought the answer was something that was obscure and perhaps outside knowledge, but in our debrief after, Jakob pointed out a massive thing we had missed that would have given us the answer – we just got lucky on that one (as did Bydgoszcz)!

Aside from that, or perhaps because of that, the puzzles were fair, engaging, and varied. Logic, spatial reasoning, pattern recognition, and more all played a part, but teamwork and observation were the stars of the show here.

There was one puzzle that apparently can keep teams occupied/annoyed for a long time. It has a time limit to it and essentially has to be repeated as many times as needed to get it right. Fortunately we got it on the second attempt (first was working out what we were doing), and I could see this killing the vibe/flow very quickly if teams struggled on it.

Really my only issue with the puzzles was that there was a prop in one of the spaces, which was rather prominent but it was a dead puzzle. So we kept going back to it thinking we needed to do something with it, but in the end, we never did.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Jakob performed adequately as our gamesmaster and was there if/when we needed him. I would assume that he was rather experienced in his role, as he held off on giving clues too soon, and waited for us to either ask, or if we were struggling. Saying that, I don’t recall actually asking directly for any help, but he did chime in over the speaker system, as our contact from HQ, to help with one or two translation type things that we struggled with.

One puzzle was fully on us being dim. We solved it, got the item we needed, and then proceeded to instantly forget that we had it. A less experienced gamesmaster would have chimed in right away to say to focus on it, but he left us for long enough that we realised how stupid we were, and still get the satisfaction of solving it ourselves.

Wyjście Awaryjne have gone for as immersive an experience as possible with Operation Metro, so you won’t find a timer to let you know how you’re progressing. That’s not to say you won’t find any timers in this game, but nothing relating to your overall 75 minute game time.

ANYTHING ELSE

Of the three games we booked at Wyjście Awaryjne, Operation Metro was the one I had the lowest expectations for, but actually turned out to be Liz’s favourite. The set was good, the puzzles were the right level of challenging, and the theme was a lovely nod to the local area.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2 Players – 50 mins taken

Address: Plac Teatralny 4, 85-069 Bydgoszcz, Poland

Website: https://wyjscieawaryjne.pl/