La Novia

This room has been nominated in the Escape Room Awards 2022 from Spain in two categories, best horror room and best acting and was third in the 2022 Horror Awards. Without being able to compare it with the other contestants, I am not surprised that this is the case.

After having played a large number of horror rooms, it is difficult for a horror room to surprise me, but it is fair to say that a similar comment applies to other typical topics, such as pirates, temples/tombs or spaceships. It is often not the nature of the game, but its quality, what ends up defining whether a game stands out from its peers.

La novia definitely stands out and is my opinion the second-best horror escape room in Madrid. On one hand the acting is extremely good, from the introduction until the end this is convincingly well-done. Additionally, the game makes a great use of theatrical scenes, which for Spain is not very common. Brides and theatricals will certainly ring a bell for those well-travelled enthusiasts who have been in Athens and this game will look less original if you have experienced similar concepts before. However, this does not alter at all my initial judgment concerning the acting, which I particularly enjoyed.

Being a horror game you will certainly find the typical elements, such as scare jumps and “courage-tests”. I particularly liked how they managed the latter, ensuring that everyone has the chance of having a good dose of fear. The flow was good and the progress in the room and the narrative go hand in hand. As usual, the riddles are not something that stand out in horror rooms, but the game has a few nice rather unique mechanisms, that enrich the experience.

The setting was nice, but as we are accustomed from horror games, they usually represent houses and therefore very few elements stand out. Regarding the setting of this game, I particularly liked a resource, which I have encountered a few times before, but which is not very common and always has an impact. I also loved one of the rooms and scenes in the game and in general the use of audio and lights is of a really good quality.

Overall, it is a game I thoroughly enjoyed and which I can easily recommend. The bad news is that the game is currently only in Spanish, but this was the case for many other games in the past in Spain and some became available in English. If it does or if your Spanish is good enough, make sure to include it on your list when visiting the Spanish capital city.