Sinapsis: The Forbidden Classroom

Generally in Argentina, the claim ‘available in English’ needs to be treated with a pinch of salt; I think this game at Sinapsis was the first one we found in the country that genuinely didn’t need any Spanish knowledge whatsoever.

It starts you off in an old fashioned classroom, and certainly feels like an old-fashioned style of escape room to begin with: laminated papers to give clues, didactic theming to the linear sequence of puzzles. These are implemented in a more technically sophisticated way than padlock codes, though; there’s a variety of electronic mechanisms, and the task that initially appears to be a simple maths puzzle is actually quite creative and clever.

We got stuck on one puzzle that seemed to involve flagrant mind-reading. On reflection it wasn’t so bad, though did require us to guess the correct assumptions for the clues to lead to a solution. That was the exception though, with all the other puzzles following rigorous logic.

The early back-to-basics decor is also not representative of the whole game, with some nice reveals later on. That one puzzle could really do with some tweaking, but that aside it’s a solid game and a reasonable choice to play while visiting the city, particularly if you’re looking for something with no Spanish required.