Barcelona, Jan 2025
Like almost all the Unreal games I’ve played, with Distrito 111 you’re expected to enter the game exactly at your appointment time; you enter straight into the first area of the game, put your things in a trunk and begin playing without seeing any venue staff. There is a toilet available – but not until you’re at least halfway through the game, once you’ve unlocked access to the relevant area. So it’s worth making sure that won’t be a problem before arriving!
This is a grungy post-apocalyptic setting, which I believe is inspired by the show The Last Of Us – not having seen that I can’t comment on how close a homage it is. But no prior knowledge was needed to grasp the plot: there’s a thing, and we need to infiltrate and find it.
Few games hit the sweet spot between challenge and flow as precisely as this one did – we experienced it as a steady stream of aha moments, each arriving just before we might have resorted to getting a hint. That’s obviously subjective and likely to be different for other teams, but it made for an immensely satisfying experience for us, and I’d argue that it indicates at least unusually good puzzle design and signposting.
This was all in a complex and varied environment that was interesting to explore, with some visuals and props that really evoked the setting. The puzzle solutions generally fitted well with the setting too. More than once it has you take actions that would normally not be allowed in an escape room. That’s always a risky kind of design, since when players realise they’re going to be expected to push the boundaries, they may push them in the wrong ways or in the wrong places – and in fact our host did need to quickly tell us to stop! a couple of times, as we were about to do something potentially damaging. If playing this game, you can however just bear in mind that if you find yourself pausing before doing something to see whether the host is going to tell you not to do it, the correct times are always very clearly marked, and if there isn’t a clear indicator then you’re probably doing the wrong thing.
In most cities Distrito 111 would blow the competition out of the water. Among the hyper-impressive rooms of Barcelona, it doesn’t stand out for size or effects. But in three days of outstandingly impressive escape rooms, it was one of the ones I had the most fun solving. 
