One of the rooms that we played during our November-December 2024 trip to Athens and Spain was La Santa at Shock Creations in Madrid.
The story behind La Santa is as follows:
The story tells of Sister Clara, who lives with the other sisters in the Abbey. A series of strange events lead her to inform the Church about what has happened there. A demon has terrorized the clergy. The Church contacts Father Eusebio, an expert demonologist, who immediately contacts the sisters. Father Eusebio begins to investigate the story. He discovers a terrible fact: centuries earlier, a demon had been walled up within the walls of Saint Clare Abbey.
La Santa was my 347th room to date and here is what I thought:
- knowing that this was a top 25 TERPECA room (and a former TERPECA #4), this was a room that I really wanted to play in Madrid. It was however a real pain to try to book for just 2 players. I sent an email to Shock Creations asking if we could play as a team of 2 (even if we paid for a larger team) and after chasing them for a response, I got a pretty rude reply that they were busy and I should stop asking them questions that can be answered on their website. We ended up losing our deposit for the first booking that we made.
- ultimately, we managed to find another 2 guys to play with from an enthusiast group on Facebook (hi to Serg from Germany). So we played as a team of 4, which I am glad that we did (both so that we could meet fellow enthusiasts but also because in any horror rooms, there is safety in numbers).
- there were certain elements that I thought were done well in La Santa. I liked the quality of the theming throughout the experience and some of the earlier jump scares that I thought were well-designed. Overall I did not think that the puzzles were particularly strong throughout the balance of the experience, but they were fine.
- As far as cinematics go, there is one moment that is visually impressive. However, I think it was probably very impressive when the room opened back in 2021, but compared to other top 25 rooms I feel like La Santa is showing its age now with respect to the quality of the cinematics and theming.
- I wasn’t on the receiving end of this, but one of our team mentioned that one of the actors was pretty heavy-handed with them at one point. This wasn’t necessary (but as we saw in some other Greece/Spain rooms, sometimes the actors get a little too excited).
Overall thoughts
Overall I thought La Santa was a solid room but I did not think it deserved its current #24 TERPECA spot. The room was expensive (particularly when, like us, you lose your deposit and have to rebook) but I thought shows its age, the puzzles were just ok and the storyline was pretty weak. I also thought the communication and customer service at this business was poor. They were pretty slow and then pretty rude via email. The room is designed so that it can only be played with a minimum of 3 people, not 2. Having now played the game, it would take very little work on their part to make the room adaptable to a team of 2.
I did not think that this room is in the same league as the best rooms that we played on this trip on a number of fronts. Although there was one impressive ‘cinematic’ moment, that was really the only unique or memorable element of this room for me. I will not be surprised later this year when La Santa falls outside of the top 50, which I suspect it will.
Where: C. Juana Francés, 2, 28522 Rivas-Vaciamadrid
Duration: 90 minutes
TERPECA: 24 in 2024 (previously 4)
Themes: 4 themes
Overall Rating: Showing its age and doesn’t deserve such a high TERPECA ranking
More details: https://www.shockescaperoom.com/escape-room-hall-escape-lasanta/
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