All 9 rooms that we played in Madrid and Toledo, Spain in 2024

Hi everyone

Here is the list of all 9 rooms that we played in Madrid and Toledo, Spain in November/December 2024. I have put together detailed reviews of those rooms that I really enjoyed or wanted to go into more detail on, and short comments only for those I didn’t enjoy quite so much.

Here is what I thought:

Experiencia Amarilla/The Yellow Experience (Colors Escape Room)  – Room 342

With little regard for IP laws I suspect, this room is based on the 1985 film The Goonies, which I think we would all agree is undoubtedly the best movie ever made. So needless to say I was a little excited to play this room. There were some really nice aspects of this room that brought out the inner Goonie in me, as well as some cool set designs and theming. Overall it wasn’t in the same league as some other fantastic pirate rooms that I have played elsewhere, but it was still a lot of fun and my favourite of the rooms that we played at Colors Escape Room in Madrid. If you would like to check out this room, you can do so here.

Experiencia Azul/The Blue Experience (Colors Escape Room) – Room 343

Of the 3 rooms that we played at Colors Escape Room in Madrid, this was probably my least favourite. The reason for that is that I found the theme to be the least interesting (compared to The Goonies and Indiana Jones). That being said, the theming was relatively well done and the puzzles were fun to solve. It was a solid room but not at the same level as the other rooms at this venue (and not in the same league at all to the best rooms on offer in Spain). If you would like to check out this room, you can do so here.

Experiencia Morada/The Purple Experience (Colors Escape Room) – Room 344

With similar disregard for IP laws as was the case with their Goonies room, this room is an Indiana Jones-themed room. As with The Goonies room, the theming and puzzles in this room were well-done. This was a fun room with solid puzzles. There was also a reasonable amount of nostalgia in this room for anyone who also grew up watching the Indiana Jones films. If you would like to check out this room, you can do so here.

The Mystery of Scumm Island (Madness Toledo)  – Room 345

This was a nostalgic, fantastic room that I adored (and in fact, it was the primary reason why we visited Toledo at all). You can check out my detailed review here, but I am sorry to report that this room has now closed down.

The Maze/El Laberinto (Descifra Escape Rooms) – Room 346

The Labyrinth/El Laberinto was an interesting room. It contained a number of interesting elements and unique puzzles, but the most memorable aspect is the room design, which has various rooms branching off from a central hub room. We had some challenges with a communication puzzle in this room (which had us on either side of a window trying to communicate using our hands) – it would not have been impressive to have watch us at that point. Overall it was an interesting room and I liked it more by the end of the experience than I did at the beginning. If you would like to check it out, you can do so here.

La Santa (Shock) – Room 347

I did not absolutely love La Santa, but I wanted to review it in detail given it is currently TERPECA 24 and a former TERPECA 4 room.  You can check out my detailed review here.

Disappearance of Professor (La Cronosfera) – Room 348

I found this room pretty frustrating (and for a time travel room, it contained very little time travel elements). The theming was very simplistic, about what I would expect from a Gen 2 room. Many of the puzzles were reasonable, but the hint system was one of the worst that I have encountered in the more than 400 rooms that I have played to date. Players are handed a device that helps them to “travel” in time, but that device is also how players receive hints. Players have no way to contact the GM and instead have to rely on the GM paying attention and then sending hints, which come through on an LCD on the device. There is no sound that plays when a message is sent, so unless you’re watching the device the whole time, it is very easy to miss hints (or not know whether any hints were in fact sent). This room is a hard pass for me until they fix the incredibly frustrating hint system. You can check out more about the room here.

Bites Motel (Bite the Fly) – Room 349

Bites Motel was my favourite room in Madrid. You can check out my detailed review here.

The Tailor/El Sastre (Locktopus) – Room 350

We played The Tailor on our last evening in Madrid. I had heard good things about the Tailor (and knew that it had previously held the spot of #136 on TERPECA). It was a fun, high adventure room with some really nice aspects. I thought the room had signs of wear and was starting to show its age a little, but the theming was strong. I really liked their use of the existing building spaces and the character interactions were fun. You can check out more about the room here.

Final thoughts on Madrid/Toledo rooms

We had a great time in Madrid and enjoyed the various rooms that we played there. I did not think that any of the rooms that we played were necessarily among the best rooms that we have played in the world, including La Santa which is currently TEPRECA 24. All of the rooms though were themed nicely and had some interesting puzzles. I would definitely describe the rooms in Madrid as being more puzzle focused than the rooms in Greece, which were largely (but not in all cases) more focused on jump scares. And of the entire trip around Spain and Athens, I thought the city of Toledo was incredibly beautiful and definitely worth the time investment if you’re in Madrid.

Madness Toledo - The Mystery of Scum Island Review (Toledo, Spain)

Hi all

One of my favourite rooms that we played on our November-December 2024 trip to Athens and Spain was The Mystery of Scum Island at Madness Toledo.

The room is located in Toledo, which is a little under a 1 hour drive from Madrid. We were rushing from room to room that day, so we bit the bullet and took an uber from Madrid to Toledo. However, ubers do not run from Toledo back to Madrid, so we paid handsomely for a taxi in the evening to take us back to Madrid (where we had another escape room booked).

The Mystery of Scum Island is a room based on my all-time favourite 1990s PC adventure games, The Monkey Island series. I fondly remember playing The Secret of Monkey Island in early high school – I had played many Sierra and LucasArts games back then: the whole Kings Quest series, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Indiana Jones, Leisure Suit Larry, the list goes on. But my favourite was Monkey Island – trying over and over again to beat Le Chuck, figuring our how to make sea shanties rhyme with oranges and trying to figure out the game designers’ fascination with voodoo, grog and rubber chickens…

It was a fantastic game series and I was incredibly excited to play this room (I even wore my  favourite Monkey Island t-shirt :-)

The Mystery of Scum Island was my 345^th room to date and here is what I thought:

• this room was a complete joy to play. The quality of the theming was excellent. The use of sounds and music really helped to bring the world of Monkey Island to life;

• the room included interaction with a skull, who played the role of our Game Master. The voice actor did a fantastic job;

• the room design is a non-linear room, which allowed us to split up a little to investigate different spaces. Given though there were only 2 of us, we largely solved the puzzles together. And speaking of puzzles, I thought they were all a lot of fun to solve. They were also a nice mix of hunt and seek fun, more traditional puzzles and some higher tech puzzles and even computer-based interactive puzzles;

• the reason though that I loved this room so much is because the nostalgia. I really felt like I was inside the Monkey Island world and playing the role of a pirate. There was one puzzle in particular that was so incredibly clever and nostalgic that I would have given this room a huge rating purely for that puzzle alone. As soon as I glimpsed the puzzle, I smiled and laughed and knew I would never forget it.

The only criticism I had of the room is that I would have liked to have spent more time on a hunt and seek element, given we finished the room early and had plenty of spare time. It wasn’t clear from the room design that there were additional hunt and seek elements that we could have chosen to spend time on. This was a minor criticism though of what was a brilliant room.

Overall thoughts

If I judged rooms purely on fun, this was probably my favourite escape room of the entire trip. I suspect that many other enthusiasts who have played The Mystery of Scum Island grew up playing Monkey Island like I did, which is no doubt why this room debuted at 27 on the TERPECA list. I suspect the room would not have been quite as fun if you are not a Monkey Island fan, but even then the quality of the theming and puzzles was excellent. After playing the room, I later learned that it had been designed by the team that also designed Mayto Kingdom’s rooms. They are incredibly talented designers.

In sad news, The Mystery of Scum Island has closed its doors. I had heard rumours before we played that it might be closing and I am incredibly grateful that we managed to play it during its run.

Where:                Calle Nueva 5, 45001 Toledo, Spain

Duration:             90 minutes

TERPECA:          152 in 2024 (previously 27)

Themes:              Closed

Overall Rating:   A nostalgic joyful game that I didn’t want to end

More details:       https://www.madnesstoledo.es/