Self-Guided The Essen Syndicate City Escape Game

The trail opens on Burgplatz in Essen, with the Essener Dom on one side and the old market quarter on the other. From there the route works through the pedestrian streets of the centre, past the Grillo-Theater and out across Kennedyplatz. It is an outdoor escape game rather than a walk with commentary: each puzzle is tied to a place, and the place has to be found before the puzzle makes sense.

Essen suits this kind of game: the centre is flat and mostly pedestrianised, so a team can drift from corner to corner without losing each other. A team is two to five players sharing one phone, each with a character and a role in the mission, so the answers come out of the discussion. Groups of more than five split into separate teams, each with its own phone. Nobody waits on a guide, and there is no fixed hour to be back.

How to play

Everything runs from your own phone, so the setup takes a few minutes before you head into the centre.

1. Book the City Game
2. Check the instructions email
3. Download the Loquiz app
4. Start playing whenever you like.

Magnus has taken a set of stolen formulas out of the laboratory and left traces of his route across the city. Your team follows him through codes, riddles and photo tasks, dividing the work by role as the trail bends past the Kreuzeskirche. Some answers are painted on a wall, others appear only once the team compares what each character was told.

With more than one team playing at the same time it turns into a race, which is why it works for company outings and team building days. There is no clock running, so you can stop for lunch and pick the hunt back up afterwards. It ends where the case does, in the middle of Essen.