Munoa VR Escape Room | Two cooperative Virtual Reality experiences for the City Council of Barakaldo

A palace with more secrets than it lets on

Some places keep their best stories behind locked doors. Palacio Munoa, in the Burceña neighbourhood of Barakaldo, is one of them. Commissioned as a summer residence in 1860, redesigned in 1916 by architect Ricardo de Bastida into a Second French Empire mansion, and occupied for decades by the Echevarrieta family —one of the most influential dynasties of Basque industrialisation— the palace holds layers of history that a conventional guided tour can barely scratch. Named a Monumental Site in 2017, its six hectares of English garden, stained-glass windows, private chapel and Grand Salon with a pipe organ deserved far more than a leisurely stroll.

The City Council of Barakaldo, with Telefónica Tech as technology partner and as part of the plan “Barakaldo, gateway to Industrial Tourism in Euskadi” funded by EU Next Generation grants, commissioned DeuSens to design what no information panel can deliver: the chance to live the palace’s history and Barakaldo’s industrial past from the inside. The result is a pair of multiplayer virtual reality experiences — The Heartbeat of Iron and Finca Munoa and its Secrets — where groups don VR headsets to collaborate, explore and solve puzzles against the clock in settings that blend historical accuracy with video-game storytelling. Fifteen minutes per session. Zero prior experience required. All the thrill of an escape room, but inside worlds that no longer exist.

The Heartbeat of Iron: descend into the mine, forge the steel

You cannot understand Barakaldo without iron. From 14th-century water-powered forges to the mighty Altos Hornos de Vizcaya steelworks —which at their peak employed 13,000 workers— the extraction and transformation of ore defined the left bank of the Nervión river. The Heartbeat of Iron distils that legacy into a 15-minute VR experience where players relive the two great stages of the process: first the mine, then the steelworks. Guided by the ghost of a former Barakaldo miner —sharp-tongued, daring, incapable of keeping quiet— the team must locate tools, solve arithmetic riddles engraved on steel bars, place dynamite in the right crevices, survive the blast and collect the ore before the clock hits zero.

The second half changes the scene entirely. The mine gives way to a roaring steelworks where players must feed a blast furnace with iron, coal and limestone in the exact order, activate oxygen valves at 1,500 °C and pull the levers of a Bessemer converter to produce the first cast of steel. Everything is cooperative: if one player fails, the whole team feels it. If time runs out, the ghost steps in with his own brand of humour to keep the story moving. Nobody gets stuck, but completing each step on your own earns you the real reward: the satisfaction of honouring the craft of the people who forged Barakaldo.

Finca Munoa and its Secrets: a journey to the palace’s golden age

The second experience swaps the darkness of the mine for the light streaming through the palace windows. Players appear on the main terrace of Munoa, facing the façade exactly as it stands today. From the bust of Horacio Echevarrieta —industrialist, shipbuilder, owner of El Liberal from 1917 and the palace’s last notable resident— a ghostly figure emerges and invites the group to travel back in time. The door opens, the vestibule’s stained glass comes alive and, after a teleportation only VR can make possible, the team lands in the Grand Salon during its era of greatest splendour: hardwood panels, period furniture, heavy drapes and an imposing century-old organ that holds the key to everything.

The doors slam shut. Ten minutes. Horacio’s sister is about to arrive and the group should not be there. On the organ, a score with a numerical sequence. Inside a hat, a clue. Inside a copy of Don Quixote, another. Beneath a decorated cup, one more. Two grotesque carvings on the fireplace spin the sculptures around to reveal the final piece of the code. When the clues come together and the right notes ring out on the organ, the door opens and light floods the room. It is an escape room designed for thinking together, noticing every detail and being surprised by a palace that guards more secrets than anyone suspects.

Cooperative virtual reality for every audience

Both experiences operate as a permanent installation inside Palacio Munoa itself, turning every session into a natural extension of a visit to the estate. Groups of up to five people put on VR headsets and controllers and within a minute they are standing in the 19th century. Nothing to download, no complex instructions and environments intuitive enough for families with children, groups of friends or tourists with no prior VR experience to enjoy from the very first second.

The design of both experiences follows a philosophy DeuSens has honed across immersive tourism projects such as Benavente VR and San Juan de la Peña: technology should not be seen — it should be felt. Visitors do not think about pixels or frame rates; they think about whether the dynamite will light in time or which note hides behind an old book. That is the goal: to turn Barakaldo’s heritage from something you look at into something you live, touch and remember.