“We’re all mad here.”
Location: New York, New York
Date played: April 16, 2016
Team size: 2-8; we recommend 3-5
Price: $38 per ticket
Theme & story
Set beyond the looking glass, we were exploring puzzles in the world of Alice in Wonderland.
The room was driven by theme, as opposed to story, and the space itself was beautiful.
Fun staging
The walls were the star of Riddle Me Out’s Alice in Wonderland. Covered in murals, with intricacies such as a nifty door in a tree, the staging brought us into the fiction. The set was cool.
Most technologically advanced escape game?
Riddle Me Out set high expectations: Their website proclaims that they are the “Most technologically advanced escape game.”
This claim elevated my expectations.
Riddle Me Out’s use of technology was strong. In fact, it was stronger than most escape rooms. However, it was not the most technologically advanced escape room we have ever seen. It wasn’t the most technologically advanced game in Manhattan.
In that regard the game was disappointing where it needn’t have been.
“If you don’t know where you are going any road can take you there.”
It’s been a long time since I was so confused, confounded, and frustrated in an escape room.
Our excessively experienced team spent a good chunk of the game chasing our collective tails to figure out what to do next. We escaped, but it was a bewildering experience.
Our confusion was the result of a miscommunication from the beginning of the game: Riddle Me Out had embedded a touch screen in the wall of the room for self-service “hints.” They also had a more traditional gamemaster-driven hint system. Being experienced players, we were reluctant to use the hint touch screen, and the one time we did, the hint seemed pretty obvious, so we disregarded the device. However, unbeknownst to us, this touch screen was a critical part of the game. Some puzzles included clues that came only from the touch screen, not from within the room.
It was confusing.
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
It’s difficult to evaluate the puzzles in Alice in Wonderland because we solved the game without using the touch screen.
We basically applied our experience and various skills to guess, reason, and brute-force (cryptographically not physically) our way out.
Should I play Riddle Me Out’s Alice in Wonderland?
In Alice in Wonderland, Riddle Me Out built an attractive room with intrigue and clever design. The room itself was a fun place to spend an hour.
That said, Riddle Me Out is a young company who, in the words of Lewis Carroll, should ask themselves, “Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
Alice in Wonderland felt more like a prototype for an unfinished game than a fully tested experience. It lacked the flow and internal logic of a refined escape room. The story broke by requiring us to use a wall-mounted touch screen to get computerized hints in a game set in a story from 1865. We could have overlooked the touch screen as a hint system, but not the screen as an integral part of the game that required us to step out of any immersive fiction.
Riddle Me Out charged $38 per person to play Alice in Wonderland; that was its biggest flaw. Escape room prices will stratify and some companies will absolutely justify higher ticket prices, but the games will have to live up to the price tag. Alice in Wonderland was not refined enough to demand $38.
Off with their heads? No. Not at all.
Riddle Me Out is new company on the right track, but they need to peer into their looking glass and decide what they are seeking to accomplish. They can slash the price on this game and it would be good deal, or they can focus on building the story, internal logic, and flow of a top tier game.
I wish them the best of luck, and look forward to paying another one of their games in a few months’ time.
