The elephant in the room.
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Date Played: August 24, 2018
Team size: 4-8; we recommend 4-5
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: $38 per ticket Sunday – Thursday, $40 per ticket Friday – Saturday
Ticketing: Private
REA Reaction
I was really excited to play Jumanji. It was clear that 60 Out had put a lot of effort into creating this game. I wish I could say that effort correlated directly to quality… but I can’t. I’m pretty sad about it.
The Jumanji escape room was a beautiful mess filled with interesting toys and striking set pieces. Far too many puzzles were broken; the game seemed littered with the remains of removed or adapted puzzles. The character/ special ability feature was too opaque to allow for deliberate character moments. Unfortunately, the problems overshadowed a number of great puzzles and interactions.
Finally, it looked like a jungle, but it didn’t feel like Jumanji. There weren’t moments of overcoming deep-seated character flaws… nor were there many meaningful references back to the film (the original or the sequel).
Who is this for?
- Adventure seekers
- Scenery snobs
- Best for players with at least some experience
Why play?
- A detailed, unusual set
- Nifty interactions
- Some beautiful set pieces
Story
This licensed escape room loosely interpreted the story of the recent film sequel Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle. Our group had all been sucked into a cursed jungle adventure video game.
Once we were in the video game, we each selected a character and received an ability based on that role.
Finally, we had to complete Jumanji before the game destroyed us.
Setting
Jumanji kicked off with us hanging out in our friend’s bedroom. After we started the video game console and booted up Jumanji, we found ourselves in a jungle environment.
The bedroom was a fairly accurate recreation of Alex Vreeke’s ‘90s room from an early scene of the movie.
While the jungle setting didn’t specifically reference anything that I could recall in the film, it was a solid tropical jungle setting.
Gameplay
60 Out’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a standard escape room with a high level of difficulty.
One key feature was the role-based play. This created situations where only a specific player (or at least their wrist band) could complete a specific interaction.
Core gameplay revolved around searching, observing, and making connections.
Analysis
+ There were some beautiful, eye-catching set pieces.
– An awful lot of interactions were broken, including some key moments that should have been badass. Looking around the set, it seemed riddled with ghost puzzles. This was frustrating.
+ I kind of wanted to keep the Jumanji board.
– The character superpowers (activated with the wrist bands) were clunky. It was often difficult to tell which bracelet applied to which interactions and why. It was difficult to connect the characters and powers; everything seemed abstract. This whole portion of the game felt hollow.
+ The jungle setting looked pretty good. While it wasn’t perfect, wooded environments are some of the most difficult to create and 60 Out clearly put a lot into the set. I have to give them credit for this creation.
– 60 Out put a lot of emphasis on Alex’s bedroom. This was a bafflingly faithful recreation of a set that received about 15 seconds of screen time in the movie.
+ There were a number of fun puzzles and interactions including a teamwork puzzle, a physical interaction, and one that wasn’t particularly challenging, but was beautiful and a delight to complete.
– The finale was overflowing with potential, but it fizzled when it barely worked. I’m still not sure how it was supposed to have functioned.
– To me, the core of any Jumanji story is a group of individuals helping one another overcome their weaknesses to discover their true strengths. It’s supposed to be personal, not just a jungle adventure. This was absent from 60 Out’s Jumanji escape room. I could forgive this if 60 Out had nailed other big moments from the movie, but it didn’t really do that either. Maybe they didn’t get to see the movie before having to design the game, if that’s the case, then this failure is on the studio as well.
Tips for Visiting
- There is street parking.
- For food, we recommend Village Idiot.
Book your hour with 60 Out’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: 60 Out comped our tickets for this game.
Played this room in August 2018 and our group was disappointed in a jaw dropping “I can’t believe this just happened” sort of way. Although our Game Master was very poor, the room and its puzzles was never going to be solvable without a steady stream of hints and GM bypasses. Clunky, illogical, misinformation and broken/disfigured props galore. Still have scars from the biggest let down of an escape room I’ve ever experienced. 60 Out has some great games (Titanic, Nautilus, Ghost ship, etc.) but Jumanji was a dud.
I’m sad to hear that, but also kind of encouraged because I have heard from some folks that this game was amazing. I just don’t see it.
Didn’t they partner with the movie on this one? How did it fall so short quality and story wise?
I can’t say. Licensed property doesn’t mean that they licensee is involved, or if they are, that their involvement is helpful.
The video and tabletop game industry has an overwhelming amount of crappy licensed games.
Fascinating!