Escape Game Adventure: The Mad Hacker is included in our recommendation guide for Tabletop Escape Games – For Kids. For more of the best games of this style, check out the recommendation guide.
A kid’s guide to drone repair
Location: at home
Date Played: February 2020
Team size: we recommend 1-family
Duration: 15-60 minutes
Price: about $10
REA Reaction
Like The Last Dragon, The Mad Hacker was a lovely kid-friendly puzzle book with great art and a soft difficulty curve.
While we preferred the setting of The Last Dragon, we felt that the puzzles of The Mad Hacker had a bit more charm and, in a couple of cases, depth.
For families, The Mad Hacker is a fantastic follow-on to The Last Dragon. If you’re a seasoned escape room player, this one still isn’t really for you, but if you’re going to buy one of the Escape Game Adventure books, it should be The Mad Hacker.
Story
We had been sent to the year 2394 to stop a super computer virus from destroying all of the world’s technology.
Analysis
The analysis in this section is about the content of The Mad Hacker. To see our analysis of the structure, refer to our Escape Game Adventure Books overview.
➕ The puzzles were thematic, varied, and age-appropriate. Of note, they leaned a little more heavily on logic than the puzzles in The Last Dragon.
➕ We enjoyed how one puzzle incorporated an additional step of reasoning before a standard style of process puzzle.
➖ One optical puzzle missed the mark and thus wasn’t really a puzzle at all. You just had to look at it.
➖/➕ With The Mad Hacker our ratio of time spent cutting out pieces to solving puzzles leaned a bit too heavily toward cutting. That said, the game used the cutout pieces well, which we appreciated.
➕ The art was thematic, detailed, and enjoyable.
Tips For Players
- Space Requirements: a small table
- Required Gear: pencil, scissors
Buy your copy of The Mad Hacker, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: we received a media sample for review.
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