Room Escape Artist

At the time of the review, Tales of Torchdale was called Escaperoom Antwerp.

Bear with me 🐻

Location:  Zoersel, Belgium

Date Played: July 17, 2023

Team Size: 2-6; we recommend 2-3

Duration: 90 minutes

Price: 155 € per team

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: All players must climb

Emergency Exit Rating: [A] Push To Exit

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

When you hear “toy factory,” perhaps you imagine a place that is bright, cheery, and delightful, like Santa’s workshop or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Escaperoom Antwerp’s The Toy Factory was anything but that, showcasing a darker, grittier, more sinister side of the toy manufacturing industry. The world-building was masterfully executed, the ambience was creepy and at times disorienting but never scary, and a dash of absurdity and humor rounded off each scene.

Furthermore, the gameplay was wholly original and creative. Nearly every puzzle felt fresh to our team of enthusiasts who’ve seen just about everything. I lost count of how many times I squealed with glee at getting to interact with something really cool.

The Toy Factory‘s story was crafted around a conceptual structure more than around character development. Overall, this form was tight, logical, and inherently thematic, clearly advancing our roles as new factory workers and leading into a thoroughly delightful final payoff. Yet, for a world framed by some vivid characters, there was an opportunity to heighten the emotional stakes by developing or subverting our relationships to these characters, rather than essentially just treating them as set dressing.

If you are in Belgium, The Toy Factory is unmissable. For experienced players, respect the team size guidelines on Escaperoom Antwerp’s website and don’t play with more than 4.

Who is this for?

• Scenery snobs
• Adventure seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• Any experience level

Why play?

• Vivid environmental worldbuilding
• Original gameplay
• Endearingly insidious toys

Story

We arrived for our first shift at a peculiar toy factory where we’d have the opportunity to work in variety of roles.

Setting

The Toy Factory felt like a dark fever dream come to life, with a remarkable level of detail and highly cinematic texturing and lighting. The adventure began in the employees’ locker area, doubling both as lobby and narrative exposition, before opening into the factory itself where orders are taken and fulfilled.

Gameplay

Escaperoom Antwerp’s The Toy Factory was a standard escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around solving puzzles, making connections, and enduring the rough working conditions of a rather sketchy toy factory.

Analysis

➕ The Toy Factory communicated an exceptionally strong sense of place, creating a unique and cohesive world both in concept and execution. Every single prop, puzzle, and interaction demonstrated a clear vision and a skillful commitment to environmental world-building.

➕ The textures, material choices, and lighting of The Toy Factory were all *chef’s kiss.* The pictures included with this review don’t even begin to capture how beautiful each and every space was.

➕ The experience began the moment we entered the building. Multiple characters instantly immersed us in the distinctive aesthetics and rules of The Toy Factory. This immersion was deepened by some thematic costuming, which included an inclusive range of sizes.

➕ Featuring an impressive density of memorable “wow” moments, The Toy Factory might well be called The Special Effects Factory. The creativity that went into both the set and game design was off the charts.

➖ In moments, dark and creepy competed with rather than complemented humor, and the game didn’t fully commit to either.

➕ Much of the gameplay was designed to ensure maximal controlled chaos, all while prompting interactions that reinforced our roles as toy factory workers. Both the setup for and the actual process of these interactions made sense within the world.

❓ The English translations for one puzzle weren’t anchored in place, and we didn’t realize until too late that we probably shouldn’t move them. While the puzzle was still solvable, it didn’t have its full intended effect.

➖ While most individual segments of gameplay were stellar, there was some room for improvement in the overall flow of the experience. We repeatedly found ourselves taking longer than ideal getting resituated in each new space, losing a bit of momentum each time.

➕ A particularly chaotic interaction made an absolute mess in such a delightful manner.

➕/❓ A layered communication puzzle with a creative spacial setup was cleverly designed, though certain players had somewhat more interesting roles than others.

➕/➖ A neat reveal moved us, yet it lacked proportionate payoff or reasoning to justify the effect.

➕/➖ With limited perspectives, a frenzied interaction ensured that we weren’t aware of the consequences of our actions. The resulting humor came at the expense of some confusion and frustration for some players in the moment.

➖ A dexterity puzzle was cute but was only really able to be worked on by one or two players at a time. This bottleneck halted our flow and left multiple teammates standing idly.

➕ A transportive finale delivered on the overarching premise and our roles in the story.

❓ The Toy Factory is fully linear and is best played by small teams, especially for enthusiasts. With any more than 3 or 4 players, you’re bound to hit some hard bottlenecks.

Tips For Visiting

• There was a small parking lot.
• Review our tips for playing escape rooms with actors.

Book your session with Escaperoom Antwerp’s The Toy Factory, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.