Room Escape Artist

“Dungeons and Dragons is some of the most crazy deep, deep, deep nerd 💩” – Ice-T

Location:  At home

Date Played: March 3, 2024

Team size: 2-6; we recommend 2-4

Duration: 90 minutes per act with 3 acts

Price: about $34

REA Reaction

The 3 pillars of Dungeons & Dragons are: exploration, social interaction, and combat. Bedlam in Neverwinter delivered on all points and added in a delightful variety of puzzles. A deck of cards served as the gamemaster for this adventure. The narrative was well crafted, delivered important story points, and encouraged the players to role-play through interactions in the world around them.

My wife and I love playing D&D, but as most know, it is challenging to find and schedule a group of people to get together and play consistently. I found this box to be a suitable substitute to scratch that itch. The total game play time was around 4 hours, which tends to be a normal session length for D&D. It was split up into 3 acts, so if I hadn’t wanted to play the game all at once there were structured breaks.

For those that love to play at-home escape room games, this was an interesting divergence from the normal experience. There was certainly a mystery to unravel, information to gather, and puzzles to solve, but there was much more immersion and encouragement to role-play than in a standard tabletop escape room box. Getting into character and staying “in the game” was an important factor for maximizing the level of enjoyment.

Who is this for?

• Adventure seekers
• Story seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• Dungeons & Dragons fans
• Any experience level

Why play?

• This was a good replacement for a D&D session when you want to give your dungeon master a night off or several party members cancel last minute
• You enjoy at-home escape room games and want to dip your toe into Dungeons & Dragons
• You enjoy Dungeons & Dragons and want to dip you toe into at-home escape room games

Story

As a member of the Harper’s you’ve agreed to help Enna Liadon find their son Kieran who was last heard from traveling to Bryn Shander. Now if that sentence meant nothing to you, that’s okay. Not everyone has steeped themselves into the deep lore of Faerûn and the Forgotten Realms. The story and lore added an extra layer of depth to this game, but wasn’t a hurdle to enjoying the system or puzzles within.

Setup

After opening the box I was greeted by STOP along with a brief story and some instructions. As is common in escape room games, it would spoil further points if I had jumped right in. After reading the intro I moved onto the quick start instructions.

The game had me build a character with a race card (elf, human, gnome, etc.) and class card (rogue, barbarian, fighter). After I chose those cards I found the starting equipment and miniature that went along with those choices. The instructions booklet took me step-by-step through this process and was easy to follow.

Next, I set up the play area with the Act 1 deck of cards and map tile A. From that point on I waded into adventure and intrigue with my party. I referenced the rule book at certain times to read specific rules when needed, including combat rules, and how to input puzzle solutions.

Gameplay

Hasbro Gaming’s, Dungeons & Dragons: Bedlam in Neverwinter, was a tabletop role-playing play-at-home escape game with a moderate level of difficulty.

I was pleasantly surprised that this game gave a rather complete feeling of playing Dungeons & Dragons while providing interesting and varied puzzles including, ciphers, logic, and spatial puzzles.

Analysis

➕ The ability to quickly dive into a tabletop role-playing experience was refreshing. I considered this D&D light, but it had all of the normal trappings that you would expect, such as making ability checks to uncover information, ability saving throws to avoid traps, and attack rolls to deal damage in combat.

➖ Because some of the map tiles were hard to decipher, we ended up making tactical decisions without complete information. Since we couldn’t tell where the card was indicating, we ended up assigning characters at hazard to explore that area. This made it hard to make intentional decisions to match a character’s preferred ability to the situation. For example, we sent a barbarian to accidentally investigate a book where an intelligence check was needed and in another instance the wizard had to attempt to move a heavy object which called for a strength check.

➕ /➖  The puzzles were varied, but not hard for those experienced with escape room games. I found the overall experience fun, but as a D&D lover AND an escape room enthusiast it didn’t fulfill either of those promises as deeply as choosing to do one or the other.

➕ All of the Dungeons & Dragons creatures, lore, and characters were accurate and satisfying for those that are familiar with this setting and game.

➕/➖ After gathering all necessary information for a puzzle, the solution was always a 3-digit number that was another card we would pull from the deck. This felt akin to other card-based escape room games such as Exit: The Game or Unlock! This was implemented smoothly, but could get repetitive after a while. 

Tips For Players

• Space Requirements: You can play this game on most tables
• Required Gear: Everything you need comes in this box. Paper and a writing instrument are optional for taking notes.

Buy your copy of Hasbro Gaming’s, Dungeons & Dragons: Bedlam in Neverwinter, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

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