RATING: 5 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 2:03
Don’t worry. This is but a small problem. Well, a big problem in a way. Or a small problem in a big world. Or a big problem for small people. HELP!
Your crazy uncle apparently wasn’t joking when he said the shrink ray prize inside the cereal box actually worked. Good thing you were sitting on the kitchen when it turned on! When it blew up you got shrunk to the size of a foot tall Barbie doll.
Now you will need to find the pieces and reassemble it within an hour before this “Barbie” situation is permanent! You better hurry!
Everybody has that peculiarly crazy uncle. You know… the one who makes fart noises when you pull his finger, tells dumb jokes, takes you out for ice cream even after your parents said no, shrinks you with a ray gun. Wait, WHAT?!
Yup, that “toy” was real and now there’s a big… err small problem that must be rectified. Well you’re small. The problem’s big. So is the cereal box.
With time running out before the kids become permanent countertop fixtures, all of the pieces to the now exploded shrink ray must be gathered up and put back together. This is no small task. Well, actually, it is – in a way. Let’s call it a small task with big hurdles to overcome.
From the moment the kids open their eyes after the shrink ray explodes, it is incredibly evident that the world around them has completely changed. Or they’ve completely changed. It’s all quite philosophical really.
The journey to gather up the exploded shrink ray parts begins on the kitchen counter. Quite literally. The miniaturized humans find themselves standing on the granite surface that usually is just waist high. Across the room they can see the rest of the kitchen, seemingly very far away compared to just before their uncle’s mishap.
Cereal boxes, pasta containers, a shopping list pinned to a cork board, and one lonesome juice box line the outer edges of the countertop. All of these items are insanely oversized, relative to the team’s newfound statures of course.
The scenic in Help! We Got Shrunk! has one main goal: to make the nieces and nephews truly believe they have been miniaturized by their uncles exploding ray gun. That’s easy to do after all seeing as they actually have been shrunken. Wait… what’s that? I’m getting word from the producers that the kids have in fact not been turned into doll-sized humans and that this is just a trick of perspective! In a setting where the small details have quite literally become the big details, Escape 60 knocked this illusion out of the park.
Puzzles take on a whole new form when all of the items in the room are genuinely larger than life. What are commonly simple, mundane, everyday tasks become incredibly satisfying and fun when scaled up in size hundreds of times.
From placing items back where they belong to manipulating three foot long match sticks, nothing is quite as it seems in Help! We Got Shrunk! Some of these challenges require outside the (gigantic) box thinking, while others are so natural they don’t even appear to be puzzles at first glance – they are simply logical progressions that the kids must take.
The majority of the roadblocks consist of cracking open three, four, or five digit locks of varying styles. There are a few simple yet absolutely genius implementations of tech hidden throughout the experience that round out the game nicely.
Towards the final stages of fixing the ray gun there are a couple tasks that come across as “puzzles for puzzles sake” and don’t fit perfectly into the wonderful storyworld, but they are quite literally overshadowed by the rest of the game.
A highlight moment comes in the form of a hilariously fun transition that is so organic and believable, but at at the same time is a complete surprise.
Escape 60 took on a tricky concept with Help! We Got Shrunk! In order for this game to work they needed to create an oversized world that successfully “shrinks” the players without coming across as a hokey gimmick. They more than hit that mark. From the moment shrunken guests step foot in the room… err onto the counter, until they fix the ray gun and return to normal size, their “Barbie” situation never once loses the magic of making them appear to actually be comically small.
The puzzle track pairs very well with the jumbo scenic. A mix of simple tasks that have taken on a whole new form, code cracking, and manipulating ridiculously large prop pieces flow naturally from one step to the next. While there are a couple hiccups at the tail end of the game, the overall intuitive progression leads to a well paced and exciting adventure.
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Venue: Escape 60
Location: Peoria, Illinois
Number of Games: 5
GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:
Duration: 60 minutes
Capacity: 8 people
Group Type: Private / You will not be paired with strangers.
Cost: $28 per person
We thank Escape 60 for inviting us to play this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, that in no way impacts the opinion included within this review.