RATING: 3 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 12:31
Hopefully the children’s party decorations don’t make you go mad too
The Mad Hatter – The Hatter is at it again. You and your friends need to help Alice solve the clues, avoid the Queen, keep her head and make her way to the tea party of all time. Only one way to find out if you deserve The Hatters hospitality.
Tea party guests of honor find themselves somehow transported to Wonderland and in the middle of The Mad Hatters soiree. After getting their bearings, it becomes apparent that The Red Queen is after the intruders. Party goers have an hour to solve all of The Mad Hatters riddles, escape the shindig and make their way back home before The Red Queen has their heads.
There are plenty of Alice in Wonderland escape games out there so to really stand out a venue would have to come up with a unique twist. Unfortunately, The Mad Hatter Room falls short of that and just feels overall generic. Even with all the decorations and effort put into the room it’s still very apparent that we’re just in an office space and there’s not much of an immersion factor going on.
Party crashers start off smack dab in the middle of The Mad Hatters tea party. Escape Strategy did the best they could but it feels like guests showed up uninvited to a children’s party. Looking around, there’s a table set up for the tea party, some novelty sized mushrooms, a desk of drawers and various other party items littered about. It’s a little peculiar to see some random bedroom furniture scattered around the setting for a tea party and that tends to harm the immersion quite a bit. There is one large wardrobe piece at the end of the room that hints at something special after escaping through it but it ends up being just an anti-climatic ending.
The majority of puzzles in this mad mad world are just fine. None of them really stand out but none are particularly bad either. There’s a good amount of puzzles to solve and the majority of the room is non-linear so there’s plenty for everybody to work on something. There’s plenty of locks throughout the game and although that isn’t necessary a problem in general but when tea enthusiasts are trapped in a wacky and wonderful place like Wonderland it would be nice to have some tech just to show off how magical the world is supposed to be. For the most part, games stay on theme pretty well but there are a couple that just seem out of nowhere.
One really odd game has attendees using a xylophone stuck on the wall to recreate a few musical notes but for anybody that was born without a musical bone in their body, this would be a tall task to complete.
There’s also a scent puzzle that tended to be a little difficult to figure out. It would’ve helped if each scent was distinctly different since everybody smells a bit differently and to help ensure each scent was fairly obvious.
After completing various tasks attendees obtain a few puzzle pieces (some are also scattered about). After finding all the puzzle pieces, it just feels like a time waster to have to put together the puzzle before you get your next clue and that can bring the fun to a halt for a while.
The game did have solid logic flow though, after solving one puzzle it was usually pretty obvious where you had to go from there.
This party tends to have it’s moments and although it was still enjoyable, there’s just nothing special about this get together overall. There are worse Alice in Wonderland themed games out there but that says more about those games than it does this one.
Without having any memorable scenic or puzzles, the game just feels fine. Nothing more nothing less. This is one party you don’t have to rush out to crash.
Show your support for Escape Authority and get social with us:
Venue: Escape Strategy
Location: Aurora, IL.
Number of Games: 3
GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:
Duration: 60 minutes
Capacity: 6 people
Group Type: Public / You may be paired with strangers.
Cost: $30 per person