Review: 5 Wits

RATING: 5 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: (Not timed)

On September 4, 2012 we stepped into The Tomb to unknowingly unearth our very first escape game. Now years later we return to challenge a new set of perilous adventures!

Story

Prove your worthiness and survive to tell the tale!

Enter a 3,000 year old tomb with only a flashlight and your wits to guide you! At an archaeological dig, you find yourself deep in an Egyptian tomb, trapped, the ultimate escape room… and face to face with the spirit of an ancient Pharaoh! Are you brave enough to make it out alive?

The only way to survive will be to beat the Pharaoh at his own game and prove your worthiness… but watch out for traps along the way! Test your skills in this amazing adventure thousands of years in the making!

5 Wits has long proven themselves to be master storytellers – creating worlds that are so immersive, so detailed and so narrative-driven that they instantly transform us from players into starring-role characters. Tomb holds a special place in that legacy, as a reboot of sorts for the company’s original game, The Tomb.

Similar in look and feel, make no mistake that this newer version kicks story to another level, thanks to the introduction of the Pharaoh himself, who’s sinister visage appears from time to time right before our eyes to taunt and challenge us to purge further into his dark world. It creates the kind of story-driven excitement that one might expect to find in a movie, or perhaps even a major theme park attraction – but instead of sharing it with a giant crowd, it’s just our small, much more intimate group armed with nothing more than hand-held flashlights and our own bravery (we hope!)

Scenic

As with everything they do, 5 Wits is yet again the standard-bearer for just how good a scenic environment can be inside an escape game. You won’t find a single inch of drywall or even one drop ceiling panel here. To the contrary, Tomb is an artful example of Hollywood-quality scenic in its purest form – something many a venue claims to have, yet few ever even come close to. But in Tomb? Well, in Tomb, you could set up a camera and start filming your next movie right now with no preparation required. That’s how good it looks.

Tomb is a fairly large space, separated across several rooms – each with their own secrets, and sometimes even secret passages. Every inch is carved and detailed with authentic-looking hieroglyphs that further draw us into the story world – while others try to keep us out forever with perilous booby traps, like a massive concrete slab ceiling ready to crush us.

5 Wits makes use of every bit of its scenic to further the story, organically implement puzzles and keep guests engaged as Indiana Jones-esque would-be adventures from the moment they find a way into Tomb to the moment they escape – you know, if they escape.

Puzzles

This time, we’ve entered the Tomb on our own. There’s no guide to help us along, or potentially save us from danger like our first expedition so many years ago. It’s just us, our flashlights and the Pharaoh’s curse.

Tomb’s puzzles are on the easier side of the broader escape game spectrum, but that’s to be expected, and is somewhat of a signature of the 5 Wits brand. Geared more to be an experience for the entire family, you most certainly should not misread that under the false pretext that Tomb – or any of their other adventures – won’t be a satisfying breath of fresh air for those of us who are much more experienced players.

5 Wits checks off every box for what we look for in a game – and its puzzles are no different. They’re organically connected to the storyworld in a way that they make sense and further the narrative, building towards the eventual climax of our adventure.

And in Tomb, they’re just that – tasks that make us feel far more like adventurers than players in a game. Averting booby traps while using our wits (no pun intended) and strength to dig deeper and deeper into this forgotten world to unearth the Pharaoh’s secret – and perhaps even the Pharaoh himself.

Overall

What can we say about 5 Wits that we haven’t already said before time and time again? With each and every outing, they remain the very pinnacle of what themed entertainment can and should be. Their attention to detail is second to none in our industry – and their dedication to story truly makes their product transcend game and firmly become adventure.

As a designer, 5 Wits will forever be an inspiration to my own style and creative philosophy. They never settle for “good enough,” and constantly aim to raise the bar, even if that previous bar was set by 5 Wits themselves. This rebooted Tomb only serves as further proof of that – taking an already world-class experience and kicking it up a notch.

At the end of the day, what sets 5 Wits apart is their dedication to experience. Nothing they build is a simple escape game; to the contrary, everything they do is a world class, destination attraction.