Escape from Wonderland
Prior to the shenanigans of the past year Horror Escape were kind enough to invite us down to check out one of their escape scenarios. We finally managed to visit last weekend and experienced Escape from Wonderland their room based on the Alice in Wonderland books.
Theming
From the street you would almost miss Horror Escape with its entrance being an unassuming door with a small sign. Once you make your way into the building and head into the part where Horror Escape is based you go from a simple office building to a well themed stairwell with cobwebs and spooky lighting before entering the main waiting area with a great luminous wonderland mural.
The room itself continued with this level of theming with each of the rooms using bright colours filled with all the classic things from the Alice books including playing cards, clocks and the like. The entrance to the room was a fun twist to the usual beginning of a room.
Puzzles
The experience started with a number of lock type puzzles with a few simple clues. The puzzles were varied after this using a few fun concepts. One criticism we have regarding the puzzles is the use of colours a little too often. At times we found it difficult to tell the difference between them making the puzzles far more challenging than they should be. There was also an audio based puzzle that we found a little frustrating. Saying this though the variety was appreciated and there were a few approaches we hadn’t seen before.
Final Thoughts
I’d agree with the 2 out of 5 scare score on Horror Escape’s website. This is a fairly family friendly experience with the odd surprise here and there. The difficulty level also at 2 out of 5 would be true if the colours were replaced with shapes or symbols but as it currently stands we felt it was a little more challenging than it should be. An additional thing to note is that some of the rooms are quite small. We completed the experience as a group of 3 and felt that any more than 4 would be a bit of a squeeze.
The experience overall was fun, we really enjoyed the theming and some of the unique aspects. The team clearly put a good deal of thought in the design of some of the elements. We are very keen to return and experience Cabin Fever, their other scenario which has a much darker theme.
