Can’t visit an escape room in the midst of a pandemic? That’s ok because ThinkFun has you covered with their latest at-home escape room experience, Escape the Room: The Cursed Dollhouse. The folks over at ThinkFun were kind enough to send me a preview copy ahead of the game’s release and I think this is something that All Hallows Geek readers will really be interested in.
The Cursed Dollhouse is the third in ThinkFun’s escape room line and follows the story of old Mr. Garrity, a man who became a recluse after the disappearance of his daughter. Now the only time that anyone sees Mr. Garrity leave his house is when he crosses his overgrown yard going to and from his work shed. One night you decide to break in and see what he’s up to. Inside you find a dollhouse glowing eerily from the middle of the shed. It calls to you and ignoring your instincts, you move toward it….and that’s when the fun begins.
For one to four players, Escape the Room: The Cursed Dollhouse requires players to work together, exploring a mysterious three-dimensional dollhouse, solving puzzles in search of a way to escape.
One of the first things that amazed me about this game is that the game box itself actually converts into a five-room, three-story dollhouse. The game’s story and instruction booklet explain in detail how to set the house up, and I was impressed not only by the durability of the structure but also how many game elements were already in place considering the house was the box itself.
Setup was fairly quick and simple, just be sure to follow directions carefully so as not to ruin any of the puzzles before the game starts. And definitely don’t let any curious players start poking around in the house. I can’t tell you how many times I had to tell my daughter not to open anything inside, so as not to spoil any puzzles.
Once set up, it’s time to dive in. The at-home escape room experience will take at least two hours if you play the story straight through, or you have the option to break it up into sessions stopping after unlocking a room. You can also play a timed version where you try to solve all the puzzles in a two and a half-hour timeframe. The gamebook will tell you when to start the timer if you opt to play this way.
You’ll start your adventure in the dollhouse’s living room and make your way to the attic by solving a series of puzzles in each room. Each door leading from one room to the next is locked by a red, green, and blue symbol. To unlock them, you’ll need to identify the symbols by solving the room’s puzzles. Once you’ve uncovered the three symbols, you’ll use the solution wheel to see if you’re correct. Line up the symbols correctly, and a pair of icons for your room will be revealed. But if the symbols don’t appear, it means you got something wrong.
The Solution Wheel was one point of frustration for me as the multi-layered tool has a lock feature to prevent you from seeing solutions prematurely, but I found it often stuck and made it difficult to lock and unlock when needed.
My wife, 13-year-old twins, and I solved the first room fairly easily, but don’t let it fool you. The complexity of the puzzles gets progressively harder. In fact, I believe the living room was the only room we completed without needing to leverage the online hint system. Admittedly, this was our first escape room type game, but even my wife, who is stellar at solving these kinds of puzzles, found her confidence rattled with a number of these. Based on this, I definitely think that the 13+ age recommendation is a must, as I don’t think younger players would have the patience or the know-how to get through a game like this.
Despite being a bit harder, the puzzle elements are really well done in this game. I like that nearly every puzzle is tactile. You fold, cut, build, open, and explore nearly every part of the room. This is great because it allows you to pass the puzzles around if someone gets stuck to let someone else take a stab at it.
That said, this is almost to a fault as there were times I didn’t want to remove elements from the room because I thought they were supposed to stay mounted only to have a member of my family tear it off the wall and reveal a clue. I think this is just a limitation of this type of experience since there are really no visual cues to really tell you how to interact with something and you obviously don’t want to break or remove something you’re not supposed to.
In all, it took my family and me about three hours or so to complete the game. I think this is partly because my kids checked out when they realized there was no way they were going to solve a puzzle (though they always re-engaged once we moved on to a new room and they could try new puzzles), and because my wife is one of those people who are determined to solve the puzzle no matter what the cost (clearly I should have played the timed option). That said, aside from the puzzle difficulty, I really enjoyed this experience.
The story was well done and had just enough creepy factor to make for a fun family night in during the Halloween season. Just as the puzzles seem to get slightly harder as you proceed, the story also gets darker. Full of creepy dolls and impending doom, it’s a perfect evening at home activity for Halloween and horror lovers alike.
The only downside to Escape the Room: The Cursed Dollhouse, and I imagine this is an issue for any game like this, is that the replay factor is rather low, even if you can print replacement elements. It would take a good chunk of time to forget some of the solutions and even then I think if you started playing again they would likely come back to you. It might be good if you were hosting game nights with friends and had different groups over to play, but considering we’re in the midst of a pandemic, I’m not thinking a lot of folks are doing that.
Escape the Room: The Cursed Dollhouse is available in the U.S. and U.K. exclusively through Amazon and is available in stores and online in Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain and Australia.
