Enigma Rooms Wakefield: Escape from Wonderland | Review

On a beautiful sunny day, you skip to the end of your garden to read, escaping the boredom of the real world. As the Sun beats down on you and the shadows grow longer, your eyes grow heavy and you drift off to sleep. Falling and falling you remember this sensation, and awake with a start just before you hit the ground.

Rating: Fun!
Completion Time: 32:58
Date Played: 9th May 2021
Party Size: 3
Recommended For: People who’d like to play this game IRL but can’t!

Week 39 in the Escape Game Olympics and this time we’re back in the UK. Wakefield to be specific! Escape From Wonderland is a real life escape room experience at Enigma Rooms Wakefield but, thanks to the pandemic, they’ve created this online digital version for a fraction of the price. It’s the same immersive, curious world of Alice in Wonderland you know and love but… Digital!

Once again I teamed up with Escaping the Closet – my regular EGO team to step into Wonderland on a Sunday evening. Here’s how we got on:

The Story

In Escape from Wonderland, you and your team play a modern ‘Alice’ type character when, after falling asleep at the bottom of your garden (*cries in tiny London apartment without a garden*), you find yourself falling and falling into Wonderland. No white rabbit, it’s a trippy sequence into the literary world but this time you’ve got to escape. The residents of Wonderland are nowhere to be found and threats from the Red Queen of “Off with your head!” loom over you. The only thing to do? ESCAPE! And do so quickly!

In short, it’s a classic Alice in Wonderland tale with you as the titular character. I’d definitely recommend brushing up on your knowledge from the book before giving it a go. No outside knowledge it needed but it helps immerse yourself in the wonderful world.

The Theming

I’ve heard really good things about the theming of this room when played in person and I reckon the creators have done a lovely job translating this to a digital space. The whole room is very lush and green and packed with well known scenes and hidden Easter Eggs from the book. There’s space for croquet, and space for tea and curious woodland undertones running throughout the room.

A really cool addition to the digital game is a never-ending ceiling. Okay okay maybe this is a trick of the light, but I couldn’t help but keep glancing upwards and staring in awe at the blue skies, clouds, and trees reaching up into the distance. There’s just so much detail in the room and I can’t help but zoom in on the small things to get a closer look.

The Experience

The digital edition of Escape from Wonderland is built in a software called Telescape. What this means is that players have a 360 degree view of the whole space and may click into anything they like to check it out and interact with the environment.

Escape from Wonderland has three distinct ‘rooms’, or maybe two and a half if we’re being picky. This means there’s a whole wealth of space to explore in a team and it helps to be able to see each other player’s mouse mark on the screen.

Within this, you’re also able to click and drag certain items, press buttons, and type codes into the box to proceed throughout the game. When we found two or more items we needed to combine together – such as LOCK and KEY – we typed the words just like that into the code box to do them. Often this triggered a short video showing the items fitting into place – a door unlocking, or a box opening. It’s a nice way to create those small ‘aha’ moments throughout an escape room experience!

The Puzzles

In terms of puzzles, I actually found Escape from Wonderland to be on the harder side as escape rooms go. At least, every puzzle I tackled personally needed at least two heads, if not all three of us to figure out. There was also at least one puzzle which, in the real life version, required physical manipulation and a steady hand. The digital version applied a slightly different mechanic to solve, but no less tricky to get right!

There was plenty of searching to do towards the beginning of the room (I love this!) and as we unlocked more and more areas the puzzles got more detailed. Players can expect to encounter logic puzzles, puzzles where you need to do maths (*sobs*), information from one area being used elsewhere, cracking codes, and some colour puzzles too. There’s a really good mix and for our little team of 3 plenty to do!

As I say, it was a true team effort as I don’t think there was a single puzzle in there I solved by myself. To me, this just tells me that Enigma Room Wakefield have mastered the art of the collaborative escape room!

Overall

Good fun! I love being able to play rooms in other parts of the UK (or even the world) that I’d not likely have another chance to play, and Escape from Wonderland is a classic example of this. I’d recommend it to anyone who can’t get over to Wakefield but still wants to experience the magic they’ve created.

Escape from Wonderland can be booked for £15 – £20 pp at their physical site in Wakefield, or can be played online for £20. Book either by heading to their website here.