Mattel Games Escape Room in a Box The Werewolf Experiment, Room Escape Group Game for Teens and Adults, with 19 2D and 3D Puzzles, Connects to Amazon Alexa, Makes a Great Gift for 13 Year Olds and Up

As escape room enthusiasts, my husband and I are always looking for fun at home versions. We have done all of the available Unlock and Exit games, which are great, but this one has a different quality too it, mostly being there is a lot more "stuff". We enjoy having more physical puzzles and trinkets to play with, so that was a great feature in our eyes. The puzzles were clever, fun, and for the most part well designed with a few minor exceptions. We found the wording occasionally odd, and there was one puzzle that was almost irrelevant, however overall it was money well spent and well worth the $22. It was really nice to have physical locks to undo, but, of course at such a low price point, they weren't high quality. With all that said, this is still a 5-star product and well worth the money spent. We played with 2 adults which was so fun because we got to be involved in almost every puzzle. It took us 49 minutes to escape and we used just one hint.

My husband and I had never participated in an escape room before. Our sons, in their 20s, had been to some escape rooms. We played this game last night, and all four of us had a great time. The puzzles had a nice mix: lots of variety, some easy, some very challenging. Most of the puzzles truly required collaboration to solve. We did have a few frustrating moments, where it seemed like we were not making any progress, but then there would finally be that "a-ha" moment, followed by actual cheering and clapping, when we solved a puzzle or cracked open a lock. It took us 1.5 hours to solve the puzzle and "escape" (and that was without using any of the hints - I really wanted to look at some hints, but my sons wouldn't have it!) My sons gave me credit for purchasing a great game, how cool is that? Our only quibble is that a couple of the puzzles could use some tweaking, in that the clues were really a bit too vague. But despite that, this made for a wonderful evening of family fun for the day after Thanksgiving. Highly recommended.

This was our very first escape the room experience so I can only review this box, not a comparison review, just our experience... First and foremost I will say that over all we all had a wonderful time! I purchased this “Werewolf Experiment” Escape the Room in a Box for myself and my 2 children for a Halloween family night ‘stay-cation’. I was not sure if it would be too difficult as my oldest is only 14 years old and my younger child is only 10 but it looked like fun and the price is less than a haunted hayride (we did that 2 weeks ago) or even dinner at a goodChinese restaurant! It was NOT TOO DIFFICULT FOR THE THREE OF US ( ages= adult, 14years old & 10 years old ) HOWEVER IT DID TAKE US MORE THAN 1 HOUR! This is due in part to the fact that the box was missing a piece that was a vital part of the final combination! I know this sounds bad but it really isn’t a reason not to purchase the box or to miss out on the experience.... it means that for one puzzle you may have to use the answers (not the hint which was only good for confirming our suspicion that we were missing a piece of that particular puzzle) to ‘escape’! So some of the reasons I still think this is a great box are as follows: The items in the box and puzzles are quite cool! Trying not to spoil it for anyone I will say that the box is all you need, you do not need to add any props or objects if you don’t want to! The puzzles were fun and there is a good variety of different types of puzzles! Part of the fun was figuring out how to do each puzzle and there are puzzles for all different skill (or age) levels! My 10 year old was just as important to our groups success as my 14 year old and had a blast solving some of the puzzles! If you want the background music it is available online at escaperoominabox.com and ready to play (there are also repack instructions but we chose to enjoy it fully and write the answers right on the materials...) the music was a lovely addition at the beginning (it even suggests a bathroom break if you aren’t worried about the timer which was nice for a family event, Lol!) however it plays in 15 minute increments and we forgot to continue playing the music pieces after the first 30 minutes... I was also delightfully surprised with the 3D puzzles! For the price it was a really great experience! A few things I did not like were that the piece was missing so we basically missed the opportunity to work one of the main puzzles! It felt a little like cheating to have to look up the answer ( the hint did not help except that we stopped wasting time to look for the missing piece ) and that was very disappointing when you are working so hard not to take any clues! I thought the music would have been more enjoyable if it simply played for the full amount of time without having to manually go back to the page and cue up the next track to play but it isn’t essential and apparently can be played somehow with Alexa?!? The final lock must not have been closed tightly from the manufacturer or was somehow defective (it was quite hard to lock again?) because my son picked it up to move it out of his way and it popped open! The jar didn’t open up however (if it was one of the square boxes it probably would have opened ruining a part of the experience) so we just locked it back up and kept playing! Even though a couple things were a bit ‘wrong’ the experience as a whole was definitely worth it and one that I would wholeheartedly recommend to others! A great evening at a great price!!!

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Seeing as Im the geeky one in the family. I have always tried to get my family to do boardgames. Most of it ended up being disbanded or ended in a argument. Or not enough interested in the board game. I know this boardgame says 2-6 players we ended up being 11 adults and 2 kids(YES I KNOW!) Everybody came out of the woodwork! Everbody was inticed by the puzzles and the story,we switched off lights to view puzzles ,went back and forth between puzzles. It was so different and such an amazing experience! Everybody kept on and on about it.MEGA FUN!!!! Would recommend this escape room box without a doubt!!! I would rate the puzzles out of 5 perhaps a 3.5.Not to hard,yet kept you thinking until those "AHA!" moments which was very rewarding. Also,although this is once off(if you didnt tear or burn,yes we burnt one of the puzzles and realised after we needed it LOL!) But in the end the reward was much more than what the boxed costed. Mos def would go back to this in a year or so when everybody has forgotten about it. Would highly recommend it.

I will try to be as honest and helpful with this review as possible. I wanted to start off by saying that this particular game had loads of potential but fell short on a few key pieces. It's worth trying out for sure, but will leave you wanting more. I played this with my wife as part of a game night. Presentation 5/5: Ill start with the good first. I thought the story was simple and this game had one of the best presentations out of the different escape room games we have tried so far. Dr. Gravely series still takes first place in this category, if you haven't tried that series, I would highly recommend it. This would take a close second place. Puzzles 3/5: This is where things got a bit frustrating. The first half of the game was tons of fun and we felt like this could be the best escape room yet. By the time we got to the second half, we started feeling lost. For one we needed 4 transparencies to complete a crucial piece to solve the final puzzle, yet we only had 3. We were scratching our heads trying to see how it made sense only to realize that we were missing a piece. Further, multiple times we had clues that were very strangely worded that made it impossible for us to figure out. Even after looking at the hint, we were just as lost. This ruined the experience for us. We had to look at the answer to even understand what they meant by the question. My wife and I have done many escape rooms, including the board games so I would like to think we are decently experienced. It was disappointing that after such a strong first half, the second half trailed off. If the questions were worded better in the second half and we didn't have a missing piece, this would have been in our top 3 escape games so far. Difficulty 3/5: The questions we understood had the perfect balance of challenge and fun. The questions we could not understand for the life of us drove us crazy. Again, if the questions were worded better, I would say that this escape game would have had the perfect balance between challenge and fun. Overall 3/5: Loved the theme and presentation of this game, it had a ton of potential, but I was really disappointed be the end. My wife and I will probably still buy Flashback as we love trying all these types of games. Here's to hoping they fixed the problems in this game for the sequel. I really wanted to like this game, I did but there are a ton of better games out there. I recommend Dr. Gravely series and Dead Man On Orient Express. (The latter being pretty difficult, but in an fun/captivating way.) Will be trying out Stormy Flight next.

Took this for a friend game night and it was a lot of fun. I would say it's medium level difficult and we did solve it.

I played this with my 14 and 12 year old kids, and we had a blast. It's remarkable how similar it was to a real escape room, with props, clues, and puzzles, only you're all huddled around a table instead of wandering around a room. The puzzles were challenging (we didn't make it out, even after getting a time extension thanks to one of the puzzles) and played off each other. Age-wise, my 14 year old handled this game no problem. The 12 year old had trouble grasping a few of the puzzles, but others he jumped into and solved by himself. It wasn't necessary to have a "guide" - a person who didn't play but read instructions and clues - but it wouldn't hurt either, especially if that guide was someone who had already played through once. If I had to give some recommendations (no spoilers!): - Make a lot of room on a table to play. You'll have clues, notes, trinkets, and pencils scattered all over. - Look everywhere, and I mean everywhere, for objects and clues. We lost at least a good 20 minutes because we missed one puzzle piece inside the box. - All normal escape room tips and tricks apply, which if you've never been in one, means think laterally and creatively! Everything could be a clue, and sometimes the answers to one puzzle can help you solve another. - Definitely not replayable, but if you write in pencil, you can erase and re-use clues and pass the game onto friends or family. I'm going to see if this company makes any more of these games, we had that much fun.

First off, my wife and I have gone to several escape rooms and played most of the ones sold on Amazon. We win about 98% of them. On the good side, I think it is great that this is the first escape game on amazon that has locks you need to open and a black light. Wish more games incorporated them. The story line is ok. Now the bad. The instructions to start the game and how to proceed are lacking. The hints are worthless in many cases. In some cases even the solutions made no sense. In certain steps, you solve a puzzle that leads to nothing. It just seems very disorganized and the answers (when you can get them) leave you with a vague "ok, I solved it but what the heck do I do with the answer". When we were done, I looked through all the answers and even then I was sitting there thinking, how the heck did they get there or how would any logical person get that. Maybe it was just my wife and I. It isn't that the puzzles are hard it is just most are too vague to actually solve and know what to do next.