Curiouser and Curiouser

This is a review of the Escape Room “Curiouser and Curiouser” offered by TimeTrap Escape Rooms in Reading, UK.
  • ⭐️ 8/10
  • 🌡 Medium
  • ⏳ 60 Minutes
  • 👥 2 – 8 Person

Travel back in time to 1871 and enter the mind of esteemed author Lewis Carroll in a bid to free him from the dreaded writer’s block.

 The game takes place a few years after the release of the classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and now Carroll is struggling to find enough inspiration for the follow-up story. To free Carroll from his creative slowdown, we were tasked with entering his fogged-up mind to collect three lightbulbs (inspirations) and to eventually piece his sequel ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ together.

We began our adventure in Carrol’s corpus callosum with multiple themed doors suggesting mental areas in which we might explore. Much like Time Trap’s other games the detail in the set design is simply outstanding and helps to immerse you in the tasks at hand.  After a short narration and riddle from the author we set about finding our way through his brain.

Anyone familiar with the life and works of Carroll will likely be impressed by the creative ways in which Time Trap have weaved this into their puzzles. As you venture into each half of his brain, you will see puzzles inspired by his stories, contributions to logic and word ladder style problems as well as his personal life. I am impressed by the level of research taken by the team in creating puzzles and aspects of the set design linked to the author in such detail and enjoyed being able to read about this on a hidden page of their website after our experience.

The first main space of the game is the left side of his brain where puzzles follow a more traditional code and lock-based route. In keeping with the theme, puzzles encountered have a greater focus on logical problems such as ciphers, logic, and language patterns. Most of the riddles are multilinear and therefore can be enjoyed by larger teams too. I particularly enjoyed the trickier multistep puzzles in this space as it was great to bounce ideas around our team. For a group of enthusiasts 3 – 4 players would feel sufficient for everyone to solve without idle time.

After a while we unlocked the right side of his brain which featured more hands-on, physical puzzles and used the space in more visually creative ways. I really enjoyed how the game forced teams to have to work together to be able to complete the riddles in this space. For teams of international players, it is worth noting that a good understanding of the English language is beneficial to solving due to the strong literary theme.

In terms of difficulty, I found this game to be the perfect blend of easier quick wins and some more challenging multi-step puzzles. For veteran players, this may feel on the easier side.

I absolutely loved this game and really enjoyed the nods to the life and work of Carroll, the variety of puzzles and the clever uses of space. This game continues Time Trap’s impressive set, story and puzzle design qualities and I really look forward to where they transport us to next!

Jake Andrews

Jake Andrews