Escaping Wonderland: A Curiously Wonderful Dream

Escaping Wonderland is a standalone spiritual sequel that builds upon the many things

did right. Now, they’ve done it again.Down the Rabbit HoleEscaping Wonderland is a standalone spiritual sequel that builds upon the many things did right. It’s an inventive, beautifully crafted, and disarmingly earnest game that will equally charm fans of the source material and

$19.99

The Premise

Molly awakens in a mysterious wonderland, unaware of how she got there and unable to remember anything about herself or her past. She is scared and lonely. And she desperately wants to get home. A winged thief stole four key parts of the machine, which are now in possession of four villains from Wonderland. It’s an intriguing enough story for a game. There are plenty of MacGuffins and other items to collect and chase. Escaping Wonderland is a special game because of its context storytelling and thematic undercurrent. It’s not just about defeating the villains of Wonderland. The story of Molly is not just about beating the bad guys in Wonderland. It also has a powerful emotional and cerebral element that is deftly woven into it. Molly and Wonderland have changed by the time the game is over. Molly has learned a lot about herself.

Sights and Sounds

Escaping Wonderland’s visuals are stunning.

Escaping Wonderland’s visuals are gorgeous.

The characters are richly detailed, alive with personality, and beautifully animated. The voice acting in Escaping Wonderland is excellent. All interactions are voiced in English. Subtitles are also available in English, French Italian, German Spanish, Korean Japanese and simplified Chinese. Escaping Wonderland’s game environments are depicted as dioramas. Each diorama is a living, breathing world that has been meticulously designed with rich detail. The environments have been beautifully designed and are full of detail. The scrapbook is a pause button that contains hidden tapes and photos. By poking, leaning, and sticking our noses in dioramas, we can find these secret bits and cassettes, as well as fun Easter Eggs. For example, the foreman of the diamond mine, which is populated with sentient and overworked lights, stands behind a corkboard with posters and notes. When you lean in closer to them, they reveal cat memes and references to The Simpsons episodes. There is also a UFO poster that was last seen on the wall of FBI special agent Fox Mulder’s basement office. They’ve even hidden a Ninja Turtle in there somewhere.

Gameplay

Emotional resonance and pretty visuals aren’t worth much if the video game’s not fun to play. This one, fortunately, is.

, but without combat. When we face a big antagonist or set-piece, the game does a clever trick. We’re switched from a third-person to first-person viewpoint. This mode allows us to see Molly’s perspective, manipulate her tools, such as a slingshot, or use a lantern, just like she does. It was impossible to find one so we made one. Another puzzle required collecting tokens from a carnival in order to purchase a ticket for the Queen of Hearts Un-birthday Party. Token-earning options included games like whack-a mole, a shooting gallery with slingshots, and hot dog eating competitions where players had to assemble hotdogs themselves before devouring them as fast as they could. The controls are intuitive and feel completely natural to both experienced players and newcomers. My daughter, who is nine years old, picked it up instantly. The motion controls work perfectly, and the traditional controls have been refined and tightened. There’s nothing jittery or uncanny about shooting a banana-filled slingshot at a target. Everything works so that there’s nothing in the gameplay that I find disappointing.

The game is playable seated or standing, though movement is not necessary beyond slight leaning and line of sight adjustments. You can move the diorama by either flicking the analog stick or picking up the roots of the environment around you. Sitting in an office seat was the best. Given that the dioramas are arranged in a circular pattern all around the player, an office chair lets us swivel in place to follow the action.

Escaping Wonderland uses very limited movement, so discomfort and motion sickness shouldn’t be a factor for most players. The artificial stick-based movement allows players to move left, right and up. We can also glide smoothly from one place to another by holding onto the roots of the environment. The puzzles are the core of Escaping Wonderland. They are inventive and often absurd. In some instances, we’re luring a bird out of a bush so that we can pluck its tail feathers, while at other times, we’re composing rudimentary dance music using frogs as a turntable.

While some puzzles can be tricky, most aren’t very difficult, and nearly all are solvable in a few minutes. Some of the puzzles in later levels are quite difficult. To help alleviate this problem and ensure the game is accessible to everyone and not only those who played

as children, developers built in several puzzle solving systems. The characters in the game are able to give subtle hints as to what you should do and where to go. Talking to the characters will naturally give you hints. There is also an in-game hinting system. In most diorama walls, there is a built-in button for the environmental puzzles. The button will launch three cards in our direction. Selecting one card flips the card, which reveals a hint. The first hint is deliberately vague. Hint card two is more suggestive. Hint card three is very direct. The scrapbook tab in the player’s account launches a list of tutorial videos provided by the developer. It’s a novel solution that ensures an admirable level of accessibility. It’s a novel solution that ensures an admirable level of accessibility.

The player’s scrapbook offers a peak into the heart, mind, and past of Molly.MossEscaping Wonderland Review – Final Verdict

Though it’s a relatively short game that took five hours in my first playthrough, I was emotionally invested and even a bit moved by the time the credits rolled. Beyond the straight-ahead fun of its game mechanics and presentation, which rank with some of my favorite VR games, Escaping Wonderland is an uncommonly cathartic and emotionally satisfying puzzle adventure that shouldn’t be missed.

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