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

Won't post a picture for Spoiler reasons!As someone who works at an Escape Room business, this was AWESOME! Escape Rooms have been a rapidly growing industry for the last 3 or 4 years, and within the last year, people have begun to ask "Is there a way to take an Escape Room experience at home?" And until just a few short months ago, there hasn't really been an ideal option. Escape Room: The Game by Spin Master was a good start, but it just didn't satisfy my Escape Room appetite with just mainly being paper-based "puzzles" while entering 4 random plastic keys into a console hoping to hear the uplifting chime indicating that I've entered the correct sequence. At one point I found myself just mashing every single possible combination and not caring about the consequences. Knowing this wasn't working for me, I figured the Escape Room games by ThinkFun and Kosmos weren't going to offer a different experience from what I've already bought.So where does The Werewolf Experiment differ to earn it 5 stars? The creativity and effort that was put into this game. The Werewolf Experiment began as a Kickstarter offer and was going to be on a very limited release to Backers only. It became so popular after it was backed by over two THOUSAND people, earning the creators Juliana and Ariel over a hundred THOUSAND dollars, that Mattel games picked up an offer to mass distribute it!While the pictures on the Kickstarter page are a bit different from what the actual product offers in terms of quality of the game components, ie Plastic locks rather than metal locks, this can easily be ignored simply by the fun factor of the game itself! There were still quite a few paper-based elements, but it still came with more than enough physical items that were all part of the game to make you wonder "Hmm. How do these 2 things come together to get me a code??" Every piece included in the game had a purpose, there were no red herrings to throw you off, and it came with a Hint booklet for clues or an Answer booklet if all hope was lost, each booklet having a Table of Contents so you knew exactly what page to turn to. This is way easier to access rather than having to go onto the product website, enter a passphrase that dealt with the scenario, download the PDF Walkthrough, and read it down hoping you don't come across any answers you weren't supposed to read yet.While the box says 2-8 players, I played in a group of 4 and would highly recommend you at least do the same. We "escaped" with 13 seconds on the clock.On the original Kickstarter page, one of the pledge goal rewards was the announcement of Escape Room In A Box: The Magician's Spellbook. While there hasn't been an official announcement yet, I cannot wait for the release of the next game! Thank you!!!

Five adults were able to enjoy this game together. We could pass around different clues and work on different elements of the game at the same time. The story is silly, but that isn't the point. The puzzles were fun to solve without being tedious or getting anyone stressed out. We completed it in the allotted hour.

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!!!

My husband, son (9 years old), and I loved this escape room in a box. I had done one (in person) escape room previously, but my husband and son were totally new to escape rooms. We solved it in about 1.5 hours. The 9 year old got antsy and wandered off after 45 minutes (but he was able to solve two of the challenges on his own prior to that). My husband and I finished it off. We all had fun. The puzzles were clever but not too hard. We had to consult the hints guide once. I recommend for anyone who likes solving puzzles!