Matthew BaileyDisclaimer before I begin: this review is about a solo game that is marked as being for ages 14 and up, but a younger child could quite happily play. Equally, you could easily play this in a group and it doesn’t actually have to be played solo. It does, however, require access to the internet. Because it is a solo escape room-type game, I’m not going to say too much in this review and everything I do say will be fairly general. This is also the reason why there are no pictures.
Jack(10) happily completed this on his own.
I’m a big fan of escape room games, and there aren’t actually that many good escape room games for children. Quite often, most of the simpler ones can be done quite happily by older kids, but it’s rare that I talk about them on here. Box One is something a little bit different and I definitely wanted to include it, even though I wasn’t sure whether it counted as something I should cover here. But it’s my list, and I figured it was better to include it in the Summer Fest rather than as a completely separate thing. Anyway, I’m rambling. Here we go.
Box One is an escape room created by actor Neil Patrick Harris, and it’s really cool. It’s very different from anything else, and I don’t really want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil it. It’s kind of an escape room within an escape room, and it’s designed in such a way that when you open the game, you think you know how it’s going to play out and what you’re going to do. But this changes very quickly. The way the components work and how premium everything feels is extremely impressive, and I don’t think I’ve previously experienced such a cool and unusual concept.
Things worth noting: it’s designed to be played solo. I played it solo and Jack also did it solo, and we both really enjoyed it. But you could quite happily do it as a pair and it wouldn’t be an issue. It does require internet access, and you can’t physically complete it in one sitting without doing a bit of technical jiggery-pokery, which most people probably won’t be comfortable doing.
The components are really high quality and it’s a brilliant experience. If you enjoy escape rooms and you enjoy doing escape rooms with your children, this is one of the best I’ve ever done. I still think the Mystery Agency ones are my absolute favourites, purely based on how high-quality the components are. Even though Box One feels luxurious, the components aren’t quite as high quality, but there’s actually a good reason for that, which again, I don’t want to spoil.
If you and your kids, especially older kids, like escape rooms, this one is excellent and I really, really recommend it.
*If you like escape rooms.
