We love family game nights in our house. We love to play a variety of games: board games, card games, quiz games and escape room games. A lot of the escape room games that we have played at home have been for teenagers and adults and now we are going to try out a child/family-friendly escape room game from Paper Adventures.
Paper Adventures do have a range of print at home escape room games on their website for children aged 4-12 years old. Once purchased through their website, the games are instantly downloadable and ready to print and play. Each download contains a full colour print version of the game as well as a low ink version of the game. The game we were going to try out was the new The Great Wizard Escape aimed at children aged 8-12 years old.
These print at home escape rooms games are perfect for rainy days, school holidays, family game nights and even birthday parties (they even come with posters to display, invitations and certificates to print).
The Great Wizard Escape Print at Home Escape Room is an immersive puzzle game for 2 or more players, aged 8+. You transform rooms in your home into a giant escape room for the kids with 6 varied puzzles combined with a fun story. Players must learn spells and potions, defeat ghosts and dragons all with the aim of joining a Wizard school. It requires a set up time of approximately 30 minutes and has a playing time of 60 minutes. It has a wizard theme and would be perfect for fans of children’s most favourite wizard – Harry Potter!
In The Great Wizard Escape, you and your friends want to join the famous Wizard school. But you only have 60 minutes to pass the wickedly hard test to be admitted to the school. Can you outsmart ghosts and dragons or learn spells and potions in time?
The digital download contains 5 PDF files:
- Best Escape Game Pack (for best experience, print in colour)
- Eco Escape Game Pack (ink saving option)
- Gamemaster Book (tips on set-up and full solutions to run the game)
- QR code extras: set-up video, digital lock and immersive game timer video
- Download pack extras: invitations, posters and end of game messages, team certificates and fun props
To set up and play the digital download version of The Great Wizard Escape you will need access to the internet, a printer, a pair of scissors, pencils, glue and access to a phone or tablet. An adult gamemaster is also required to set up the game, give tips to players when they are stuck, hand out clues and read out the story when indicated and make sure everybody is having fun.
Before play can begin, the gamemaster needs to read the Read Me First document which gives instructions on what needs to be done before play can commence and printing out posters and invites. The gamemaster then needs to read the Gamemaster book which explains how to set up the game (things will need to be cut out, glues together, some pieces hidden etc.) and then decide what room or rooms are going to be used to play in. Set up takes around 30 minutes to complete by the adult gamemaster. You can also scan a handy QR code that takes you to YouTube so that you watch a handy video of easy set up.
Once set up has been completed as per the instructions, play can commence. The Gamemaster plays an important role in the game apart from just setting up the game. They start the game by reading out the introductory ‘Dear Friends’ letter and then hand out a copy of the ‘local newspaper’. Then a 60 minute timer is started – a QR code is provided, it takes you to a YouTube video of a timer countdown or you can use any other timer of your choice (phone, smart speaker etc.).
The story is set over 6 chapters and the players must interpret and solve the hidden clues using basic maths skills, paper folding activities, rolling paper wands, decoding skills and more.
For the next 60 minutes, depending on how fast players solve the puzzles, players are trying to solve easy to moderate puzzles, guided by the Gamemaster as they go along, who can offer hints and clues when the going gets tough. The game is linear in structure and clues must be solved before the story continues and moves on to the next chapter.
Overall, The Great Wizard Escape from Paper Adventures is an excellent at home escape room puzzle for children. With an excellent story that children will love, the children must solve reasonably challenging clues before the story moves on. The story is simple, fun and immersive (especially if the kids / Gamemaster dress up to get fully involved). With well-designed creative puzzles that are just the right level for 8-12 year olds, they can have a challenge but without getting frustrated and giving up. The puzzles and clues are integrated with the story and involve logic, math, observation and wordplay to vary the puzzles and making them very interesting, meeting characters such a friendly ghost and a grumpy dragon along the way.
It isn’t just a game of solving puzzles to reach a conclusion, it is an immersive story experience, one that is fun and witty, humorous and charming. The Gamemaster helps the story along, reading out (possibly using different voices), handing out clues and hints.
The Gamemaster ‘Game on a Page’ is excellent – it is a short summary breakdown of the game to work from and help to guide the children. This made managing the game by the Gamemaster much more manageable without having to flick through lots of pages which meant that the flow of the game didn’t get interrupted.
The Harry Potter inspired artwork is very child friendly and engaging and helps to capture a child’s imagination, especially for kids who love magic and fantasy.
We had lots of fun with this game, it’s very interesting and fun for all involved (including the Gamemaster who doesn’t participate in the puzzle solving as they already have access to all the answers). It does take a while to set up, cutting and gluing, placing and hiding clues but it is worth it for the hour of fun it creates for the children and their friends. It would make a fun activity for birthday parties with children playing in groups.
The game is easy to set up, although time consuming. It has clear printed instructions as well as YouTube videos to watch and printable materials that you can cut out and assemble. And as it is a print at home game, if pages or puzzles get damaged or you require more than one copy of certain pages you can print off as many as required (you might need more than one copy of things for birthday parties or group play). With successful completion and passing the BEAST (Brutal Exams for Admission at School Term), you can print off a certification for each child to award their achievement.
Paper Adventures The Great Wizard Escape is a fun and very immersive experience, a great way to spend some quality family time with the kids, while giving them a story and brain workout. It’s well-designed, printable and playable straightaway when purchased online (a printed version for delivery is also available to buy if you don’t have a printer). A very enjoyable child and family-friendly escape game to be played at home with no complicated preparation and at a very reasonable cost. We highly recommend it to anyone who likes escape room type games, puzzles or Harry Potter. And if Harry Potter isn’t your thing, Paper Adventures also have a space adventure, a who-dunnit, a treasure hunting adventure and a jungle escape.
With every purchase, Paper Adventures have also teamed up with Tree Nation offering a donation to help support planting trees in key areas affected by deforestation. So not only is it a very good screen-free (except for the timer) game to play but one that is also good for the environment.
An excellent immersive, brain challenging fun game for kids.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £12 (Digital Download Print at Home)
For more information or to buy, visit paperadventures.co.uk.
