Andrews McMeel Publishing - "Escape from a Video Game: The Secret of Phantom Island"

Photo above is property of Andrews McMeel Publishing

Company: Andrews McMeel Publishing

Game: Escape from a Video Game: The Secret of Phantom Island

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Kids Book 📬

Genre: Video Games, Action Adventure

Date Played: February 19, 2022

Difficulty (based on 2 player): 4/10

Size of Team: Unlimited (Recommended Ages 8-12)

Time: Unlimited

Price: $10.79

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Cooper Hawke and the Secret of Phantom Island was supposed to be the greatest video game ever! But a month before its release, Bionosoft unexpectedly shut down. Now as you pick up this book, you suddenly realize that you have been transported into the video game and you have become Cooper Hawke. Can you solve the puzzles, discover the secrets, defeat the bad guys and escape from a video game?

Video above is the property of Andrews McMeel Publishing

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This is your standard novel with the cover depicting a cartoon style view of Phantom Island and a kraken-like monster attacking your boat. The graphics on the front and back look amazing and definitely have adventure written all over it.

Photos above are the property of Andrews McMeel Publishing

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Right from the first page, the kids were in stitches from the humor of the book. Even as an adult, I found the writing highly entertaining! If you are familiar with "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, this is a very similar format but with a couple of fun differences. At times, you can choose which direction you want to go in the story while at other times, you will have to solve a puzzle. At times, you are also given the choice whether you want to solve the puzzle or not, which added a fun new element because solving the puzzle was not always the best choice. We loved the artwork that was utilized throughout the book. Every time a key event occurred, there was a great picture to help immerse us. The book also had some places where you can ad lib lines which when reading with the kids which was something that they loved.

This book also has many video game style elements; like achievements along the way and life hearts to keep track of how many times you take a wrong turn. One nice thing is that there is a website that you can print sheets from so that you don't have to mark up the book and you can keep track of your life hearts.

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We were very impressed with the puzzles that were laid out in the game. There were some different variations of puzzles that included word puzzles, logic puzzles and some where you had to interpret pictures as well. The puzzles were geared more toward kids and teens but there were a few puzzles that really impressed even me as an adult. Some puzzles were used more than once though, which confused us a few times. It left us wondering if we had gone to the wrong page and looped back. One thing that was also lacking was that there was no hint system for the puzzles. The back of the book only contained the solutions. That being said, for most of the puzzles, there was no eureka moment so it would be difficult to clue those types of puzzles.

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"The Secret of Phantom Island" holds many secrets that we were excited to discover. This will keep kids and teens entertained and reading for days. When I asked the kids what their favorite part was, they couldn’t name just one thing. They loved the logic puzzles, the fun dialogue and the different endings. There were so many side quests through the book, unlocking different achievements and the ability to unlock a secret ending. This all gave us a full video game feel. That also means this book is not something you can only go through once. We absolutely went back a few times to search for other endings and fun secrets in the book. We are fairly certain that we have yet to find everything that this book has to offer.

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(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)

Disclosure: We thank Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing us with a sample of their game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.

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