Curious Escape Rooms - "The Dollhouse"

Updated: Apr 12

LOCATION:  Fitchburg, Massachusetts, USA

Photos above are property of Curious Escape Rooms

Photo above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

📝 ETR DECODER

🔑 GAME: The Dollhouse
📅 DATE PLAYED: September 29, 2021
🎬 GENRE: Mystery, Adventure
🧠 DIFFICULTY (Based on 2 ppl): 6.5/10
👥 TOTAL # OF PLAYERS: 1-10PPL (Recommend 4-6PPL)
🕒 LENGTH OF TIME: 60 Mins.
💰 PRICE: $84/Team
☎️ BOOKING TYPE: Private
🔓 ESCAPED/ COMPLETED?: Yes

📖 THE STORY

There's a woman who has come into possession of something extremely valuable, yet dangerous. Instead of discarding it, she decided to hide it where no one would ever think to look... inside a child's dollhouse. The only way to step inside the child's dollhouse is through a portal. Once inside, you only have 60 minutes to find the item and make it back before the portal closes. If you don't, you'll remain in the dollhouse... forever!!

Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

🎯 HIT THE BULLSEYE

The storyline for "The Dollhouse" is so creative and unique that it becomes not just an escape room, but an experience. Stepping inside a life-size dollhouse in search for a dark secret is enough to peak the interest of any escape room player.
We normally don't get to see the room before actually entering it but this set design provided an "outside looking in" feeling. Even when we're playing the game we had to look over a few times to make sure no one was "watching" us.
As we progressed throughout the game, there were other surprises that reminded us of our stature of being inside a dollhouse.
Although there were no sound/drop down type of jump scares, certain things in the dollhouse definitely gave us the creeps.
Most players would probably remember the ending as it's quite memorable and iconic.

🧩 MISSED THE MARK

There was a way where the game could be made for "challenging" for more players. We thought that it would be more interesting to add various types of puzzles rather than just repeating the same one.
There's a good amount of "search and find" in the room. We are just really bad at this category and spend a good amount of time looking for things and had to even ask for hints for a few.
There was a repetitive puzzle in the room that was fun to solve the first time. However, it did become a bit repetitive when we had to use the same decoder to solve it a couple of more times.

🏹 TAKE A SHOT?

This room was created 5 years ago. Being that they had this type of idea and puzzle creativity is quite impressive as they were considered the early pioneers in the MA area. The room doesn't have a lot of high tech but it does fit the theme and the storyline. I'm sure everyone has wondered at some point what it would be like to shrink down to size and step inside a miniature house. In "The Dollhouse" you get to fulfill that curiosity and investigate the premises. We wouldn't classify this game as scary but it does have an eerie vibe to it. Especially since there are dolls throughout the game that always seem to be staring at us! At one point, Cici put one on a "time-out" and made him face the corner!

As enthusiasts that played hundreds of escape room, we also start to assume a lot of things. There was something visible to us right at the beginning that we had access to the entire time but because most of the other rooms we've seen needed it to be triggered, we didn't even both to check! So don't assume anything when playing this room!

And if you still can't be satisfied after coming back to your real size from "The Dollhouse", lock yourself up in their 10-minute escape game - "The Hero's Phonebooth"!!

Additional Info

Free parking across the street
Lobby area with seats
"We The Enthusiast" Passport available for purchase

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

** Also they are the creators of "We the Enthusiasts Escape Room Passport". Make sure you pick one up and stamp all your victories!

Photos above are property of We The Enthusiasts

BOOK NOW

(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 Curious Escape Rooms for comping our tickets for this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.