pamenard
Explorer
As the narrative-designer of this immersive experience, it brings me great joy that you enjoyed yourself.
We were working with many constraints and the biggest one was to make it 100% accessible to non-D&D fans. Still we're real proud of what we did and I thank you for this review.
Phil (The Chatty DM) Ménard
P.S. Damn, this profile image is almost 20 years old, I need to update it.
P.P.S The runes on the bridge are not just for show.
We were working with many constraints and the biggest one was to make it 100% accessible to non-D&D fans. Still we're real proud of what we did and I thank you for this review.
Phil (The Chatty DM) Ménard
P.S. Damn, this profile image is almost 20 years old, I need to update it.
P.P.S The runes on the bridge are not just for show.
Hello everyone! On my way out from my holiday travels near Toronto, I took a moment to visit the new D&D “Experience” called The Immersive Quest. (Conveniently for me it’s located right near the airport.) Here’s my rundown, thoughts, and review of the whole thing!
If the ticket numbers are generated sequentially, it seems that I was the 94th order when I bought them last month. Which had me be a bit concerned that it might end up being sparsely attended and would end up struggling to keep afloat, but fortunately both the slot before ours and ours were at capacity. Nicely, there were a few groups who even came dressed up for the occasion, with gauntlets and robes and staffs and plenty of elf ears! Alas due to the travel I had no such accoutrements so was in undercover civilian dress.
Arriving, the exterior windows are decked out in a large red dragon themed mural. In the lobby/waiting area are some “&” banners and more red dragon artwork behind the desk. On one side is a false cave entrance (not that impressive) while on the other is your Instagram station with a stone archway/portal and some large character cutouts of a dragon, goblin, elf wizard, and mind flayer (amusingly holding a potion as if trying to sell it to you). Checking in you receive a wrist band in which is embedded an RFID chip which will be how you interact with things inside. For the adventure, you can choose one of four classes (Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, or Druid) and one of three difficulty levels (essentially Easy, Normal, Difficult). The quest ends in a tavern where many D&D themed purchases are available (t-shirts, books, accessories, legendary figures, framed art, even the premium mind flayer head) as well as D&D-themed drinks (alcoholic and mocktails) and snacks.
I’ll post more spoiler-laden descriptions of the experience and my thoughts/reviews below, so for now I’ll skip right to my non-spoiler/TLDR bottom line thoughts and review of the whole thing, starting perhaps with the most important thing:
Did I enjoy myself? Yes! It was a lighthearted and fun way to spend a few hours, made more fun by the fact I was going with friends with whom I started playing D&D with in high school some 35+ years ago. (Alas in actually one of those friends got ill and we couldn’t afford the high-level cleric for a curing spell so it was just the two of us who went together...)
Was it impressive and amazing? Not really. Was it super innovative and offered excellent gaming? Also, not really. Was it a bit cheezy? Heck yes (so pure D&D on that point
All in all, the 40ish bucks Canadian for the experience was well within my price point and for the couple of hours I got to play around there there I didn’t regret it. Would I go again? Unless I was going with more D&D friends or the like, probably not. It doesn’t have much “replay” value, but going to play around in it with my friends would make it worthwhile.
As a super cute bonus and heartwarming thing, as I sat in the tavern at the end there were two children sitting at another table, rulebooks books they’d (or their parents) just purchased open before them, reading and marveling with great intent and interest, seemingly ready to jump into playing our treasured hobby.
(And as an amusing side note to all that is a reminder of just how good a value the rulebooks are! For a few bucks more than the cost of this experience we get hundreds upon hundreds of hours of joy…)
Now... onto the spoilerific!
The first step from the lobby is heading into an antechamber, where a guide welcomes you and gives a bit of a description of what will happen beyond, namely that the next room will be where you choose your character class.
The journey truly begins in that next room where descriptions of the four available character classes are arranged in an X pattern along the walls, each with an alcove showing typical class gear (armour, robes, weapons, cloaks, etc) with a giant tome standing before them giving a brief description of the class as well as common abilities. These all have the same design feel as the 5e books (as one might expect) and, as noted above, are all solidly built. Next to each of these is a station where you can scan your bracelet to indicate your choice of this class as well as your desired difficulty level.
Each of the classes gets a little audio/visual spotlight, with narration both introducing each class and asking questions as might a DM to provide guidance to a new player. The guide in the room also plays along, adding emphasis, acting along, and occasionally casting spells towards the alcoves, which respond with lights and flares and flashes. (When he’d learned I’d chosen wizard, he gave me the opportunity to do the same towards the Wizard alcove, and sure enough, I cast my first lightning spell!)
Once the introductions are all complete, more spells from the guide causes the door to glow, smoke, light up, and eventually open and we can wander into the Yawning Portal Tavern. There, a tiefling (who walks/dances on top of boards that are covering the famous well) as well as a human wizard and elf druid welcomes us, and banter between themselves before beginning to entreat us on a quest to aid the druid’s coven… but suddenly, calamity befalls the city outside the windows! And a new quest is given, to retrieve the protective crystal from the red dragon who just stole it.
(Regarding those windows, they are OLED screens that show the city beyond, first with people walking around doing their daily thing, later as the narrative progresses the sky turns dark, buildings are shattered, and magic cast by the wizard to play out. Neat enough effect.)
After this everyone is loosed into the dungeon, where a Dungeon Master greets to let you know they are there to assist should you require any. Also, there is a secret phrase hidden in pieces throughout the dungeon, and should you find it, to bring it to them and they will give you further experience points for for solving the puzzle.
At this point, everyone is free to visit the various “stations” that encircle the room, as well as a few down the centre. There are about 10 different adventuring tasks to perform (though some are more observation/show than interactive).
Once your party has felt they have completed what they need to do, you visit the gate under the dragon head, where you will be led into another area to do battle with the red dragon!
The journey ends back in a tavern, the crystal safely returned.
Then it’s out the hallway back into the sunlight of your everyday life.
Here are the 10 different games/puzzles/interactive bits that are in the main dungeon room:
Intellect Devourer – Play a game of “Simon” with the four quadrants of an Intellect Devourer, watching the brain light up then you pressing the brain in response so that you ‘feed’ it your memories and it is happy (giggling very delightfully). The brain is suitably squishy to touch, though getting it to register your touches can be tricky.
Psychedelic Mushroom Trip – Put your head into a giant mushroom and see a mirror light show with small myconids inside while trippy music plays with light patterns. Non interactive, and the sign even says there’s nothing to do here, just enjoy the trippy visuals…
Speak with Dead – Three coffins with skeletons inside stand against the wall. Tap your bracelet, and one will provide advice relevant to your class – in a kind of punny, joke manner. It is not interactive.
Crossing the Lava – This is a set of pillars, each with a rune on top, for you to make your way across to avoid falling into the lava below. The runes are only decoration, however, and the path is really just a continual zig-zag across the area with each pillar gently rising and then falling. I did it with pirouettes and fun Shaolin leaps, because it was more fun that way. NOTE: Don’t miss the tap-out station on the other side end of the course – I did and only saw it before going into the final dragon encounter, so I guess I didn’t get any XP for my pirouetting.
Otyugh Fight – This is kind of fun, with a large otyugh statue whose tentacle pads light up in a random pattern and you have to smack them quickly when they do. Bring a friend if you want to make it easier. This is listed as a “fighter” challenge. (EDIT: ROPER! This is a ROPER! I'm embarrassed now...)
Mimic Key Dance – There’s a treasure. There’s a board with a bunch of keyholes in front of it on a podium. You have two minutes to put the key into each keyhole until you find the right one, and the chest opens to reveal it’s a mimic.
Gelatinous Cubes are Dungeon’s Cleaning Staff – There’s a cube. Enter it if you dare! Tap your bracelet against the sensors and bits will light up and reveal what’s within! You might find something useful…
Spellcaster’s Challenge – A large book stands before you. Get into spellcasting stance, and the book will show you a pattern; correctly trace it in the air and you will cast a firebolt! This one’s a bit tricky to get to work – the sensor area is directly above an appendage on the stand holding the book, not over the book itself. This caused a lot of false starts and uncertainly how to get it to work. This is also listed as a “wizard’s” challenge, and the wizard instead gets a different pattern that teaches the lightning bolt spell.
Owlbear Purr – Pet the owlbear. You heard me correctly. You have two minutes to scritch the owlbear all over to find that spot that will make it happy. Kinda cute. This is likely the “druid” challenge (I don’t remember). Also, the Owlbear prop is a wood statue with glowing eyes, not a more realistic feathers and fur.
Beholder Mission Impossible – There’s a treasure guarded by a beholder! Can you dodge its eye rays to get to the treasure? This one is the “rogue” challenge, giving them special daggers.
The Secret Phrase – Words are hidden throughout.
After you feel you have levelled up enough on the above, it’s time to face the dragon! This happens in a small room dominated by a huge (10’ tall, 15’ wide or so) curving screen. You stand on one of five disks (depending on your party size) to do battle with the dragon. Victory could be yours!
FWIW, I chose the regular difficulty level, but I don’t think that really changes much. On the whole, these are not very challenging at all. The ones I liked the most were the most active ones, such as the Otyugh (takes a bit of concentration, and you can smack the pads quite hard) and the Beholder (crouch down low and avoid the beams). The Spellcaster one could also have been more exciting, if it wasn’t as finicky. Likewise with the Lava, I really wish the runes had either lit up or been illuminated from above by spotlights to both guide you forward and track your progress, making it more interactive than just walking across. (That said, I watched others go across and though I found it very easy clearly not everyone did, so it might have been more exciting for them just from that factor alone.) If nothing else, having it be able to track your progress this way would also mean you didn’t miss tapping out at the end (I wasn’t the only one who missed this).
The rest were more middling. The Intellect challenge was a super easy pattern to follow. The Treasure chest is just a matter of putting the key into every hole. The Gelatinous cube has no real challenge, just tapping and looking. The Owlbear one, though, I did enjoy scratching it all over even if it wasn’t a challenge.
The non-interactive ones were… fine, but not a game/challenge.
As for the word finding puzzle, I will only say that I only needed three of them to guess the classic phrase, which did make me smile!
For me, the most unfortunate aspect is that your choice of character class makes practically no difference in how any of these are played, or perhaps not much even in their difficulty level. The fighter challenge works the same no matter what; you’re just playing tag, there’s no special fighter ability to make you tag it better. Rogue or not you still gotta cross those beams the same way. The wizard one is the only one that seemed to have anything different, but it’s just an alternate; nothing about being a wizard makes it any different to overcome.
And this proceeds to the final battle against the dragon. The way this works is simple: you stand on the platform, and swipe your arm sideways (and perhaps at other angles register as well) to attack the dragon, and when the dragon breathes fire, you hold your hand out in a ‘stop’ position to defend against it. That’s it. You’re just standing there, waving your arm continually, occasionally having to switch to STOP. Most of the time I was firing my lighting bolt, then, occasionally for no discernible reason, it switched to a magic missile, then back to lightning. My friend, playing the rogue, seemed to be firing bolts of fire (?), and at one point did start throwing daggers, I’m guessing the ones from the Beholder challenge. But I didn’t discover (nor were we told anything about) choosing different attacks, nor whether there was any benefit to it or not.
So, in the end, again there was nothing class specific about it, other than how the attack was rendered on the screen. We were all waving our arms in the same ways until we’d done enough to defeat the dragon. (Not sure what would’ve happened if we didn’t block the fire breath – could one of us have died?)
I did appreciate that the platform each player stands on for the dragons have rumblers embedded in them, so you could feel a bit more as you ‘battled’.
Overall, on the interactivity bit, I am underwhelmed. I get that they want to keep it as accessible as possible to as wide an audience as possible. But that leaves most of the experience as a set of very generic and simple party games (at best) with a D&D veneer, rather than being something truly and inventively adventurous.
Again, though, I will give props to (pun not intended) the props! Everything in the dungeon was well made, well detailed, and well enough presented. And I really appreciated all the nods to D&D lore and history.
I'll post photos in the next post!
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