November 3, 2018 – Whenever Christina and I talk about unique room designs that are immediately eye-catching and memorable, Big Sky Breakout’s Through the Looking Glass room is one of the first that comes into the discussion. The experience takes players through the disorienting world of Wonderland, and from the very start players are thrown into an otherworldly space and have to find their bearings.
Big Sky managed to strike a great balance with the unusual logic by which Wonderland operates. The room references specific details which occur in the Lewis Carroll story, but it also does a great job capturing the way Alice needs to think to find her way through the strange land. The puzzles are strange yet fair, and Big Sky deserves a lot of credit for how they pulled that off.
The theming is very well done, and each puzzle solved feels very rewarding when it leads to a clever new item or place. The room weaves in technology in clever ways and it’s very well integrated to make the room feel very tactile all throughout. I’ve done a few rooms that require an uncommonly high use of senses other than sight and hearing, but Through the Looking Glass is the only one where the use of all the senses felt natural given the theme and logic of the room.
Christina and I would have loved to stick around and try another room or two at Big Sky Breakout, but we had a limited time in Montana, solving our room late and needing to hit the road early the next morning to get to Idaho.
I also want to give a quick shout out to Goldsmith’s Bed & Breakfast in Missoula. I had never stayed at a B&B before, and the experience was phenomenal. Goldsmith’s is situated on a river with a very nice river walk leading to a bridge with a great view of the area. The next time I visit Missoula, I am definitely interested in revisiting both Big Sky Breakout and Goldsmith’s.
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