Prelude

Bedlam in Neverwinter is an Escape Room room game in the Dungeons and Dragons universe of Icewind Dale. This is a game is three Acts: Each Act lasts 90 minutes as players work together to solve puzzles and try to solve an ever growing mystery. Act I, Act II, and Act III are all connected: the story all culminates to a final solution in Act III after playing through each act.

After each Act, you can save your game for another session (which is what we did), or continue straight to the next act. We played the three Acts over three sessions in June and July of 2023.

The time on the box seemed apropos: each act was about 90 minutes. The box also says 2-6 players. We ended up playing with three people. If you were stranded on a desert island with this box, you probably could play solo as two characters and still enjoy it, but like all Escape Room games, usually more brains are better to progress the game.

This Escape Room style will very familiar to those of you who played the Clue: Treachery at Tudor Mansion game from earlier this year: see our review here. There are differences, though, which we’ll see below.

As the prelude closes, we get ready to play.  You’ll notice we can’t do anything at all until the players arrive! As soon as you open the box, it tells you to STOP!

Act I: Mystery at Ten Towns

Charlie and Allison are my Escape Room buddies: we’ve played quite a number over the years (including many Murder Mysteries: they were part of Red Carpet in Ruins from a weeks ago). This seemed the ideal game for us: we have played many sessions of Dungeons and Dragons together as well as many Escape Room board games! This game was made for us!

Like Clue: Treachery ay Tudor Mansion, each player takes the role of a singular character: in that game, players choose Ms. Peacock, Mr. Green, etc.  However, here in Bedlam in NeverWinter, you have more choice! You choose a Race, a Class, and a special Weapon …  the idea, I think, is that you are “rolling up” a character in D&D.  See above as I chose the Dragonborn Paladin with the Sword of Sharpness.

Bedlam in Neverwinter is a little different from the Clue: Treachery at Tudor Mansion, as there is combat in the game! So the game comes with a six-sided die and a 20-sided die (see above), which you will use for combat and challenges! So, there is a little randomness in the game! Usually, when you fail checks or get hit in combat, you just lose hit points (notated on the bottom of your Race+Class cards).

Our first sessions went really well: we jumped in, and started exploring the world and solving puzzles! No one ever feels too left out because the each player gets to take a turn and move, or read story cards. Inside all of this, there is story! There are puzzles! There is combat! There are challenges! Granted, the combat are challenges very simple (rolling higher than a target value, with a few modifiers), but that keeps the game moving.

After playing through one Saturday night, we had a good time! There were fun puzzles, the story was interesting, and the final two “harder” puzzles were very interesting.

Although the diffculty is at 4/5 (see above), we didn’t struggle at all, In fact, our only real struggle was that we forget to turn over a card … make sure you do EVERYTHING that’s on the card! We lost 5 minutes while we tried to find out why we didn’t reveal a card.

Overall: it was fun enough to book our next session and play again: next Saturday will be Act II!

Act II: Chaos In The Underdark

Act II happened about a week later. 

We had to re-read the End of Act I to make sure sure we remembered where we left off.  We also had to “refresh” ourselves on the story.  It wasn’t too much work at all: the story from the previous work was pretty engaging and we remembered it.

As we played, something weird happened.  The main bad guy said “Excellent” and we all started calling him Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.  Whenever we read his text (remember, game play rotates pretty quickly), we would imitates Mr. Burns little finger gestures, and all of sudden, all of the cultists (spoilers) became clones of Smithers.  It was quite funny and it just sort of happened organically.

At each Act, you level up a little: both with Loot you found along the way (see above) and a special power that you get in Act II.  Notice above as my Dragonborn has two special actions now. Act II: Aura of Courage and Act I: Divine Smite.  There is a notion of levelling up as you play, just like D&D.  It’s not amazing, but it was fun.

Act II seemed … simpler than Act I?  The puzzle at the end wasn’t really that hard.  Because of the order we visited some locations, we actually didn’t get some clues … maybe that’s why the main Act II puzzle is simpler?  To counteract the fact that you might not see all clues?  It was still fun, and there were arguably funnier moments in Act II, but Act I was better.

Act III: The Tower In Neverwinter Wood

Act III had to wait a few weeks as vacations hit: it was only about 2 week until we reconveneed for Act III. 

As we entered into Act III, we remarked: “The game says it’s 4/5 difficulty, and it hasn’t really felt like that.  This has been too easy!”  Yes, yes, yes.  We completely cursed ourselves.  Act III was significantly harder than acts I and II.

In fact, we should have lost and died in the very very last battle.  But, when it mattered, we rolled a 1,1,3 for the bad guy attack and rolled 20s when we really needed it!

It’s not that the puzzles were harder, but the challenges and combats steeped upwards.  The only way we survived was judiciously using our one-time combat abilities.  We got lucky in the final battle, but only because we made our own luck: Charlie used his Time Stop ability to allow me and Allison to do the final deadly blows the bad guys!  It was a rousing good time!

We all barely survived the final combat (we  literally each had 1 Hit Point left), but were able to solve the final riddle and undue the evil Mr. Burns final spell!

The last 15 minutes of the game felt Epic and tense as we wondered, “Would We Survive?”

Thoughts

The challenges and combat were ridiculously simple mechanisms:  You roll the 20 sided die and just need to roll above a threshold.  That’s it.  There are a few ways to modify this number (with Loot and magic items), but it did seem a little random.  We noticed that we rolled very badly in Act III until the very end, and it was a little frustrating.   If you are a serious advanced Dungeons and Dragons player, you may find this mechanism way too simple and infuriating.  Even though I have played Advanced Dungeons and Dragons most of my life, this mechanism didn’t detract too much from the game: the game is about the story and puzzles, with the combat and challenges just adding spice.  It felt like it did add some spice.  But, you will have to decide for yourself.

The other important thought was how well the game kept everyone involved! The cards in the game guide the players through the story, and everyone gets a chance to read the flavor and story text: the game frequently hands off the story to the NEXT player!! I think this made it easier to avoid any Alpha Playing, as the cards kept everyone involved.

Coda

We had a wonderful time playing Bedlam in Neverwinter. The randomness of the combat and challenges didn’t seem to take away anything from the game, as the puzzles and story were the main drivers. If anything, the combat and challenges just added a little flavor to the game! Weirdly, the difficulty seemed poorly estimated in the beginning: the game felt a lot easier than 4/5 (as per the box) … until we got to Act III.

Did this feel like a Dungeons and Dragons adventure? In the story aspect, yes! Our Dungeons and Dragons sessions were always replete with story and puzzles, and this game delivered in that respect! In the combat and challenges, not so much. Bedlam in Neverwinter was was still thematic enough that lovers of Escape Room Games and Dungeons and Dragons might like this crossover. We did! Bedlam in Neverwinter was a great excuse to play games and have fun with Charlie and Allison! This was a great and memorable series of events this summer: 7.9/10.

But if you are a hardcore Dungeons and Dragons player, you may smirk at how simple this is. I think this game is for people who want a light Escape Room game in the Dungeons and Dragons universe.

Oh yes, this is resettable: you can reset it and pass it along to another group of friends.