Down the Rabbit Hole Oculus Quest Review
Fast Facts
Down the Rabbit Hole
Developer: Cortopia Studios
Publisher: Beyond Frames Entertainment
Website: https://downtherabbitholegame.com/
Genre: Adventure, Narrative, Puzzle
Platform: Oculus Quest
Age Rating: Everyone
Release Date: 26/03/2020
Price: £14.99
A code was provided for review purposes.
Falling Into Wonderland
Down the Rabbit Hole is a familiar retelling of Alice in Wonderland’s tale of fantasy and intrigue, though this time in VR where you interact with the world in ‘third person god-mode’. The story starts off moving Alice through a house and searching for a key to open up a hatch in the floorboards. After you fall through the floor and down the rabbit hole, you are quickly greeted by the white rabbit. He tasks you with finding your way through to the party for the red queen and acquiring invitations along the way.
The game is basically an escape room of sorts tarrying you from place to place along the five or six main sections of Wonderland. You will progress through a cave, a cottage, underground woods, the castle yard, and inside the castle.
A Storied Journey
Wonderland plays out like a VR story. The game’s chapters include characters from the Queen’s Cards, including a 4 ½ Spade which you will take over control of from time to time. The characters you come across are all voice acted and interacting with them often happens as you will have various dialogue trees which you can select to hear different parts of the storied dialogue. The voices are all captivating and fit the character designs nicely.
Controlling Wonderland
3rd person god-like games similar to Down the Rabbit Hole, like Moss and Ghost Giant, put a unique perspective on the varied story gameplay. You move the world around you by grabbing onto vines in the hole, changing your perspective up and down. With the left control stick you move Alice, and the 4-and-a-half, along a linear path, up and down ladders, and through caves and corridors.
From time to time you will go into first person view allowing you to interact with buttons on a chest, flowers, or other objects in the game. You can interact with objects as Alice by tapping A and replying to characters by selecting the dialogue options with your right hand. The game’s puzzles are not difficult though they will oftentimes require a bit of thinking outside the box and using your environmental clues to solve. Taking note of the level’s backgrounds, objects, and placement will lead to discovering clues which will help you find invitations.
Storied Gameplay
Down the Rabbit Hole is a mostly by the numbers game along a linear path. I enjoyed my time in Wonderland and the fantastical creatures and characters you meet along the way. Graphically the game is stunning to look at. The world is imaginative and the feeling of size and scale is well done from the moments you are playing as Alice in first person, to the view overhead as the controlling entity. In VR there are two kinds of main games that really draw me in; I love a good exercise game that gets me moving, but I also really enjoy these narrative driven games that have puzzle and adventure elements strewn throughout.
Overall Down the Rabbit Hole is a must-own game, that while short, delivers on a story rich experience and fun gameplay set pieces with a colorful cast of characters.
Rapid Reviews Rating
You can purchase Down the Rabbit Hole store on the following link, https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2476104599150595/?locale=en_US
You can read our VR game reviews over at vrgamecritic.
