So lost now.
Alexa.
[MUSIC]
Stop saying [LAUGH]
[MUSIC]
Is it now we're in it, is this it again.
I don't know [LAUGH]
Are we [LAUGH] The game, are we still in the game.
It sounds
Spooky.
It's like eXistenZ.
Welcome to Doc Naw's latest experiment.
Okay.
We are back in.
Please listen to the music, relax, don't bother to do the puzzles, and we'll all be werewolves in an hour.
[MUSIC]
Toy companies are looking at ways to incorporate Amazon Alexa into toys and games.
Mattel has a puzzle-solving game that works with Alexa.
It's called Escape Room In A Box The Werewolf Experiment.
You don't need an Echo speaker to play, but it's It's supposed to enhance the experience.
Journey into the unknown the werewolf experiment.
Okay.
What does it say?
It says keep out this is the rules.
There a lot of stuff in here.
You need a timer a pencil no phones that is cheating.
Seriously stop open this when you are ready to start the game.
Let's open it.
So should we do it?
Yeah.
Let's just do it okay.
We went into this without doing any research we wanted to be totally surprised.
And you know what, it's not clear at all what we were supposed to say to Alexa to make her work.
Cork, my god how could you do this in 15 minutes?
I don't believe it.
Okay, I feel like if I do this in four hours.
Where does the Echo come in?
There is no indication of anything technical here because you don't need to have Alexa.
Should I have said, Alexa start Like a game, there's no indication here.
If we looked it up on our phone and we're not supposed to use a phone in this came, we later saw we were supposed to say ask escape room for a hint, or tell escape room we won the came, how are you supposed to remember those phrases under pressure?
Alexa, play escape the room in a box
[MUSIC]
I'm gonna keep solving puzzles.
Where is your-
[UNKNOWN] This game is intended for use with the Escape Room In A Box: The Werewolf Experiment from the [UNKNOWN] games.
Welcome to Escape Room In A Box: The Werewolf Experiment.
You can ask for instructions or start game.
Start game.
[MUSIC]
[LAUGH] We should have done this at the beginning.
[MUSIC]
FYI, that's what you do.
You should have started it yourself.
Okay so add some music to it.
What in the darkness led to this experiment
[MUSIC]
Please listen to the music.
Relax.
Don't bother to do the puzzles, and you'll all be werewolves in an hour.
[NOISE]
No.
All right.
No.
No.
This is a distraction.
[LAUGH]
So far it's just ambient music.
I expected more.
Are we meant to ask for assistance, or is it going to just automatically say things?
I had high hopes for the music part.
I had high hopes for being able to actually interact with it.
I thought it was gonna be maybe they're assuming smart [UNKNOWN] maybe you don't.
Alexa, what do I do?
[BLANK_AUDIO]
There is a lot I can do.
[LAUGH] l>> Play music from Hamilton, or play a country music playlist.
There's such a disconnect.
Do you want to hear more?
No.
Alexa I want you to solve my puzzle for me [LAUGH]
SOrry, I don't know that one.
All right Alexa play Escape room In a Box
So putting Alexa in a game has potential to be good, if the trigger phrases were more obvious to us when we started.
This goes to show you that you ain't helping.
No, it's a total-
You just make a werewolf sound.
That's a total buzzkill.
Also, what if anyone comes and suddenly activates Alexa, which happens every 50 seconds in my Then they're gonna ruin your Escape Room experience.
[MUSIC]
Okay, we're almost at the next hint book.
[MUSIC]
Sis, boom, bah, go duct na.
Only 15 minutes in but I can tell you are going around Sometimes in a real escape room, Someone is like watching you and they're like-
And Judging you, watching you guys.
They will say something like turn around.
It's likely the whole internet is watching and judging us.
Yes, exactly.
No pressure.
Is there a second piece of little White paper.
There is white paper here.
My goodness, okay.
We didn't look everywhere.
No, we didn't look everywhere.
We totally failed.
See anything else in here?
No.
We can play this game more than once.
Okay.
It is like in school when you get the fortune wish.
Yeah.
It's gonna tell you who you're gonna marry.
You're gonna live in a mansion, or a shack.
When I usually play these games.
Yeah.
I go special.
S. P. E.
C. I. A. L. And then rewind.
Special, special full, specialty.
Specialty.
I get it, what finishes the word, Specialty is two.
That's the answer, 74, 74 come on, you did it, all right, what is it?
You win,
You win, it says we did it.
We're not warewolfs,
Antidote.
One minute and 15 seconds.
We did it in an hour, whatthe hell,
Make sure not to mess anything up, it's a one time experience.
We're going to be warewolfs, we're going to be warewolfs in 15 minutes.
We already soled it.
If only she knew.
You, do we need you?
I feel like this was the most superfolous part of the experience.
[MUSIC]
I could have done without the cho, actually it was really distructing.
To have that.
I like the music but I now wanna like tell her, we won.
[INAUDIBLE] just play music, I really thought there was going to be something interacive, like I actually thought you would open something and it would say ask your friends, like the echo,
It wasn't designed to have extra-
Ask Alexa for help, that's gonna, no, we don't want you know.
We're done.
We solved it.
Well, you hope that maybe she would have extra clues but that's not the case.
You don't need her to have the clues but what they're doing in a lot of these games when they incorporate Alexa is have music or scorekeeping.
There's no way for her to keep score.
No.
At least we have with us.
There's an extra rule or command should we say I don't have that with me on hand, because I'm not supposed to have my phone with me, because having my phone with me would be cheating.
Right.
So you're stuck with this.
Now, I also think this shows the limits of where voice assistance is right now, because this thing does everything.
And so like as we discovered, the moment you invoke it, which I will not name Because it will happen it interrupts and you could launch something else and when we tried it it restarted the entire experience and there was no resuming the app which would happen on a phone you are totally out of the experience and then how do you interact with it we don't know its a total black box .>>In a future version they should include something where like here are the.
[MUSIC]
Commands, but that would have thrown off the ambience of you have a puzzle to solve.
I would like if it gave you the invocation, like the say this to it, to The Echo.
And then I did, and then it started an audio riddle that you had to solve.
That wold be interesting, I was surprised there wasn't that, you could do that but you have to tell people what the invocation, it's like a magic spell.
Alexa, we won.
[MUSIC]
Alexa we won.
She's a cool timer with cool music, it's interesting to think of her as a score keeper or a rule explainer, so I can see this evolving in future products.
Alexa, aren't you excited for us?
[LAUGH]
Sorry, I don't know that.
All right Scot, congratulations for not being a werewolf.
We did it, congratulations for not being a voice assistant
Human beings won this round.
Humans won, Alexa, zero.
Alexa, total distraction, we did not enjoy your help on this one.
Sorry, I don't know that one.
Alexa, play Hamilton.
[MUSIC]
