Random World - The Isle of Wight's Newest Indoor Attraction

Random World opened a few weeks ago in the old Mothercare building in Carisbrooke

I have a great deal of admiration for anyone who is willing to take a punt and start up a business - particularly when it's different to anything else on offer.

And so, I felt it was my duty to visit Random World, which opened in Carisbrooke a few weeks ago, as the sister business to the Random Rooms escape rooms in Newport.

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A slightly random location

Random World is ideally located for a post-Home Bargains de-stressing

We booked in for an hour's session at Random World, which cost us £5 each. The usual session is three hours and costs about £12.

A fiver doesn't go very far nowadays, so this didn't seem like a big gamble with my money.

The location is an appropriately random one, between a cavernous Argos and my favourite shop - Home Bargains. The Random World building was previously a Mothercare and an Early Learning Centre and is pretty vast by Isle of Wight retail standards. I remember visiting it a few times as a clueless new parent (rather than the clueless old parent that I am now).

When we visited, there was no outdoor signage for Random World, which added to the mystery of the place. I'm hoping they will put a big sign outside once it is more established.

​We popped inside and were invited to explore and have fun. This wasn't like a trampoline park where they insist that you watch a catastrophising 20 minute safety video and sign a waiver before you can do anything.

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So, what exactly is Random World?

The model train set is one of the more conventional activities

We'll get onto that. Have a bit of patience please.

​I was visiting with child one, who is 13. She knew nothing about the day out, but dutifully agreed to come along so that I could do some research. As I've said before, one of the best things about having children is being able to behave like one without getting funny looks.

We wandered between the various activities to see what was on offer.

We began with a couple of photos of us sat on a giant throne before finding a safe, which could be unlocked by finding the clues around the building. 

We then began building some marble runs, which stick onto a wall with magnets. After that, we found a section with dozens of foam bricks and began shaping every single one of them into a wall.

We enjoyed the magnetic ball run at Random World

Building a wall was perhaps not the most creative use of bricks but Donald Trump would call it a "beautiful wall" and it did provide me with a very satisfactory feeling upon its completion. The owner remarked that it was the largest wall that anyone had built since they opened, which added to my feeling of satisfaction. 

One of my proudest achievements (of all time)

Child one and I then started discussing what exactly Random World is.

It's much less noisy and energetic than a soft play area or the indoor barn at Tapnell Farm Park. It's got a wider age range than an 'imagination town', which tends to be for primary and pre-schoolers.

It's probably best categorised as a relaxed, creative play space. Primary school aged children are probably the core audience, but my 13 year old wasn't the only teenager there and none of them looked to be bored. 

I successfully spotted the Subbuteo goalkeeper in this game

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How long will I need at Random World?

I must admit that my initial impression was that our hour's session would probably be enough for us.

Most of the activities at Random World are quite simple and low key, rather than the noisy, flashy, shooty things that I usually head towards so I thought that we'd have done everything within an hour (I love the Summer Arcade in Shanklin, which is the antithesis of Random World).

However, we became engrossed in a couple of the activities and our hour flew by. Child one insisted that I agreed to us returning for a longer session, which is about as positive an endorsement as you will get.

At the time, I felt at the time that they could probably cram in a few more things - and I could see a couple of things were still in development.

I later thought that perhaps this was a deliberate strategy to create a relaxed and slower feel than you'd get whilst throwing a red ball at a clown on Shanklin seafront. If I were creating it, I'd have been tempted to chuck in a ping pong table and a basketball hoop, but it would have changed the vibe significantly.

Random World has definitely got a homemade and lovingly curated feel to it. There are bizarre little jokes, such as a lightshade full of garlic, a door that leads nowhere and a display of different types of spoon.

The spoon collection at Random World

This is clearly a family's passion project, rather than some big corporation with ambitions to make millions.

I'm no expert, but I would also imagine that Random World would be a good space to bring children who are neurodiverse and don't like excessive stimulation.​ There was no pumping music and we didn't feel that we were sharing activities with the other people who were there.

​We'll be back for another session soon.