Exploring the world's largest 'amazement park' feels like being dropped into a dystopian movie - or locked in a giant escape room with clues to solve.
What used to be Kidzania at Westfield London has been transformed by an army of imaginative artists and creatives who have built a highly detailed world with its own lore and Hunger Games-style districts.
But it's much less heavy and more fun than that.
We are day-trippers from earth, flying into Meridia to shop and explore.
But the Wunderground are trying to subvert the Elite who control the dwindling power source on the planet - and they want to grab our attention.
Soon you notice the protest posters plastered on the walls, the voices coming through radio static, or the computer terminals where you exchange coded messages with the group.
We start on the shopping mall Bloom Street where the Elite want us tourists to drop our money - but everything is a bit weird.
There's a media office where you see how messages from cuddly computer Rex are being controlled - and an odd supermarket where you have two minutes to zap as many bar codes as possible, or a pharma shop selling health supplements and strange baby milk.
Absurd City is constantly springing surprises - through the back of a shop you find a secret Wunderground lair with clues on post it notes, or enter a double decker bus or a phone booth and there's a passage into the district of Reclaimia where the junk jettisoned by the Elite is sorted.
You might find yourself in a theatre watching a peculiar puppet show, or humming into a tube to make mushrooms light up, or in a corporate office enjoying a chorus of singing fish.
It is surreal and absurd but each room is such a detailed immersive world built from recognisable stuff like old toys and tech that you could linger for hours.
There's enough here to please everyone from tots to teens to grown ups - from an odd bathroom with giant rubber ducks, to climbing on a huge banana or entering an Imaginopolis full of colourful flowers and lights.
Eventually you follow the narrative thread, with its strong save-our-planet message, to a 10 minute computer and laser-enhanced finale.
Beneath the cleverness and glitter there's a call to action about consumerism, social inequality and big tech.
But it's all wrapped up in such a marvellous playground that you don't mind being a little brow-beaten by a coda that's hard to disagree with.
Wake The Tiger's Absurd City runs at Westfield in Shepherd's Bush until August 2027. Tickets £23 from london.wakethetiger.com
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