An envelope arrives at your door. You’ve been accepted to Wizard School. But you have one more exam to pass before being admitted. Will you be the next Sorcerer’s Apprentice?
Rating: Magical!
Completion Time: 20 minutes
Date Played: 30th September 2020
Party Size: 1
Recommended For: Kids/Teens
*screams* I love The School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! After honestly some of the most tiring weeks of my life (apologies for the lack of posts in a while), settling down with some candles, a cup of hot chocolate and opening this magical looking letter was just the ticket.
Mystery Mail recommends this one for teens (or rather, there’s a version for adults/teens/kids), but as a fun little game it’s 100% suitable for any age. This is maybe why I loved it so much, none of the puzzles were too taxing (in a good way!), it gave my tired brain that quick sense of accomplishment!
So to explain exactly what Mystery Mail is… Mystery Mail is a company that specialises in puzzle greeting cards. The idea is simple, you get a card in the post from a mysterious friend and must solve a series of puzzles to unlock a code, input it into the website, and reveal your message.
It’s actually a fairly similar concept to other puzzle-by-post services such as Puzzle Post and Enigmagram, but Mystery Mail stood out as being a little different. Firstly, it’s quite literally a card and with gorgeous artwork it’ll look beautiful on your mantelpiece or hanging on the wall. Secondly, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is a lot more linear! There’s a step one, two and three with spaces to write and jot down your answers as you go.
I highlight this in particular as I know it’ll be fantastic for the beginner who loves to puzzle but isn’t used to a non-linear format. So I’ll repeat again, this is suitable for literally anyone! If you’ve got that friend, or family member who isn’t really into escape rooms but you want to share the fun of puzzling through a game – 100% go for this!
So in terms of my experience, I completed the game quite quickly. Of the 7 puzzles, they take just a few minutes each to figure out what you need to do and solve. There’s a bit of maths, some very creative thinking outside the box, there’s an absolutely charming puzzle where a combo of the game and a cool little web browser reads your mind (no spoilers here but I LOVED THIS!).
Each of the puzzles were perfectly topical and made sense in the world. Furthermore, as this is a wizarding exam, they felt like they covered a wide scope of topics that yeah, you probably would have to study at a wizarding school. Give me more potions lessons and astrology any day!
One of the nicest things about this pack, which I feel I should also mention before signing this review off is that I received not only the loveliest ending message from Matt (one of the creators!), but my letter also had a pack of stickers featuring some of the artwork from the game. What a really nice touch to set this game apart from all others in the genre. It’s full marks from me 🙂
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry can be purchased for £9.99 on Mystery Mail’s website.
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