Crux Club: Dark Tours Volume 1 Cemeteries | Review

Crux Club’s Dark Tours Review | As a Dark Tourist, you seek places others fear to tread. As you play through this puzzle adventure book, you’ll visit the world’s strangest cemeteries. Solve the haunting mysteries surrounding each location to discover hidden knowledge. Dark Mysteries will challenge you to delve ever deeper into the darkness. Cast off fear and begin your journey into the unknown.

Date Played: January 2024
Time Taken: ~4 Hours
Number of Players: 1
Difficulty: Variably Easy-Medium

Whilst my main, and perhaps only criticism of Crux Club’s previous puzzle book was that the theme of “rappers in the USA” wasn’t quite for me (I’m both too young, and too British to completely “get it”), Dark Tours’ theme absolutely 100% was for me. I’m a little goth girl at heart, and in fact, one of the locations featured in the book is just a 5 minute walk from my front door. And yes, before you ask, I fully intend to go and record a video of me reading that very chapter in that very graveyard, because why the heck not.

As a result, I’m extremely happy to see the creators behind Crux Club tackle a topic and a theme that really resonates with me. Put simply, the puzzles in the other books I’ve read by them have all been super enjoyable, and I refer back to them often as good examples of a specific type or style. This new addition to their catalogue is also so much more giftable – a fact I’m particularly excited for as I’ll be recommending this book to all my puzzle friends from now on.

So, without further ado, here’s what Dark Tours is all about…

A Grave Puzzle

Dark Tours is quite literally that – a tour. In this book you’ll be taken around to many infamous graveyards from all over the world in search of puzzles. At each graveyard, there’s a mystery to be solved. These ranged from figuring out why a spectral apparition might be found in a particular graveyard, to how to kill a certain vampire, or simply looking for a secret codeword to ‘progress’. Each one is themed around it’s relevant graveyard. If a graveyard is famous for ghosts, the puzzle is about those very ghosts, and so on. In this way the authors have done their research well and the book almost felt educational as well as entertaining.

For that reason, and for the theme of a book like this, there is a danger for the book to stray into uncomfortable territory. By this I mean it references real graves, real people, and if not handled appropriately could be problematic. I’m not the best writer to discuss this, since I’m not familiar with the rights and sensitivities of the dead – but I mention it in passing as a subtle trigger warning for anyone who may find the themes difficult.

But back to those ghostly and grave puzzles. Within this book, you can expect to find a range of styles. A few I recognised as being similar to ones from earlier Crux Club books, but plenty felt wholly original and delightful to puzzle through and figure out.

If at any point the player gets stuck, there’s a tiered hint and solution system available at the back of the book to reference. I found that over the course of the book I used a few hints, but rarely needed to check an answer. Sometimes it’s a little tricky to figure out precisely what you’re looking at or where to start, but once you’ve had that first nudge it’s usually a straightforward solve.

In this way, the book is quite nice to pick up and put down as you like. There’s no story linking each chapter together, it’s just a tour. In fact, you could ignore whole sections and skip right to the graveyards you like best, if you wanted. Your experience wouldn’t suffer for it in the slightest.

The Spookiest Book on my Puzzle Shelf

In terms of the quality of the book outside of the puzzles, I was also super pleased with this one. I believe (though this could be just my assumption) the book is printed on demand by Amazon. This means you can get it probably anywhere in the world quite quickly, but it also means it does have that Amazon-esque quality to it. It comes as a paperback in a slim volume. It is however the exact same size as the other two Crux Club books I own, so the three look quite nice together on the shelf.

One of the best things about the book however is the illustrations. I’m sure I’ve expressed this before with the other games from the same company, but they really hold nothing back when it comes to packing each and every page with absolutely gorgeous illustrations. No attention to detail is spared. In a world where I’m sick to death of puzzle companies using AI in their games, when a company takes the time to create human art, and renders it so beautifully too, I’ll shout about it from the rooftops. This book is a feast for the eyes. It’s gorgeous.

A final note on the book, I’m also beginning to think that after all the rhyming couplets from Puzzle Rap Star, that poems are Crux Club’s specific signature. On the first page of this book it opens with,

Where others avoid
We fearlessly tread
A curious desire
With no trace of dread

To see the unseen
To know the unknown
Beautiful decay
Among the bones

History, legend
Dusty stories call
In forlorn places
Mysteries to solve

Search the forgotten
Never look away
Far beyond the veil
The truth shines like day

If fear grips your heart
Do not turn the page
For the horrors faced
Will seal your grave

Let us explore

I’m fond of Crux Club’s poetry. I enjoy it, and it’s sweet… Even though it feels weird to describe something about death and decay as sweet. I was glad to see more poetry pop-up here, even in a small place.

The Verdict

I really enjoyed reading Dark Tours. I devoured the whole book in just 2 sittings. Well, maybe 3 if you count that I moved from one sofa to my bed to finish by bedside lamplight because I was enjoying the particular puzzles so much.

I’d recommend this book for the puzzle goth in anyone’s life… Puzzle Goth. Too specific? Well, just anyone who likes puzzles in that case. Because the puzzles are fun. The environment of graveyards and characters of ghosts, ghouls, and things that go bump in the night are just a bonus.

Crux Club’s books can be purchased via their website here.

We were not charged for our copy of Dark Tours, however this has not affected our review.