Escape Hunt: An Enola Holmes Adventure | Review

An Enola Holmes Adventure Review | The game is afoot! Players have the opportunity to join Enola Holmes’ new detective agency – if they can prove their skill as detectives of course. Individuals displaying intelligence, bravery, and a degree of cunning are highly desired for the post. Armed with only a map of London, a newspaper, and your wits, chase Enola investigating iconic locations including Covent Garden, Bond Street and 221b Baker Street.

Date Played: September 2020
Number of Players: 4
Difficulty: Easy
Time Taken: 30 minutes

A print at home game, with the added bonus of being accompanied by a brand new film, just released on Netflix. What’s not to love?! A escape room game and a movie – that’s my weekend sorted! 

So to give you a full insight into the story, your best bet is probably to watch the film first (its a great watch and will certainly get the pulses of escape room enthusiast racing!). The film certainly sets the scene and you will certainly understand why Netflix and Escape Hunt have collaborated on this project.  The game would still work really well standalone, but combined it hits all the right notes. When it comes to the print at home game story, this follows a similar vein, however you will need to track down Enola Holmes (the sister of Sherlock), who has left a trail of breadcrumbs throughout London. Track her down, and become part of her allusive detective gang. 

Didn’t Cost a Penny… Except for the Ink!

A real positive to this game is that it is absolutely FREE! Yep, didn’t cost a penny, except the cost of ink. Although it is a rather colourful, and should I say beautifully designed piece of work, there isn’t particularly a need to print if all off in colour.  So don’t worry about your pocket when downloading this!

Now, onto the puzzles. When watching the film in the first instance, it was very clear to see the way in which the puzzles would likely to pitched, and it certainly didn’t disappoint – a brilliant collection of cipher styles and word games, plus some great fun origami type challenges.

As print at home games go, I often find them overcomplicated or over-engineered, however this is not the case here. The team have found a great balance between being able to cater for the enthusiasts and first time gamers. There are no huge surprises in puzzle content, however this is actually a positive – its more of a “what you see is what you get” approach, where the simplicity of the puzzles is a real bonus – that’s not to say that you will find this a breeze that for sure.

(One particular origami challenge was passed to the wife to complete, as it beat me!)

In terms of clue systems, the download document includes a page of clues in which you have to use a mirror to read. A nice touch, which added to the detective style theme – we didn’t use them often however they do provide just the right amount of hint without ruining the game. Likewise, if you are completely stuck, there is a web address where you can check the answers. These explained the puzzles very well and also included video answers to demonstrate the trickier paper folding challenges! 

The games revolve around some key London areas, and solving the puzzles in the correct order moves you to your next location and its associated puzzles. The game builds into a crescendo, whereby everything you have already solved works into the final puzzle, therefore getting the correct locations in the correct order is certainly key! 

The Verdict

When all is said and done, this is certainly up there with my favourite print at home games. As ever, getting a real wow factor proves difficult, however the combination of the escape puzzles and an accompanying Netflix movie certainly goes a long way to fill that void. A great collection of beautifully designed puzzles, suitable for all, which hit a home run in my household. Get out your magnifying glass and check this one our for sure!   

An Enola Holmes Adventure was available as part of a promotion for the Netflix film in 2020.

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