Tread in the footsteps of Christian Stapleton, the explorer lost in the crypt many years ago. Find the clues and solve the puzzle of the crypt in order to escape.
Rating: Spooky
Completion Time: 60 minutes
Date Played: 1st August 2020
Party Size: 1
The Crypt by Escape Party reminded me that I should definitely put a cryptic puzzle that takes my ancestors years to solve on my tombstone. Perhaps the puzzle will send them on an epic treasure hunt that, after a long time searching, will lead them to my heirloom … A meme compilation video. ANYWAY … I’m getting off topic!
The Crypt is a fun little game that takes the traditional format of ‘rooms’. You find yourself locked in a mysterious crypt and as the door slams shut behind you, you must head further and further into the musty bowels of this long forgotten tomb. Along the way you’ll find the remains of your predecessor Christian Stapleton, an explorer that mysteriously went missing many years ago. But can you do better than him and find a way out?
It’s a super spooky and exciting game and goes an extra mile to be historically accurate and relevant. I enjoyed that a lot! Furthermore, at 24 pages long it’s got a lot of puzzles in it. I’ll be the first to admit that 60 minutes is quite a fast completion time, there’s probably enough in this game to keep you entertained for at least double that. It’s got a cipher puzzle or two, maze puzzles, cutting, folding and sorting puzzles. It also contains one of my all time favourites … A logic grid! Woohoo!
One of the most important things to highlight about The Crypt was how print friendly it is. As other escape room companies seem to be competing for the most elaborate (and printer ink heavy!) escape games, The Crypt was a breath of simplicity. The story and the game requires a lot of imagination. The designs aren’t complex, and why should they be? A great escape game should be able to stand on it’s own without super fancy graphics. The only real page that had a lot of black on it was the very last one (the Congratulations!) and even then my struggling printer didn’t blink twice at printing this in record time. It’s a nice touch – thank you!
The only thing I would highlight for any potential players of this game out there is that I found I needed a LOT of outside knowledge to be successful in The Crypt. At one end of the scale, that’s knowing how to translate Roman numerals. Easy peasy, or at least it was once I found an online translator. At the other end of the scale it’s knowing the difference between a Buckler, Targe and Heater shield or spot a specific type of helmet from an illustrated symbol of it. Oof … Tricky! But you bet I NOW know the difference, so I learned something new!
Overall, I had fun. I played this one solo as Player 2 was out and it seemed a great way to spend a sunny afternoon on the balcony with an iced tea, working my way through the pack. Very well done to Escape Party!
The Crypt can be purchased for £7 on Escape Party’s website.
