Santa’s Code Machine | Solve all the puzzles inside the card to decrypt Santa’s code, then use it to write your own hidden message before sending the card!
Date Played: November 2025
Time Taken: <1 hour
Difficulty: Medium
Number of Players: 1
Scarlet Envelope producing a brand new festive puzzle card is becoming the staple of the festive season. Alongside the John Lewis advert coming on TV and mince pies appearing in the supermarkets- sorry international readers, those are very specific UK references. So when the new Kickstarter campaign for their newest card launched earlier this week I was absolutely delighted. That’s this year’s cards sorted then.
Okay, okay so full disclosure – we were sent a copy ahead of the Kickstarter to play through and take a look at the puzzles. I played a version viewing the card from my PC screen. As such the final experience is likely to be quite different when you actually get to hold the card in your hand and receive it as a gift, but it absolutely lives up to the charm and quality of their previous puzzle cards. Since this is also a short review for a single short puzzle card, we won’t be giving it a star rating. Overall, we think this series is great! You can read all about our previous experience with earlier cards here if you want even more detail. And, once we have a physical copy in our hands, we’ll go back and amend that review to include our thoughts on the latest card.
But in the meantime, if you want to get ahead on Christmas 2025, look no further.
Santa’s Code Machine is the name of the latest card in the series, and it centres on a snoozing santa sitting in his armchair in the run-up to Christmas. The puzzle this time is cipher-based, though I shant give any more clues beyond that. It’s cipher solve is satisfying, and split across 6 unique puzzles hidden in the illustration. As always, these cards are gorgeously illustrated by Scarlet Envelope’s regular illustrator Tanya (oh__my__art), whose work can be seen in the company’s previous card series.
One of the coolest things about this card was that it’s in fact a double-gift. Meaning, not only do you the sender get to play and solve the puzzles, but you also get to encode your own message for your recipient to solve. And I guess in theory, they could encode a message for someone else, and so on. Though I doubt it’d get that far as I tend to write overly long messages in my Christmas cards, but I can picture this being a really cute chain-link message between a group of puzzle friends.
In terms of who I’d recommend this for, I’d say the puzzles err a little on the harder side so I probably wouldn’t recommend it for kids. Although, I’ve been surprised by my younger siblings out-puzzling me repeatedly! I’d recommend it for folks who enjoy puzzles, a solo player or small team around the Christmas tree would be perfect. Since it gives a good 30-60 minutes worth of puzzling, this also doubles as a lovely gift to receive and I can see this being a big hit.
If you’re a puzzle enthusiast, or know someone who is, don’t snooze on this card this festive season – it’s a real gem.
Santa’s Code Machine can be backed on Kickstarter currently, and all of their puzzle cards can be found for sale via their website here.
