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Lost Sock Studio: Escape from Mystwood Mansion | Review

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Escape from Mystwood Mansion| In this first-person puzzle escape room game, you are trapped in the mysterious Mystwood mansion. Explore the mansion and find hidden compartments while solving puzzles and deciphering codes to find a way out. Will you escape or linger to uncover the mansion’s final secret?

Developer: Lost Sock Studio
Date Played: September 2023
Console: Steam
Number of Players: 1
Time Taken: 100 minutes

I don’t know why but I get really excited when I see a new name or new game studio pop up in our little ‘escape room’ niche corner of the internet. So when I started hearing about Escape from Mystwood Mansion from the brand new studio “Lost Sock”, I was more than intrigued! Lost Sock are about as indie as it’s possible to get – they’re a game developer duo from Sweden and this is their first release. And, well, for a first release, I was super impressed! Tt’s polished, the puzzles satisfying, and it’s comfortable to play. It’s also very marketable. I mean, that spooky old mansion and launching right before Halloween, it’s *chefs kiss*.

But enough about the marketability of a game like Escape from Mystwood Mansion, and let’s get into the nitty gritty of why I enjoyed this game!

Deliver a Package to the Library or Face the Consequence

Escape from Mystwood Mansion opens with you, the protagonist, stepping out of your delivery truck with a package. You knock on the door, the door swings open, and very quickly you find yourself trapped. You are Test Subject Number 83, and it’s clear from the narrative of the game you’re not the first to be locked in by the house – nor will you be the last!

What follows is a classic escape room adventure as you move from room to room, solving puzzles, finding keys, cracking codes, and uncovering secret doors. Sometimes you’re breaking things too. I love breaking things.

At the very beginning, you’re given the instruction to “deliver the package to the library”. I actually never got to deliver the package to the library – I think I lost the package somewhere along the way, although I did (for a while) try to keep it with me. Whether this means I ‘won’ or not, I’m not sure, but I certainly escaped and so I’m calling my 110 minutes in the game a resounding success. I escaped from the library itself, as well as a lovely conservatory room, several secret (and slightly creepy) hidden passages, and the foyer.

Now, on my successful exit from Mystwood Mansion, I discovered a secret door that hinted that there were a few tiny details I had missed. At the time of writing, I’ve unlocked two out of the three secret locks to the secret room, and I’m thoroughly looking forward to going back and figuring out what is behind the mysterious final door. But for the meantime, the game is complete.

It’s very hard not to compare this game to Escape Simulator. Thematically, it’s quite similar to the Escape Simulator levels set in a spooky old mansion. The controls feel the same, the movement feels the same, and even a few puzzles are very similar. The game gives me the feeling of playing an Escape Simulator level, for example one from the vast wealth of community workshop escape rooms available on it’s platform. One of the most memorable puzzles in Escape Simulator was a ‘butterfly sequence’ puzzle in which you could move the butterflies around in order to complete the sequence. Now, sequence puzzles are common, but sequence puzzles specifically involving butterflies… Less so!

The View from the Butterfly Room

But for each ‘this is similar’ puzzle, there were countless others which were wholly original – so there’s a balance for sure. It also differs from Escape Simulator in a few marked ways. The levels are enormous, and each room rolls onto the other to build up a big picture of a large house. There’s an underlying story, and touches of light humour I really appreciated. Fans of Escape Simulator will love this.

Puzzling Through Mystwood Mansion

In terms of puzzles, I really enjoyed these. In fact, the puzzles were some of my favourite things in the whole experience. They really felt like escape room puzzles in the classic sense of the word. A few I recognised right away – there’s some pretty common ciphers in there, including Morse Code, Pigpen, as well as a few dashes of anamorphic text and negative space puzzles. But even then, there were plenty other puzzles I didn’t recognise at all and gave my brain a run for it’s money! Over the course of the game, I used very few hints – just a few to confirm what I already knew if something wasn’t working quite the way I expected.

Escape from Mystwood Mansion probably errs on the side of a little short for a game in the genre. For a seasoned escapist who wants to complete everything in the game, you’re looking at around 120 minutes. I took 110, with plenty of breaks, and didn’t quite complete everything. So let’s add on 30 minutes for “going back in and looking for hidden clues I missed”. To get 100% achievements, you’re probably looking at 3 hours. Each ‘room’ itself takes around half an hour to solve, so you’ve travelling through the game quite quickly.

I had almost no technical issues with the game. I say almost, because I did tweak the settings in order to make my playthrough slightly more comfortable (I like my mouse sensitivity as low as possible!), and secondly because I’m convinced that after searching a room top to bottom that a key item was missing – and needed to reset the level in order to find it in it’s place. Personally, I think the extra item disappeared into the ether. Knowing me I probably picked it up and moved it, but after a good 15 minutes of searching, I had no choice but to reset the room.

The Verdict

I’m giving Escape from Mystwood Mansion a solid 4.4/5. Yeah! That’s quite high, but I stand by it. I genuinely had fun playing the game. There’s been a big “escape room game” shaped hole in my life right now that nothing on Steam was quite scratching, and this game came along at the perfect time. It felt spooky, and cosy and exciting in all the right ways, and I felt the designers attention to detail was second to none. I’m also genuinely in awe that it’s the company’s first game. It had a really professional level of polish and I’m absolutely certain this game will be a success.

Is it perfect? No, of course not. But is it good? Yeah! It really is.

I’d recommend this game for just about anyone, but if you’re a big fan of physical escape rooms, this one is fantastic.

Please Note: We were offered a free Steam key in exchanged for an honest review. This does not affect the content of our review.

Escape from Mystwood Mansion can be downloaded from Steam.

Mysterious Package Company – Body of Evidence

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Body of Evidence Review | From the devious minds at the Mysterious Package Company comes a new type of game: Body of Evidence. Dissect the clues in this grisly web of deception and intrigue. Body of Evidence will test your skills of observation, pattern recognition, and will push players to the cutting edge of a detective investigation. A murder mystery experience, with a twist!

Date Played: August 2023
Time Taken: ~2 Hours
Difficulty: Easy
Number of Players: 2

Please Note: We received a complimentary, pre-launch copy of Body of Evidence with the expectation of a review. This does not affect the content of our review.

The Mysterious Package Company, a company based over in Canada and best known for the Curious Correspondence Club series, among other spookier experiences, recently gifted us an exclusive sneak peek of their new game ‘Body of Evidence’ which will soon be launching on Kickstarter! Although there are still a few production elements to finalise (such as the construction materials and some of the writing) this was a great insight to what we can expect from the finished product.

Photo provided by Mysterious Package Company

Unlike a traditional ‘murder mystery’, the premise of Body of Evidence is that it’s a murder mystery, but one you will primarily be solving via an autopsy of the victim. As well as your standard murder mystery evidence, such witness interviews, the victim’s belongings, maps of the location, and details about the crime scene – you benefit from being able to get your hands on and explore the physical body of the victim as well. As well as of course, your own knowledge.

To guide you through your autopsy of the victim, you have on hand a handy “Coroner’s Handbook” which helps you understand what you’re looking for and what this could mean. This Coroner’s Handbook is the meat of the puzzle part of the experience, as these guiding steps are smaller, bite-sized puzzles. I really enjoyed this aspect, and found it very unique and different to other games on the market in both the “murder mystery” and “tabletop puzzle game” genres. I felt very immersed, all the way noting down my observations and reading the information to understand the implications.

At various points your start to open up the body, and I was so impressed by the depth of detail they included, and the way this happens! But since this is the real ‘centrepiece’ of the experience, we’ll not put spoilers here and instead let you experience that part for yourselves.

Alongside the autopsy there are various other pieces of information to read through, including witness statements, call logs and sometimes seemingly irrelevant papers. These all did a fantastic job of painting a full story of the city of Thornhill, the restaurant where the murder itself takes place, and the various suspects that could be found in the case. Once I’d completed the game I looked at these again and noticed lots of small hints and features that made so much more sense once the killer was uncovered. But equally, as a lot of murder mysteries do quite well, were a lot of realistic red herrings and plot twists that didn’t contribute to the killer’s narrative. It all added together to make this a very layered experience.

My favourite ‘puzzle moment’ was creating a timeline from all the witness statements, trying to figure out who was lying and who was just misremembering. Again, the way the witness were fuzzy/vague on the timings felt very realistic and this was so much fun for me to sit down and puzzle through.

The case is solved at each stage via ‘Evidence cards’. Each folder contains two questions that you answer by drawing the correct cards from a deck – if the ‘red threads’ on the front of the cards match, your answer is correct. If not, you’ll have to go back and take a closer look at your deductions.

Eventually, you create a full timeline using these threads, which leads you directly to the killer. I thought this was a really fun and thematically suited mechanic, as well as providing a very clear signpost each time for what I was meant to be solving. As the case fell into place, my red threads connected throughout like building a gigantic murder board.

The overall experience took me around 2hrs, and I found it very enjoyable and unique. I only got stuck at one point, but I was able to move pass this without too much frustration and complete the game. A departure from the traditional murder mystery – Body of Evidence gives you a hands on experience as you explore the autopsy. The narrative pulls you in with red herrings and interesting plot twists that make this an amazingly layered experience. I really recommend backing this one!

Body of Evidence can be backed on Kickstarter in September 2023. If you’re reading this review later than then, head to Mysterious Package Company’s website to purchase.

Please Note: We received a complimentary copy of Body of Evidence with the expectation of a review. This does not affect the content of our review.

Scarlet Envelope: Holiday Greeting Cards | Review

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Scarlet Envelope Holiday Greeting Cards Review | Decipher Santa’s wish, solve multi-layered puzzles with Rudolf, THINK, and HAVE FUN!

Date Played: August 2023
Number of Players: 1
Time Taken: 20–30 minutes per card
Difficulty: Medium

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… 🎶

Okay, so here in the UK, it’s pretty warm right now… Something, something heatwave this, that and the other. But that won’t stop me from being excited about the coming festive season! And so, in true festive style, Scarlet Envelope have kicked off the season early with their launch of a new Kickstarter experience: Holiday Greeting Cards! For me, Christmas really is all about solving puzzles together. So it’s no understatement to say I was really excited to get my hands on these and get stuck in!

So, Christmas Cards and puzzles? What is this all about and how does it work?

Well, Scarlet Envelope’s new Kickstarter is for a suite of festive greeting cards. The cards are your traditional, beautifully illustrated festive scenes complete with wreaths, snow, and Santa Claus iconography (yes, I really did just say “Santa Claus Iconography”, haha). But, hidden inside each illustration, if you look really closely, are the puzzles! To guide you, inside each card is a poem. Most Christmas cards say something kitschy like “wishing you festive tidings for the year” and most people don’t even read them… But this poem instead provides subtly hinted clues as to where to start and what type of thing you’re looking for – whether that be a reindeer name, a secret message from a cat, or a sweet festive message. So pay close attention!

As puzzle games, they’re great! But as Christmas cards, they’re also gorgeous. So a pretty perfect gift for puzzle people and puzzle muggles alike! But how did we get on with them? Let’s get into it…

Santa’s Wish

Your goal is to decipher Santa’s New Year’s wish hidden in a cheerful Christmas poem (the four words right before “And Happy New Year!”.)

Santa’s Wish is Scarlet Envelope’s first ‘Holiday Puzzle Card’, which is probably why you may already recognise the design. They launched this puzzle game a few years ago, and it’s enjoyed some success since then.

On the front of this card is a festive scene of ‘the night before Christmas’, with a roaring fireplace and stack of presents beneath the tree. Inside the card is a lovely poem about Christmas. But again, look closely and it holds the clue to solving the puzzles within. At it’s core then, there are four ‘puzzles’ and each one is looking for a single word output in order to complete the final line of a rather festive and puzzle-y poem. The puzzles are ‘hidden’ across the front, the back, and inside the card itself. The puzzles ranged from quick wins, to “okay I need a hint“, but overall this game fell on the more straightforward side – at least compared to some very outside the box thinking on the later cards in the series.

It’s a cute one, and a good introduction to the ‘series’. A few trickier moments pushed me into the hints section – but mostly to figure out if I was on the right track, or get a small nudge in the right direction.

Rookie Reindeer

Ho ho ho, welcome to your puzzle card adventure! To start, notice how the poem inside the card tells you that Junior Reindeer is about to begin his new job in Santa’s team. Six reindeer coworkers made a team-building puzzle game for him, with the answer being his new cool stage name. You can see the empty name tag with six letters waiting for you to fill them in!

In the second of the three puzzle cards, we turn to Santa’s workshop! Here, the senior reindeer have decided to take the day off. They’ve had enough! They’re on strike! *gasp* Thankfully there’s another reindeer who is able to fill in on the big night, but all he needs to start his job is a cool name. Taking a letter from each reindeer’s name gives him his new name – but which names, and which order?

In this puzzle card, there were a few additional steps more than in Santa’s Wish. Essentially, more puzzles to find and solve – one for each letter. But overall, these puzzles felt shorter and snappier than those in Santa’s Wish, meaning both cards took more or less the same time to solve. Most were traditional puzzles, but some took a more “outside the box” approach to figuring out the solution.

Funnily enough, I fell onto one puzzle first, which I later saw in the hints was the ‘most difficult’. This worked well for me to get the ‘hardest puzzle’ over with before diving into slightly easier ones.

For me, this one had the illustration I liked the most. I can’t tell you exactly why, it was just so bright and colourful and fun to spot the well-hidden details. Of which there were many! Or perhaps it’s just that I love big moons (and I cannot lie). Either way, out of the three, this will be the one I’ll place at the front of my festive mantlepiece when December comes round.

Clawy Christmas

Alert, naughty kitty on the loose! This Christmas, Santa’s furry friend has decided to “redecorate” – lighting up the tree (literally), creating unique wall art with her claws, and snacking on tinsel like in an all-you-can-eat buffet. But why is this usually purr-fect kitty behaving so claw-fully? Can you figure out what will turn her back into the angelic furball she usually is? Dive into this hilariously cute adventure, and let the festive feline fun begin!

Last, but by no means least, is Scarlet Envelope’s most recent card named Clawy Christmas. This card features a rather mischievous cat! Imagine a beautiful home all ready for the holidays… Completely destroyed by the claws of a pesky kitty. Yeah. There’s a reason I’m more of a dog person. *shakes fist at fictional cat*. But paired with the scene of festive destruction is one of the cutest opening lines,

“Have all the holiday fun you can get away with”

Now, full disclaimer, I played this card just before the final artwork was finalised. So whilst I did have a tiny struggle – I realise that these minor qualms had already been addressed in the final art pass – which looks absolutely gorgeous I might say!

But that aside, these puzzles are certainly the most entry-level of the three. They’re well sign-posted, quick and easy solves, and involve fun interactions with the physicality of the shape of the card. There’s a playful narrative about the cat woven throughout the puzzles that culminates in a festive twist too. In all, I’d probably recommend this one more for an audience including kids and families – perhaps one for non-puzzle people to dip their toes into before jumping into the other two in the series.

Out of the three, this one was also my favourite, if that helps sway your opinions! 😉

The Verdict

One of my favourite things about all three cards – apart from the puzzles of course, was how lovingly illustrated they are. Although I played in August, each one felt fuzzy and warm and cosy as heck. I cannot stress enough how cute these are – even for non puzzle people. If these cards had zero puzzles inside them, I’d still love to buy some for friends and family because of how lovely they look on the mantlepiece. It really helps having a mix of fun puzzles, backed up by lovely illustrations. A round of applause for these!

But back to the puzzles… In some ways, having a little date stamp on the back reminding mewhich one was designed in 2020, which in 2022, and which now in 2023 was like a time capsule into Scarlet Envelope’s history. I am a really big fan of Scarlet Envelope. Not just as incredibly lovely and generous people, but also as talented puzzle designers and game creators. They’ve made one of my favourite games ever, and over the years they’ve made better and better games and puzzles. The way I played all three cards (in chronological order) reminded me of this, and it was like tracking a designer’s skill increasing over time.

So the verdict is, we love them! I would recommend these puzzle cards for just about anyone. They lean towards an easier puzzling-level, with a few real head-scratchers. They’d probably be appropriate for a particularly smart child, but as with all things Christmas, you’ll probably get the most out of them if you sit around with family and solve them together.

At the moment the Scarlet Envelope team is Kickstarting the three cards, so now is an excellent time to go ahead and back them if you want to see these (and I hope more in the future) come to life and made available to the general public.

If you want to purchase your own Puzzle Christmas Cards, you can back these directly on Kickstarter here. If you’re reading this after the Kickstarter has concluded, you should be able to find them directly on Scarlet Envelope’s website here.

Please Note: We were sent a complimentary preview copy of the Puzzle Christmas Cards. This does not affect the contents of our review.
Photos in this review are taken by us at The Escape Roomer. Please don’t use without permission! 🙂

BreakInBox: Blue & Black | Review

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BreakInBox Review | Three locked boxes one inside the other. Breakinbox Challenges weave together versatile knowledge worlds making the solution a complex unique experience.

Date Played: July 2023
Number of Players: 3
Time Taken: ~20 – ~60 minutes
Difficulty: Easy-Medium

I always get extra excited when I received puzzle games from far flung countries around the world, and Israel is a new one for me… Well, I’ve played a digital game or two from there – but never a physical one. How exciting! So when not one but two boxes from BreakInBox showed up, I couldn’t wait to get my regular group of puzzlers over to try something a little different.

BreakInBox is a company who specialises in perhaps the ‘purest’ form of tabletop puzzle games. They are quite literally locked boxes. Yep, you read that right. A cube with a padlock. Inside that locked cube is another cube with another padlock. You’ll never guess what’s inside that one: Another cube… With another padlock! In this way, you progress through a Matryoshka Doll- style experience, unlocking three layers of unique puzzles. Whilst each layer is locked with a padlock, the puzzles themselves are found printed on all the sides of each box. In this way, you’re encouraged to pick up and manipulate the boxes in your hands – turning them over and examining each one closely.

We played through two of the games available:

The Blue Box
The Black Box

As such, we’ll be writing about both in this review. There are some generalisations between the two, and there were some major differences. For example one of the boxes had more linear puzzles – one meant to be completed after another. The other on the other hand had much standalone puzzles that the three of us could tackle simultaneously. Similarly, one of them involved a unique sound puzzle – and the other had you send an email, which was exciting.

When the website explained the difficulty levels – they weren’t wrong. Blue is meant to be much easier, for beginner puzzlers, and black is meant to be a real head-scratcher. And yep, that’s absolutely right. We breezed through blue in around 20 minutes. Black on the other hand took all three of our collective brain power working together (and a clue or two) to crack the codes!

So, without further adieu, lets get into it:

The Blue Box

We played ‘The Blue Box’ over an evening and a couple of beers. It was sandwiched between a few other puzzle games, and it provided a very welcome break with some lighter, intuitive puzzling. In all, the Blue Box took us around 20 minutes. We think it would take the average puzzler around 30 minutes – but as mentioned, we erred on the side of “working simultaneously on all puzzles” where we could.

As such, it definitely felt more entry-level, but in a satisfying way with some particularly creative puzzles I always enjoy seeing in tabletop games like this.

The puzzles required the use of the internet. In particular, this box asks you to send an email in order to receive your next step digitally. In another way, the game also required the internet as there’s some pretty niche trivia knowledge needed – but thankfully there’s no rule against not Googling things. Unless you’re an absolute pub quiz boffin, it’s good to have your phone nearby to check some obscure detail or two.

The Black Box

We were so confident after playing the Blue Box we were all like “ahaha, this’ll be a breeze”. Oh how wrong we were. The creator, Avi, wasn’t wrong when he said to play the Black Box second because it’s significantly harder. But with the added difficulty, came the added fun. Of the two, we really, really enjoyed the second one. Each puzzle felt like a real mental workout.

In particular, I really enjoyed this game’s use of the internet. There was a fun sound-puzzle, and several puzzles which required us to absolutely scour Google Maps for very hard to find details! There was a nod to the UK we found particularly charming. But in general, it was the fact this box had so many satisfying ‘aha moments’ that scratched the itch of the kind of puzzles we love playing. As a team of three, we find ourselves taking part in a lot of online puzzle hunts, and this felt like a self-contained version of one of those – and well clued at that too.

Both Boxes

In both experiences, there isn’t so much of a “story”, other than “here’s a mysterious box, good luck”. As such, even the puzzles felt “pure” in a way I can’t quite describe in any other way. They’re like puzzle-hunt puzzles – the best versions of themselves, without being held back with the need to fit into context. For me, the puzzles were the best thing about both experiences, and I almost think there’s a certain charm to the fact they haven’t gone for story-heavy. There’s no right or wrong answer, but since The Escape Roomer always consider the story and narrative, it has to be mentioned.

In terms of quality, BreakInBoxes are simply made – with the most ‘high tech’ things being the user interface on the internet, and the three-digit locks that close the boxes. Otherwise these boxes are light-weight, and simply built, with simple graphics and colours. They’ve taken the phrase “Less is More” to heart, but in a way that feels true to their brand.

In both experiences, we also received a little bonus treat at the heart of the three boxes – the less I say about this the better! But it was super fun finally getting through to the ‘finish line’ and finding something fun waiting there. In this way, I think BreakInBox has a unique edge in the market in that it’s fully resettable and replayable – but better than that, because if you planned to gift this on to someone else you could put whatever you want inside the box. You could fill it with sweets, or a prize, or even a birthday gift..! Cute!

Last but not least, in terms of value, this one is a little harder to quantify. It’s another thing we always consider at The Escape Roomer. BreakInBox is based in Israel, but they have a shop listed in USD for international customers. Each box is around $35 USD, so about £30. Shipping comes in at $13.80, making the whole cost of a single box just under £40. Now, this is a little steep – but given the *gestures vaguely at the world* current cost of living crisis, it tracks about “what these things just cost these days”. We had a lot of fun with the two boxes we played. But did we have £40 x 2 fun? Well, I’m not sure… Maybe? Perhaps?

The Verdict

The verdict? We did have a lot of fun playing this one. The Black Box slightly more than the Blue Box, but there isn’t too much difference in it – both games are good for their respective audiences, and I commend the designers for creating such an experience like this. It’s probably slightly more expensive compared to a few other comparable games, but the puzzles are delightful and unique in their application, so I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. In particular, the Blue Box would be great for a younger / less experienced audience. The Black Box is for more hardcore puzzlers who want a real challenge! I haven’t yet played the others in the series, but I imagine they’re well placed on the scale between these two.

The BreakInBox set can be purchased by heading directly to BreakInBox’s website here. The Escape Roomer readers may also use the code: TheER23 to receive $5 off their order.

We were not charged for our games, but this does not affect the content of our review.

Mystery Guides: The Midnight Body Snatcher (Edinburgh) | Review

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Old Town Edinburgh Treasure Hunt Review| In 1695, Edinburgh’s Old Town was haunted by a mysterious grave robber known as the ‘Midnight Body Snatcher’, who when supply ran out.. turned his hand to murder!

Date Played: July 2023
Time Taken: 3 Hours
Number of Players: 2
Difficulty: Easy

Here at the Escape Roomer we all kinda have that one thing we write about “the most”. For example, I actually don’t write about (or play) nearly as many escape rooms as my co-writers. But what I do obsessively play are outdoor puzzle trails. The moment I spot a new one on the market, come rain or shine I’m out there with a pen and paper ready to explore. There’s just something so much fun about combining puzzles with exploring an urban space. You get to see things in a new light, you learn historical facts, and you get a pretty fun work out too…

*cough cough*

…Well, this particular trail gave me quite literally the work out of my entire life. But even that was kind of cool in itself!

So when I heard about Mystery Guides, I had to get my hands on one. They sounded absolutely awesome. And you know what? They were! But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the start.

So, what are Mystery Guides all about?

Mystery Guides is a company based out of Portsmouth. They’ve got that small, independent feel, and you can tell the creator really loves what he does. Fast forward a few years from their foundation and now Mystery Trails has setup popular trails in many, if not most major cities around the UK. Luckily for me, one of those trails is in Edinburgh.

The format of a Mystery Guide is fairly straightforward. With your order you’ll receive a physical, printed clue book. These books are lovingly illustrated and come packed with puzzles that guide you around the city. With each new puzzle section, there’s a snippet of map showing you where to go next, the actual clue to be solved, and then a snippet of story. In our case, this was in the form of diary entries. Many clues also had local information about the history of the area, or useful tidbits about local businesses / street names / and fun facts.

The games are very much intended for single-use, as you’ll need to write all over them to solve the puzzles.

The Midnight Body Snatcher

In our case, the Old Town Edinburgh Treasure Hunt was a story about “The Midnight Body Snatcher”. Set in the cold winter of 1695 where the streets of the city were gripped by tales of a shadowy body snatcher. In true Burke and Hare fashion, we were hot on the heels of a body snatcher trying to figure out exactly who they are thanks to environmental clues.

I say “hot on the heels”, but what I actually mean was that we were playing in 2023. A new piece of evidence in the 300 year cold case has proven to be the key we need to figuring out who the body snatcher was. The fact he’s probably been dead for centuries didn’t detract from the real sense of urgency to solve the case. And for that, it was a lot of fun.

In terms of gameplay, the Midnight Body Snatcher sort of plays out like a logic grid. Well, sort of anyway. There isn’t too much ‘logic grid’ to it, but the idea is there are:

Five suspects
Five symbols
Five colours
Five items of jewellery

And with each puzzle solved you can eliminate one of these. The puzzles were a mix of more well known puzzle styles, and ones that were totally unique to the environment. But, in most cases we arrived at a landmark and had to use the physicality of the landmark to solve. Sometimes that meant looking at a plaque, other times it meant counting the letters, or getting up close and personal with a particular landmark to try to find a hidden detail on it.

At first I was a little surprised the categories of “symbol” and “jewellery” felt… Well… Quite random. But then as we neared the finale it all fell into place beautifully with the local history, in a satisfying and fun climax.

Puzzling around Edinburgh City

I played this game in a team of two with my co-writer Rebecca. The game arrived, and no sooner than it did we made a plan to play together on the next Sunday. The fact the weather forecast said it was due to rain all day almost put a dampener on our plans – but not quite. Because it turned out the weather forecast was completely and utterly wrong, as it was a beautiful sunny day. So sunny, we even stopped for ice cream!

If we had just one criticism about the whole experience, it would have more to do with the city than the game, and that was: THE HILLS. I’m writing this review days later and my calves are still aching. Yes, yes, Edinburgh is a hilly city. I live here and I’ve made my peace with it. But The Midnight Body Snatcher took us up and down and up and down and up and down. The whole thing takes place within a fairly small “central city” area. The beautiful old town around the Royal Mile. We began at the Royal Mile, then went up, then down, then back up to the Royal Mile, then back down the other side, then back up the Royal Mile. It’s a good job I don’t skip leg days at the gym.

But one of the good things about Mystery Guides is that the experience is entirely self-led. If you need to take a break, you can. In fact, our trail offered three opportunities to take a break in pub stops.

The Verdict: Mystery Guides Edinburgh

We really enjoyed Mystery Guides’ Edinburgh Trail. There’s fewer pleasures in life than spending time in the sunshine with a friend.

We’d in particular recommend it for families – it struck just the right balance of educational vs fun in an almost Horrible Histories style, and we felt the style of puzzles that pushed us to search about the physical environment would go down a hit with a younger audience. We would also recommend setting aside a full day for this. It does recommend around 3 hours to finish, but there’s so much to see and so many wonderful places you might want to stop and stay a while in. Plus that will definitely break up the hill-climbing!

The Old Town Edinburgh Treasure Hunt can be purchased from Mystery Guides website here.

Note, we were not charged for our experience but this does not affect our review in the slightest.

Search Party: Chaos at the Park | Review

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Search Party: Chaos at the Park Review | Come one, come all, to the wild amusement park filled with havoc, crazy characters, and mysteries to solve! It’s up to you to create some calm in all the chaos – and fast! Search Party is a 3D search-and-find adventure game. Solve missions, find important objects, uncover motives, and more.

Number of Players: 3
Date Played: June 2023
Time Taken: 1 hour
Difficulty: Easy

Search Party is a new brand of board game experience from the creators of the popular party game: What Do You Meme. I say a ‘new brand’, because there’s nothing else quite like it in their catalogue. And, judging by how they explain the game in the instructions, I doubt this will be the last. The format is very repeatable, and I have a sneaky suspicion there are more “Search Party” games to come.

It is therefore a compelling first venture into the search-and-find genre. The theme, a sprawling and three dimensional circus park is an excellent place to explore a chaotic scene filled with weird and wonderful characters. Throughout the park are various scenes – there are three grandmas who have been shrunk down and can’t get on the roller coaster, there’s zombie on the loose, there’s a witch who crashes into another mid-air and all her belongings are scattered across the park. You get the gist. Big board, lots of things to find, and lots of missions to complete!

Pop-Up Funfairs & Other Shenanigans

The first and most important thing to say about Chaos at the Park is how visually impressive it is. Seriously! Before I’d even played it I knew this would be something special, and so I saved it for a day where I could sit around with a group of friends really getting into the nitty gritty of it. I also was so enamoured by the game, that I paused a work meeting in order to talk about this “very cool thing” I got in the post, and unfold the board to show them. We do a lot of work in the pop-up world, you see, but nothing quite as cool as this!

So all that to say, our group was very impressed by the moment of unfolding the board, laying it out over our table, and watching as the world literally popped up in front of us. A sprawling rollercoaster packed with park-goers, a big wheel, and the pop-up entrance to the park complete with it’s stripey awning. This game looks COOL.

Puzzles and Pop-Up Parks

The second important thing is therefore to mention the puzzles. With your board game you receive 15 missions spread over 83 cards. The missions are brightly coloured and look absolutely adorable all stacked up together in the box. Each of these missions has a ‘start point’ and then a series of questions the players need to answer to progress through the game.

For example: to begin you might be asked to find a clown. Then you’ll be asked where this clown came from – who are they, what they were doing and so on The activities in the park roll backwards in time, meaning as you trace someone’s path you’ll be able to follow where they came from and see them in steps. Since the whole board is only 50 x 50 cm, it was never too difficult to find what we were looking for in any case. Of course, the game is 3D however, so things got very interesting when the clues we were looking for weren’t on the ground but… Up in the air!

If you finish all of these, there’s a bonus booklet which has a whole host of strange things to find around the park. A refrigerator, a tiger, a pair of frogs. Little easter eggs and odd people doing odd little things. These added some amusing moments of bonus gameplay which you can take or leave as you like. I enjoyed these – although most of them I finished solo, long after my co-players had gone home for the evening.

In terms of the difficulty, this is where I think the game falters a little – it is quite easy. But I fully admit that these puzzles are aimed more at a family, children audience than at me. In our team of three, we had a mix of players with differing experience levels, but we were all familiar with games in the genre and knew what to do and how to do it. Each mission took us no more than 5 minutes to complete, making for a speedy and satisfying whiz through the game.

In all, I think a game like this is best played with younger children, with one or two adults gently guiding them through the experience.

Where’s Wally Meets Micro Macro Crime City

So, lets address the elephant in the room: Search Party is essentially the same as Micro Macro Crime City. And that’s okay… Maybe? In fact, we didn’t need to read the rules because we were all so familiar with Micro Macro, we got the gist of this one immediately. But lets not dwell on the similarities, lets instead point out the differences:

Search Party is a 3D game, meaning you don’t just need to look top-down but you also look at the things ‘popping out’ of the playing board to find clues there.
Search Party is also family friendly… There’s no murder and crime here
Search Party also had an added bonus of a manual filled with fun ‘extra’ things to find and tick off. Kind of like those old Where’s Wally Books have a few pages at the end with cryptic clues of bonus things to find in each world. So does Search Party.

In these ways, Search Party brings something a little new than what Micro Macro offers. It’s a version of the genre that I’d be comfortable playing with my younger sibling or children in my friends/family group who can’t play Micro Macro due to all of the… Well… Slightly horrifying crime!

Somewhere in this there’s a conversation about copyright and ethics – for example, how close is a board game to another board game before it feels uncomfortable? I’m not a board game expert, I’m an escape room person, so I can’t really comment – but it is worth throwing it out there. Search Party is very, very similar. Therefore if Micro Macro isn’t right for you for any reason, and you want something more family focused, brighter, and a little sillier – this would make an excellent alternative.

The Verdict

Honestly? I did really enjoy the game! So did my co-players. We went in with absolutely no expectations – at the time of writing the game is very, very brand new and so there’s not much content available. So we weren’t sure, but we were ready to give it our all. The strengths of the game are absolutely in it’s presentation. It’s gorgeous. I love 3D environments and a 3D theme park is brilliant in it’s presentation and execution. It’s the kind of game you want to have out on display all year round.

The puzzles were a little too easy for our group, and as such we’d probably recommend this for a more family audience. I have the fondest memories of playing Where’s Wally as a child, pouring over the pages of a book, and this game took me right back. If you have kids and those kids enjoy Where’s Wally, then get them on this game right away, they’ll adore it for sure.

The only real negative was that we felt ever so slightly uncomfortable at how similar the game was to Micro Macro – but none of us felt like we really knew the board game landscape or genre well enough to comment. For all I know, there’s thousands of games just like this out there, but we’ve only come across Micro Macro. Who knows. It’s just tricky not to compare the two, and it’s even harder to compete with a game like Micro Macro which is world famous and has won countless awards. But I commend the creators for putting their own spin on the genre and making something refreshing and fun.

Search Party: Chaos at the Park can be purchased by heading to What Do You Meme’s website here.

Note: We were sent a complimentary copy of Chaos at the Park for review purposes, but this does not affect our review.

George Wylesol: 2120 | Review

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George Wylesol 2120 Review | You’re Wade, a schlubby middle-aged computer repairman, sent to fix a computer in a vacant, nondescript office building. When you get inside the door locks behind you, and you can’t get out. Now the adventure begins! You have to explore this building and try to find your way home. The building is huge on the inside with a lot of sprawling hallways and empty rooms but your only hope is to uncover clues and try to work out the mystery this whole experience hangs on.

Date Played: June 2023
Time Taken: 3 Hours
Number of Players: 1
Difficulty: Hard

Wait, hold on a minute… Is that… Is that Avery Hill Publishing?

A couple of days ago I spotted a review on my friends Room Escape Artist’s website for a book by none other than one of my favourite authors at my absolute all time favourite publishing house. Is it strange to have a favourite publishing house? Maybe. But I’ve backed just about every Kickstarter they’ve ever run, and any time anyone gives me money and tells me to treat myself, I head immediately to Avery Hill’s website. I don’t know why this started, and I’m not like this with any other publishing house. It’s just whatever they publish I know I’ll love. I haven’t disliked a single book they’ve produced, and that’s cool.

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. This isn’t’ about Avery Hill, this is about George Wylesol’s 2120. My love for Wylesol started way back with Internet Crusader – a book I’m proud to say isn’t just on my shelf, but is now also on the shelves of most of my good friends too. According to Wylesol’s website, Internet Crusader is:

“full-length graphic novel telling the story of a doomsday cult and the fight against the literal devil, told through collages of chat windows, video games, and other early web design.”

I… LOVE IT.

So when I found out 2120 had come out via spotting a review on REA, I did a double take. Not just a new book, but a new book literally packed with puzzles. Sign me the heck up.

What is 2120?

And why am I writing about it on The Escape Roomer?

Well, I would describe it as a choose-your-own-adventure escape room in a book. Yes, it’s a graphic novel, but one you don’t get the luxury of reading left to right. No, you have to choose your path carefully and many of those paths will be blocked by puzzles. Fiendishly difficult and sometimes slightly obtuse puzzles… But hey, I’ll take puzzles in books wherever I can take them.

The story of this experience puts the reader in the shoes of a computer repair technician called Wade. You show up at the mysteriously vacant office building at 2120 Macmillan Drive and, after stepping in, you find the door locks suddenly behind you. You have no choice but to venture further into this building. But where on Earth are all the computers?

What follows are pages and pages of wandering around a labyrinth of non-descript office corridors. Occasionally you come across untold manmade horrors, but more often you just find locked doors. Sometimes these locked doors have padlocks on them. Yay! Sometimes they just stay locked. Boo!

It’s like if House of Leaves had a baby with a graphic novel, and also the year is 1999. From the plastic yellow, to the sinister shadows just out of the corner of your eye, to the building that just seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger… It’s a true horror. Chilling and disconcerting and definitely not one to ‘read’ right before bedtime unless you enjoy trippy nightmares about faded carpets and strange cupboards with strange blurry photographs inside them. For some reason the book made me feel like I was reliving the Y2K bug, like some unspeakable technological nightmare awaited me on the next page. But no, it’s just a book. But good books should make you feel things right? This one gave me all the feels.

Okay, I get it, but you’re not selling it…

If you don’t like horror, this might not be for you. But if you like innovation, outside the box thinking, and wacky surrealism, then this is definitely for you.

I don’t want to describe it in too much detail, because I found that going in with almost no expectations was the best way to approach it. It made each new puzzling twist and each new reveal as I turned a new corner even more surprising. The book does a good job at avoiding spoilers – unless you go looking for them really hard, usually the next page you need to flick to to progress is within easy reach, meaning you don’t have to go walkabout too far. So in true nature of not spoiling it for you, I’ll leave it at that.

Although I was itching to complete the experience – the very weekend after 2120 arrived, I had friends staying with me. One of them made the mistake of asking “what I was currently playing”. Expecting me to launch into an excited discussion about video games, I shook my head and grabbed 2120 by George Wylesol and opened it up to one of the many bookmarked pages:

“I’m playing this book right now”

I wasn’t expecting much, except that everyone started to gather round and make helpful suggestions as we flicked through-

“Hey, go through that door” and “What’s this? How do we solve this?”

It’s safe to say, 2120 has been a hit with pretty much everyone I’ve shown the book to so far, even in passing. I’m proud to have it on my shelf. So even if it doesn’t initially look like something you’d be interested in, I’d implore you to reconsider and give it a go.

Choose Your Own Nightmare

In terms of the gameplay, since it’s choose-your-own adventure, it’s no surprise there’s an element of choice. However on successfully completing the book, I flicked back through and found that most (if not all) of the paths I’d already found. Since there are so many puzzles in the experience, I often found myself pausing and then retracing my steps to find a doorway I didn’t go through, or a cross-roads at the end of a long dingy corridor where I could try taking the other path. Eventually, the book allows you to loop around and come back to where you started in a seamless way, if you want to go back and rediscover more. In this way, although there are some alternate endings the player can stumble across, I did get the impression I’d “completed” the game by the time I finally put it down. But I’m not sure if “complete” is really the right word with an experience like this.

Like, did I complete the game, or did the game complete me?

But it worked so well. 2120 definitely encourages the player to be exploratory. Often the solutions for the puzzles the player encounters can only be solved by taking meticulous notes and by retracing their steps to re-examine something that seemed innocuous earlier but turns out to be central later.

The feeling the book manages to evoke is definitely that of early 90s computer games. Not just the strange, blocky illustration style, but also the text and the way you feel as if you’ve “clicked on something” every time you go to look at something closer up. In that case, it was possibly missing an inventory system, especially to collect clues as you go – though how an author could pull that off, I do not know.

Overall, I did find the puzzles erred on the side of difficult. I’m not shy for a puzzle or two, but more times than not I found myself putting down the book in frustration, or aimlessly flicking back through the pages I’d already consumed in annoyance. More than once I ‘cheated’ to get ahead – having found part of a solution but being entirely unable to find the remaining part, I made some educated guesses about where the book wanted me to go, and found those to be correct. But this may just have more to do with my own expectations of ‘reading a book’ and wanting to hurry on with the story, than any particular flaw with the puzzles. It’s an interesting medium, and the author used it to a fantastic degree, so I can’t fault them for that.

2120: The Verdict

Maybe I’m just not as used to booked like this – the usual “escape rooms” I consume are the physical or tabletop kind. But I was seriously impressed by 2120. I’m less used to experiencing my escape rooms in book format, but I enjoyed it. A lot. I hope this kind of book becomes more popular, and more puzzle designers consider it as a medium for telling interesting stories and sewing the seeds of interesting puzzles.

For this reason, the verdict is very simple – we adored this book, and we think George Wylesol is a playful genius when it comes to creating visual experiences.

Who do we recommend this for? Everyone, and no-one at the same time. This book is for you, and it’s also probably not for you. I don’t make the rules.

2120 can be purchased directly from the publisher by heading to this link.

We were sent a complimentary copy of 2120, but this doesn’t affect our review in any way whatsoever!

February Scissors: Reflection VR | Review

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Reflection is a Chinese VR puzzle game. The puzzle is innovative and unique. Players will challenge a multi-dimensional space created by the mirror, and use mirrors to solve puzzles by manipulating the world in mirror and enter it. Puzzles including Logic, Physics, Space, Time and so on.

Developer: February Scissors
Date Played: June 2023
Console: Oculus
Number of Players: 1
Time Taken: 3 hours

I first heard about Reflection back when it released on Steam in September 2022. At the time, I was dying to play it. But for some reason (and I’m still not sure why) my VR headset just doesn’t vibe with Steam. So unfortunately I had to wait until June 2023 to finally get my hands on a copy – and it was well worth the wait!

In truth, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from February Scissors’ new game, Reflection. They’re a very small, indie games development company out of China. I’m not overly familiar with Chinese puzzle games – I’ve never played any escape rooms (physical or digital) or even any Chinese tabletop games. I suppose this has a lot to do with the language barrier – but also that China has such a booming puzzle game market there’s almost no need to translate and export. Except this is why Reflection is so cool – it doesn’t use language in any way. Besides the occasional prompt on my VR headset to ‘pick up an item’, I don’t think a single word was uttered by any of the ‘characters’. Sure, there were plenty of landscape items with Chinese letters dotted around in the environment – carved into stone or on lanterns, but none of this needed to be translated. In a similar way, a lot of the communication in this game is done visually – you’re exploring temples, with mountains rising out of the mist around you. Everything felt intuitive – walking around, picking up objects, waving them and moving them around. It’s languageless, and yet I still feel like I understand the story that went into it.

A Reflective Genius

The concept is simple: Reflection is a puzzle game where you use mirrors to manipulate the physical world around you. The game begins fairly straightforward – although I’m embarrassed to admit that I found even the earliest levels in the game tricky enough as they were. Quickly though, as new mechanics are introduced, the game becomes more difficult. At some point I even found myself shifting gravity and dropping objects in a throwback to the video game Portal.

In all there are seven distinction sections of the game, each introducing a new mechanic and adding to the complexity. The first few are about mirrors, the third introduces the ability to change paintings around you, the fourth bends space and the fifth takes that even further by allowing you to flip the whole world upside down, in the sixth you play with the butterfly effect, and finally you can manipulate time. Pretty powerful for little old me, huh.

Is it difficult? Honestly? Yeah! I’m so used to puzzles that conform to the laws of physics that being placed into VR and told I can manipulate everything was hard. But it wasn’t insurmountably hard, and after a little pushing and pulling the edges of reality usually the puzzles slotted into place.

VR: Is it Comfortable?

If it weren’t already clear, Reflection is also a VR game, so rather than clicking a mouse, if you want to manipulate something – such as picking up an object or moving a mirror, you’ll do so in physical space around you. I played on my Oculus Quest 2, but I believe it’s also available on other VR headsets. In terms of controls and motion, I found it quite easy to use and fairly intuitive. When you’re holding a special lantern you can point and click to ‘teleport’ to any location. There’s quite a bit of turning your head around and stretching to look at something, but otherwise quite comfortable. That said, at some point I passed my headset to my partner – there was a really fun bow-and-arrow moment I wanted them to try – and being less familiar with VR, they said they found it gave them a slight bit of motion sickness. With that I’d probably rate it about 2/5 on the “this might make you feel ill” scale, with a VR rollercoaster at 5, and something like The Room (where you’re in a fixed position always) at 1.

With Reflection, you can jump in and out whenever you like. It’s broken up into mini-chapters, and whenever I left and came back it autosaved and took me back to the start of the mini-chapter I was on. So in general, I played this game in very short bursts – just a few levels at a time. On my lunch break, before I started work, whilst I waited for my partner to make us some lunch. For me, this felt like the perfect way to play it – in bitesized, satisfying puzzle pieces.

Reflection VR: The Verdict

I really enjoyed Reflection. We’re currently in this period of time where there aren’t a lot of exciting puzzle games out on the Oculus store (cue some angry people yelling in the background that there are). But all that to say, Reflection launched on Oculus at the perfect time where I was in limbo for a good puzzle VR game. It scratched that itch and gave me a thoroughly enjoyable couple of days of puzzle solving fun.

I’d recommend this game for anyone who wants something a little more gentle, relaxing, and slow-paced.

Reflection can be played on Oculus, or Steam. We played on Oculus!

We weren’t charged for the game but this does not influence our review in any way!

Gourmaze: The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes | Review

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The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes Review: Super computer G.P.S. has travelled back in time to better understand humans and find the missing data that’s causing it to glitch! You and your team of space cadets have been called upon to find this data on a journey through Space & Time. Along the way you will travel to different eras… expect to devour delicious pizza with the Romans, sip spectacular cocktails with movie stars & indulge on a sweet dessert in the Seventies. Buckle up and prepare yourself for an epic adventure!

Date Played: 6th June 2023
Time Taken: 47:45
Number of Players: 4
Difficulty: Easy
Location: Mayfair, London

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. Puzzles AND FOOD?! Sign me the heck up. Gourmaze is just about one of the most unique things you can do in the capital city. It’s the quintessential good vibes, special occasion, summer activity- and no, I’m not just saying that because I seem to always book and play Gourmaze on my birthday.

Team The Escape Roomer is on the quest!

The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes starts in a cute little pub in Mayfair – perfect for having a quick drink in before you get started on your mission. Like with many “outdoor puzzle hunts”, clues are delivered via a back and forth on your mobile device. In this case, Whatsapp. Every member of the team gets a link, joins the party, and when you’re all ready you type START to begin your delicious time travelling quest.

Gourmaze: Food Thats Outta This World

The story of the Time Traveller’s Space Bytes is fairly simple and fun. You’re guided by a robot called G.P.S. whose goal is to understand humans and what makes them tick. Unfortunately their data is incomplete, which is where you come in. You and your robot companion over the course of two, maybe three hours (if you eat slowly) must journey through the worlds of TV and film trivia, the musical world, religion, and of course food and drink. All the things that make the world turn round – and they can all be found here in London.

Our first clue arrived!

Unfortunately my player 2 and I had since moved out of London up to Edinburgh, and there’s absolutely nothing like this up north. So it was really nice returning to the capital and seeing how everything had changed. Over the course of our walk, we learned new things about our city, saw some seriously cool new streets and perhaps most importantly – discovered some new favourite places to eat and drink. As I write this, I’m back in Edinburgh and already missing the delicious smells and bustling hubub of some of the places our puzzle trail took us. How soon until I can come back to London and go back to all those places? The pizza is calling me!

Pizza is Calling, The Escape Roomer Answers

Gourmaze has been going for some time now and at the time of writing they have three puzzle trails available. One is themed around desserts, the other about Asian food. This one is all about pizza. My favourite! In terms of food it did not disappoint. In this review, we’re not allowed to disclose where the locations are – which is fair – the puzzles are all about actually finding them and saying the secret code to your waiter in order to get your food. We wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. So instead of giving away their locations, I’ll just describe the food instead:

Our first stop – pizza!

Our first stop, piping hot and extra cheesy pizza in an absolutely gorgeous building. Probably the least likely building I would ever expect to find pizza in. But there it was, waiting to be taken out the oven and served to us.

Our second stop, a cheeky cocktail spot hidden excellently behind a bookcase. For real! If we didn’t know it was there – we wouldn’t have spotted it at all.

Have you ever tasted smoking popcorn?

Our final stop? Dessert! And to a place I’d actually been fortunate enough to pop into earlier that very same week and already knew exactly what I wanted to order. This final place was in an excellent spot for toasting our success with a drink or two, and for catching a train home after as the sun set over the city.

Bitesized Puzzles for the Hangry Mind

In terms of puzzles, Gourmaze won’t be for the hardcore enthusiast. I’ll be upfront about that for sure. They aren’t the most difficult puzzles – but here, I think that really works. There’s nothing worse than a HANGRY group of puzzlers, so we rather appreciated having a quick win to get food in us. One of the things this trail did do fairly well however was make use of the waiting time once we’d ordered our meal. In more than one case, we were given something physical with our order – a laminated piece of card, or paper we needed to solve. These were designed to be solved whilst we waited, or whilst we ate, and the solution would come in handy for our next stop.

Similarly, these weren’t overly challenging – in all cases we spotted what we needed to do and got on with it. What they lack in difficulty, they make up for in being well placed and fun to play. They used up otherwise quiet down time, and then once we did get back on our feet we found that the exact routes the puzzles took us were almost always unique and exciting lesser-trodden paths.

A puzzle with our pizza? Don’t mind if I do!

The Verdict

I really, really enjoy Gourmaze. Whenever people ask me for recommendations for something to do in London that’s a little bit different but still scratches that escape room itch, I think of Gourmaze first. It’s perfect for fans of food (I mean who of us isn’t?) and it’s perfect for puzzle enthusiasts as well. Whether it’s just a more fun way to do date night, or a full-blown corporate shindig, Gourmaze is a lovely way to celebrate.

My only caveat, and it’s really quite a small caveat, is Gourmaze does come with a hefty price tag. This trail is around £49.99 per person. Let’s assume the average pizza is about £14, the average cocktail about £10, and the average dessert around £8 (hey! I did say this was London, didn’t I?). Your total food, bought outside of the game probably only comes to about £32. Lets round it up to £35 when we include the service charge. Of course, you also get a discount at each of the locations for extra drinks and snacks, which we did go for… And perhaps most importantly you also get an excellently good fun puzzle game that takes you between each location. But this means you’re paying about £15 pp for the game, and about £35 pp for the food. I’ll let you be the judge of it – you know your own budget, and who knows how much food will cost by the time you’re reading this, what with the spiralling cost of living crisis. But for me, and considering I saved this for a special occasion (my birthday), it felt worth it! By comparison, the closest competitors are probably Hidden City (at around £25 pp but no food), or Street Hunt (£16.50 pp and also no food). For a more affordable Gourmaze alternative, The Sweet Escape is (at the time of writing) £27.99 pp, and the Talisman Treats £39.99 pp.

In any case, back to the review at hand. The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes was a fun, light-hearted and unique play on traditional outdoor puzzle trails. Gone are the days you have to plan your own food breaks into your day out – Gourmaze does it for you. I really can’t stress how much I enjoyed it. It’s not going to impress the hardcore puzzle enthusiast, but who among us isn’t a pizza enthusiast, and it absolutely ticks the box for them!

The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes can be booked by heading online here.

We were not charged for our experience but this does not affect our review.

Diorama Games: The Medusa Report | Review

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Diorama Games: The Medusa Report Review | An American nuclear physicist is found dead in the USSR at the height of the Cold War. What happened, and what does any of it have to do with Abby and her enigmatic father?

Number of Players: 1
Time Taken: 1.5 hours
Date Played: April 2023
Difficulty: Medium

The prequel to this game, The Vandermist Dossier, is one of those tabletop puzzle games I still talk about. In fact, when I sat down to review this game I noticed The Vandermist Dossier was still one of the six or so pinned games on our homepage, and trust me when I say I only pin games I really, really love.

So I was very unsurprised when I opened up The Medusa Report and immediately fell in love. Then, the game only got better and better as I played it. With each new reveal, each exciting detail, and each twist I thought to myself “Gosh, our industry needs a ‘Game of the Year’ award, so Diorama can win it” and I stand by that.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. What makes The Medusa Report so good? Well, for starters it was a lot of fun to pick up where The Vandermist Dossier left off. There’s something extra satisfying about meeting old characters again for a new adventure. Secondly, The Medusa Report was perfectly signposted. Signposting is a real bugbear of mine, and there’s nothing I like less than not knowing what to do next. Diorama has none of that, it’s clear exactly what to do in a perfectly lore-friendly, non game-breaking way. Each puzzle rolled seamlessly onto the next. Speaking of puzzles, these ones were *chef’s kiss* good. Well balanced, surprising, and delightful. Last but not least, it’s just such a beautiful game. Goddamn beautiful. Let’s dive into all of those points one by one.

Pick up where you left off…

The Medusa Report is a sequel to the very popular Vandermist Dossier. Like it’s predecessor, The Medusa Report will be available on Kickstarter to begin with, and then will likely be purchasable via their website in a little while. Whilst they’re sequential in ‘story’, I think both are probably fine to play as standalone. There’s a slight cliffhanger at the end of the first one, and the second references the people and places of the first, but otherwise they’re fairly self contained.

That except for the bonus puzzle! Oh yes, if you happen to have a copy of The Vandermist Dossier, you get extra content! Although I don’t want to spoil anything – so I’ll just leave that for you folks to discover yourself. Amusingly, I’d already passed my copy of The Vandermist Dossier to another writer (Rebecca) here at The Escape Roomer. Generally speaking, we like to get as many of us writers across playing a game when we review it. But thankfully, Rebecca lives (thanks to a fortunate move on my part) about a 15 minute walk away!

In terms of that story, in The Medusa Report, we return to the Vandermist family and pick up where we left off with the sister of our main character. Once again we’re rifling through documents and solving puzzles to try to uncover a singular thing: Where is Abigail Vandermist?!

Part Narrative Journey, Part Puzzle Solving

The Medusa Report is story-heavy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean puzzle-light. It has a good balance between the two. The experience begins when you read an envelope titled “Dear Detective” and then, in a lore-friendly way you’re ‘guided’ through the story through the medium of puzzles.

The game plays out in a linear format – meaning as you solve one puzzle, you’re signposted to the very next puzzle. It might be as obvious as one of the characters directly calling out that item in the dossier, or as subtle as something formatted in a way that looks eerily similar to the format of another item. Both are good and, as mentioned, I really appreciate good signposting. It can make or break a game. The Medusa Report has excellent signposting – game designers take note!

For folks who wish to go ‘beyond’ the signposted game, there’s additional content in the experience. You begin with one goal: Find Abigail. But there are other goals woven throughout the game. Not to mention the ‘bonus’ meta content. I’m also imagining that since this game is the second in a trilogy, there’ll be even more hidden details which will come back in the third installment – but we shall see!

In terms of the ‘basic’ puzzles, the ones I encountered were brilliant. I say “I encountered” as even now I look over at my copy of the game and wonder if there’s more to find. Probably there is, but I’ll just have to figure that out myself at a later date. But for the purpose of this review, when I talk about the puzzles I’m talking about the main content of the game. All in, there’s probably around (or just under) 10 puzzles in the experience. Each one took me some 5 – 10 minutes to solve.

If I had to choose, my absolute favourite involved one where I had to return to something I already thought I’d “solved” and look at it again in a brand new way. However – it’s impossible to choose a favourite puzzle in this. They were all so good. I’m not going to say a single word about what the puzzles composed of because it’s best to go into this blind and let the ‘aha’ moments come to you. But just take my word for it when I say they were great. Objectively great puzzles.

A Visual Journey Through the Past

Last but not least, I want to talk about the aesthetics of The Medusa Report. As with The Vandermist Dossier, the whole thing is set in the world of spies – the CIA, the KGB, and some very interesting content from the USSR. It’s such a rich and fascinating era of history, lovingly recreated in print media. Every item in the case file, minus the fact it smelled so fresh and good (a strange thing to mention but hey!), genuinely felt like it were from the era. The graphic design is second to none, and the quality of the documents is absolutely flawless. It’s the kind of game I want to take everything out from it’s box and put it all in vintage frames and decorate my apartment with. Seriously, that beautiful!

The Verdict

If you couldn’t tell from the review so far, I loved The Medusa Report. It’s only April, but I’m pretty sure this is going to be one of my favourite games this year, just like The Vandermist Dossier was when I played that one too. With this impressive second game, Diorama Games are quickly cementing themselves as a household name worldwide, and I have no doubt that this game will be a hit in the puzzle community.

For this reason, we’re awarding The Medusa Report with our coveted “Badge of Honour“, which is only given out to games that excel in every category we ‘rate’ based on. I’d recommend this game for just about everyone – but for the best ‘overall’ experience, go back and play The Vandermist Dossier first! In fact, if you haven’t already, that’s the perfect way to spend your time from now until the game’s Kickstarter fulfilment.

Speaking of, The Medusa Report is available soon via Kickstarter here. Later, you’ll be able to purchase The Medusa Report directly from Diorama’s website here.

Please Note: We received this product for free in exchange for an honest review.