Team - 1 players
Outcome - Escaped
Time Elapsed - 3 hours 14 minutes 18 seconds
Hints Used - 4
"An evil creature stalks the village in search of prey. Can you uncover the mysteries of the creature's castle and escape?"
Overall Thoughts
A few precursors before we get into this review -
This game will take about 85cm x 85cm of table space so ensure you have a large enough gaming area.
This game, puzzles, hints and answers are designed to be a single-use game. Although Professor Puzzle do offer printable replacements should you wish to play again.
The game is designed so it can be played as two separate parts or as a single full escape experience.
I'd say the difficulty for this game sits more in the intermediate range and experience with previous tabletop escapes will definitely help.
To begin this game is absolutely stunning; as you uncover more of the castle grounds and you see the layout expand both on a 2D and 3D plain you cant help but feel excited by everything you're looking at. In saying this some players may feel a little overwhelmed by the expansiveness of the game and how much is going on, but I absolutely loved it!
The hints and solutions element of this game is one of the best I've seen in a tabletop game, everything just makes sense and is easy to follow for where you're up to. The hints and solutions are covered with a "scratch card like" grey paint which allows players to only see what they need without accidentally reading more than needed. This is the same for the answer symbols; should you get a correct answer you are rewarded with a green square of the cards and tiles you need next; if you receive a red dot you have the incorrect answer and must try again.
The map and layout for the castle grounds is beautiful; everything looks incredible and well thought out. Hidden details lie around every corner and have you not only looking at the puzzle cards but also searching through each room of the castle. But as with all escape games communication is key, we missed a key section of the game for a while because someone had overlooked the contents of the room and missed that we should have received a new tile. But because of the streamlined game format we quickly realised this and figured out where we'd went wrong.
There are so many creative puzzles and elements to this game that I unfortunately can't discuss due to the potential for spoilers. I will although discuss the elements that are used in the advertising such as the stained glass window and 3D elements that really help to bring this game to life and immerse the players in the game. All of these additional elements play their own role in some incredibly unique puzzles that take a twist on the usual uses for such elements. This made the game really stand out for me among the other games I've played. There is another element that uses an internet connected mobile device which is so much fun and really caught me off guard during the gameplay. There we're a few puzzles that were broader in interpretation but discussing this with the group we were able to figure out what to do and progress past these points.
3 hours is a long time to be working on puzzles and you may benefit from taking a break at the halfway point but for us games night was in full flow and so was the food and drink so the time flew over.
Overall I'd say for the money this is an incredibly unique tabletop experience that I would highly recommend to those who have played a few tabletop escapes!
Final Review
Difficulty - 3.5 / 5
Puzzles - 4 / 5
Theming - 4 / 5
Creativity - 4.5 / 5
Enjoyment - 3.5 / 5
Value For Money - 4 / 5
Overall Score - 4.25 / 5
Link - https://amzn.eu/d/09fWC4Zy
Sneak Peek
