The Pendulum of the Dead - 50 Clues (Tabletop)

Team - 2 players

Outcome - Escaped

Time Elapsed - 1 hour 21 minutes

Hints Used - 4

In Game Score - 55%

"Maria is locked up in a psychiatric ward and must escape finding her son before it’s too late..."

Overall Thoughts

50 clues is a very unique escape game that comprises of 54 tarot sized cards each with a different number and illustration. Upon watching the introductory video you are shown how to operate the different elements built into the game cards. The elements allowed you to search items or combine items to progress the storyline via an online webpage. The game structure is easy to follow and use.

50 Clues is definitely on the darker side of the escape room world and it says so explicitly on the packaging, although players may find some actions conducted in the game disturbing. For me personally this unease added to the immersion and storyline.

The beauty of this game lies in it's simplicity; 54 cards and a website; that's it. No need to fill a table or chop up items. Just a solid storyline and a multitude of puzzles. The puzzles in this game vary from decoding to logic. Some of the logic puzzles for me were a little difficult to bridge exactly what we needed to do and thus several hints were used to help. I definitely think this escape game is targeted more towards experienced puzzle solvers as it offers very little instruction without hints. The hints although helpful did not offer much advise between the second hint and the solution and merely told you the answer and not how you get there. This meant for one puzzle we're still unsure how the answer was what it was.

Overall the story is intriguing and creepy, the puzzles are fairly solid and the overall gameplay is incredibly unique. Looking forward to playing the other 2 parts of the series.

Final Review

Difficulty - 3.5 / 5

Puzzles - 3.5 / 5

Theming - 4 / 5

Creativity - 4 / 5

Enjoyment - 3 / 5

Value For Money - 5 / 5

Overall Score - 3.75 / 5

Link - https://amzn.eu/d/irkzbzd

Sneak Peek