Loaded Deck
Location: at home
Date Played: Summer 2019
Team size: we recommend 2-3
Duration: 8-12 hours
Price: $25
Publisher: The Enigma Emporium
REA Reaction
We’re big fans of Enigma Emporium’s postcard-based puzzles… so we were eager to dig into their larger, more elaborate, and beautiful deck of puzzle cards.
We ciphered through the cards in two extended sessions and found the experience mixed.
We loved the concept, the art, and a lot of the early puzzles… but as the mystery pressed on, it got repetitive. Then it got really repetitive.
Overall, Enigma Emporium absolutely delivered when it came to production value. From a gameplay standpoint, there was a lot to love and we’re happy that we played through it. At the same time, it’s hard to keep ourselves from imagining other things that could have been done with such a gorgeous deck of puzzle cards.
If you’re into cipher-play and have the patience to buckle up for a 6 – 12 hour mystery, then Carte Rouge is worth exploring.
Who is this for?
- Code breakers
- Story seekers
- Players with at least some experience
Why play?
- Beautiful card art and high production value
- An interesting story hidden behind ciphered messages
- You enjoy progressive discovery
Story
A mysterious and strange deck of cards had arrived in the mail. A note was included asking us to investigate its origins and purpose.
Setup
Carte Rouge was an actual deck of 52 cards plus a pair of jokers. Embedded in the card art (particularly the face cards) we found hidden messages and puzzles.
They were printed on quality card stock. If one wished to purchase this deck and use it exclusively to play card games, that would be a viable option.
The art itself looked fantastic. Enigma Emporium managed to maintain that classic card art, while hiding loads of messages.
Gameplay
Enigma Emporium’s Carte Rouge was a play-at-home escape game with a high level of difficulty relative to most tabletop escape games.
Core gameplay revolved around observing, deciphering, making connections, and keeping organized.
Analysis
➕ We were captivated by the puzzle-in-playing-cards concept. This setup also facilitated collaborative gameplay. We could spread the cards out among players and work through the puzzles as a team.
➕ The cards were beautiful and intricate. They looked and felt like the real deal. The artwork was exquisite.
❓ The puzzling in Carte Rouge was almost entirely deciphering. If you enjoy ciphers, this is your tabletop game; it’s great. If you don’t want to solve ciphers and translate passages, this will not be for you.
➕ Our favorite ciphers were clued brilliantly by other patterns. For us, these ciphers were the pinnacle of the gameplay in Carte Rouge. Most of them appeared earlier in the experience.
➖ Much of the ciphering resolved to narrative embellishments, but didn’t advance the plot of the game. We translated brutally long passages, working through them long after the aha moment. In the end, a lot of it was flavor. This got repetitive.
➖ Multiple puzzles used the same cipher. Once we’d worked out that particular system, we had to work through a number of different instances. This was repetitive and seemed like a missed opportunity.
➖ While sometimes the ciphers were subtly clued in the artwork, other times they weren’t clued it all (as far as we could tell). As we played, we found that there were limited encipherment options. We’d just hack at different possibilities until a passage resolved to something meaningful.
➕ Enigma Emporium crammed a lot of game into only a little space. This was impressive. They fit an incredible amount of information into a card.
➖ The deck of cards itself felt like a missed opportunity. We were anticipating mechanics involving magic, placement, math, poker hands… really anything that one does with a deck of cards. Yet, it didn’t matter how these cards were held or arranged. In fact, there was little interaction between the cards at all. Additionally, most of the cards were barely used. The gameplay revolved around only a small portion of the deck and we didn’t need to do much beyond regard and rotate.
➖ The hint system lacked sufficient granularity. We’d be hinted at the same thing repeatedly and then be provided the answer. Furthermore, the hints for some key puzzles were buried in the sequence of hints for the final puzzles. In an effort not to spoil later puzzles for ourselves, we didn’t find them until well after we needed them.
➖ All these ciphers begged for an interesting extraction, hidden within the cards. Instead, the game resolved with a narrative quiz of sorts. This felt out of character with the rest of the experience.
Tips For Player
- Required supplies: a small table, an internet-connected device, paper and pencil
- While you don’t need a laptop, we found keeping track of solutions in a spreadsheet to be helpful.
- If your reading vision isn’t great, you’re going to want a good magnifying glass.
Buy your copy of Enigma Emporium’s Carte Rouge, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Enigma Emporium provided a sample for review.
The cards were nice enough, but the website to record the answers is frustrating. Did you not get that far?
We finished the game… but I cannot recall the website.
It’s possible that we weren’t especially sensitive to it at the time… IMO, play-at-home puzzle game websites have improved a lot in recent years. If we were reviewing it today, that’s something that we certainly pay a lot more attention to.