Plymouth Point is an online game with elements of puzzle hunt and ARG, created by Swamp Motel.
Format
Style of Play:
- Online native experience (can NOT be played IRL)
- Light puzzle hunt
- Video-based experience
Required Equipment: computer with internet connection
Recommended Team Size: 2-4
Play Time: 75 minutes
Price: $75 for a group of 2-6 players
Booking: book online for a specific time slot
Description
Plymouth Point is an online experience that included a Zoom call with sleuthing around the internet. In the Zoom meeting we had an introduction by the main character (gamemaster). Then we went bouncing around the web using Facebook, websites developed by the game, Google Earth, etc. to track the missing person and solve the mystery. To solve certain clues, we needed a phone (call) and a Facebook login. This game required a large amount of screen sharing via Zoom as we visited all these websites.
Hivemind Review Scale
Read more about our Hivemind Review format.
The Lone Puzzler’s Reaction
This game had significant high and low points. It was an atypical game – and for that reason I wanted to give it a better review, but there were too many holes for it to be recommended at this time. The game revolved around basically tracking the online path of a character that had gone missing, through various sources including Facebook. The path was quite hard to follow and not intuitive. There was a linear path, but it was much more wide open to interpretation than most games. The gamemaster was very good, but had to do too much work to help us along. The ending of the game was abrupt and I am still a bit confused as to what we did to “finish” the game.
Joel Smileypeacefun Reaction
There was a person who had gone missing and we had to find her. And that’s literally all I understood about the storyline of this game.
At its best, we had a funny moment when we were supposed to call a phone number, but accidentally dialed the wrong number and genuinely talked a stranger into helping us.
At its worst, there was a lot to read and the story was hard to follow. Solutions were case sensitive, so we had to try each possible phrase in multiple variants (together, split into two words, capital letter, lower case letter, etc.). Also, the puzzles were not clued well and what we had to do seemed far-fetched to figure out. Therefore, we never got a good game flow. The gamemaster constantly pushed us along, but we still finished with 17 minutes left on the timer.
Overall the game quickly started to feel like it was dragging on and it was just not really entertaining to me.
Theresa W’s Reaction
Plymouth Point was an interesting and unique take on the online mystery game format that encompassed many different platforms and interactions. Unfortunately for our team, the puzzles seemed vague and under-clued. I don’t think there was a single puzzle we solved without a nudge in the right direction, and we typically rarely take hints, if at all. The story could have been really intriguing with some more clarity, as some of the most important characters seemed to pop out of nowhere. This game was incredibly memorable for me, not due to the story or the puzzles, but for the unfortunate wrong phone number I called, leading to a very real interaction of me phishing an IT company for their employee’s password. If you’re interested in a multi-platform mystery puzzle game, this may be for you!
Plymouth Point is no longer available for booking.
Disclosure: Swamp Motel provided the Hivemind reviewers with a complimentary play.