Room Escape Artist

Lost Mummy is a print-and-play escape game created by Lock Paper Scissors.

Format

Style of Play:

• Play on demand
• Print-and-play

Required Equipment: computer with internet connection, printer, pen and paper, scissors, tape or glue

Recommended Team Size: 1-4

Play Time: no game clock, but adult players took about 30 minutes.

One reviewer set up this game for her kids. She notes, “my kids took about an hour, including the search elements I added.”

Price: $29

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

You are on a quest to use your grandfather’s journals to find a lost mummy near Tutankhamun’s tomb.

The most basic form of this quest is a table top experience in which you print, cut, assemble, and analyze five puzzles. You capture answers on a central mission page. To verify the answers, you consult an online hint/ solution guide (which is also available in the game’s ZIP file).

However, beyond this basic setup, this game was designed to be used as a kit for creating an escape room party. For the party version of the game, a host prepares and hides the puzzle components throughout a room. In this setup, players have the added task of determining which pieces of information correspond to which puzzle. This version can be enhanced with an optional physical challenge at the end.

Hivemind Review Scale

Kate Wastl’s Reaction

The Lost Mummy would be an excellent game for a family or a group of older children to tackle. The puzzles were fair, and artwork was on theme, with a journal serving as the backbone of the game. What is especially advantageous for adults setting up a puzzle experience is that a wide variety of customization is possible. Hints are readily available, either online or on printed cards that match the games’ aesthetic. Players can reveal these on their own or an adult gamemaster can facilitate progress. This game would be best enjoyed by groups of 2-4 individuals that would enjoy a medium-beginner level difficulty of puzzles.

Andrew Reynolds’ Reaction

Lost Mummy is a printable play-at-home game fully intended to be played by and with children – 10 to 13 year olds to be specific, according to the game’s website. Surprisingly, I am not a 10 to 13 year old, but there is still some enjoyment to be found in this game. Note that my rating for this game reflects the intended audience.

Because the target audience is younger, most of the puzzles presented here are on the easy side for anyone with experience. Any difficulty comes more from vagueness than complexity, but that is concentrated in just one puzzle. The ending is a bit sudden unless the person running the game has set up the optional (and fun-looking) physical challenge. The tacked-on and entirely unnecessary meta puzzle could be fixed relatively easily.

I was very impressed by what you get for the price. Not only do you get the game, but also a way to fully customize the game if you were so inclined. The download includes font files and all the game’s art assets for someone with the time and skill to tailor the game to their party’s needs as well as an in-depth hint system and party-planning documents.

Sarah Mendez’s Reaction

Speaking as an eager host for these make-your-own-escape-room kits, this was my favorite one that I’ve reviewed so far. Aimed at 10-13 year-olds, the puzzles were approachable and interesting, and the graphics were rich enough to make me want to create a party around them. What set this game apart from other kits, however, was its extensive compilation of suggestions, photos, and videos for how to stage it as an immersive experience. Although I still think these kits should include a flowchart or walkthrough for how the puzzles relate to each other and what that implies about how you organize them, I found a lot more to work with here than I usually do.

That said, the game had significant flaws that prevent my uninhibited recommendation. The blurbs of narrative text throughout the game were disjointed, implying an order to events beyond any actual puzzle dependencies. The hints were of inconsistent granularity. And, the game lacked a narrative conclusion of any sort. As far as we could tell, it ended when you solved all the puzzles and checked them against the hint/ solution guide (and possibly discovered a completely overlookable meta-puzzle!). I’m honestly not sure if we found the lost mummy or not. Anyone staging this as a party would need to proactively fill these gaps to make this a coherent experience.

Regardless, my family still enjoyed this game quite a bit, which leads to one last point. Even though I didn’t create an elaborate presentation of this game, I did spread the puzzles throughout a room and hide some of the key pieces. After observing the moments of peak excitement, I’m of an even stronger opinion that incorporating this physical search element enriches the connection-making experience in a way that just doesn’t come through when playing these kits as a pile of materials on a table. These kits enable the joy of physical discovery in a way that other at-home games do not, so I highly recommend taking the time to facilitate that joy whenever you can.

Disclosure: Lock Paper Scissors provided the Hivemind reviewers with a complimentary play.