Room Escape Artist

Interdimensional Lost & Found

Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition is included in our recommendation guide for Tabletop Escape Games. For more of the best games of this style, check out the recommendation guide.

Location:  at home

Date Played: September 28, 2024

Team size: 1+; we recommend 2-3

Duration: 2-2.5 hours

Price: about $26 on Kickstarter, then $29

REA Reaction

Ministry of Lost Things is so incredibly cute! From the opening moments, where PostCurious established this interdimensional, whimsical world, we were immediately intrigued.

PostCurious is the established leader in the tabletop puzzle game genre. The consistency of their output speaks for itself. In the past few years, the brand has been expanding their style, and this goes for puzzle design, storytelling, aesthetic, and vibes. Ministry of Lost Things is another expansion, and a direction we really delighted in.

Ministry of Lost Things was compact. With minimal materials, there was a lot to solve. The focus was on the puzzles, and the joy of solving them. While there was story, it wasn’t the focus. It helped ground us in the world and our mission. This was a puzzler’s boxed game first and foremost, and the theming gave these puzzles life.

PostCurious launched its Kickstarter for this game yesterday. While Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition will eventually be available in stores and online, the best way to get your copy is to back the Kickstarter now, and wait for it to ship to you in 2025. PostCurious has run many Kickstarters to launch their previous tabletop games, and they have a reputation for delivering.

Who is this for?

• Adorableness affidiandos
• Art appreciators
• Puzzle lovers
• Players with at least some experience

Why play?

• The whimsical world that comes to life in the writing
• The language-based puzzles… but also the other puzzles. There’s impressive variety.
• How the theme is translated into the tangible puzzles, all with light, minimal components

Story

Every so often, something that is lost was not supposed to disappear. That’s where the Ministry of Lost Things comes in: to get important items back to their rightful owners. They had too much to do, however, and we were ready to open a case file and reunited a human with their lost item.

Setup

The box contained a welcome note and four envelopes, labeled “transmissions.” We opened the envelopes in order, solving the puzzles within before proceeding to the next envelope. The fifth envelope contained the solution and resolution.

The box also included a refill pack. Certain items are marked with the pencil icon, and the refill pack contains extras of these items only.

Gameplay

PostCurious’ Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition was a standard play-at-home escape game with a moderate level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around ciphers, logic, packing puzzles, and some computation. The gameplay balanced challenging ahas with straightforward followthrough and puzzles where the process was the challenge.

Analysis

➕ The theme was adorable. From the opening moments, as we read the letter introducing us to the Ministry of Lost Things, we were excited about this place and the premise of its world.

➕ For a game made entirely of paper (and cardboard), it offered a lot of variety and puzzles. They balanced ahas with process-based solves. Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition didn’t lean too heavily on any one skill set.

➕ Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition was at its best in the language-based puzzles. The first cipher was a joy to solve, because even though the process was little lengthy, it was approachable, the art was beautiful, and each solve revealed joyous wordplay that drew us into the world of the game. Our favorite puzzle, however, was a late-game translation puzzle, where the writing was so funny that we enjoyed reading and rereading the materials, searching for meaning.

❓ We got tripped up by not expecting the puzzle style variety in Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition. In one case, we struggled to determine what type of puzzle we were solving, even though the puzzle itself was straightforward. In another case, we didn’t appreciate how much inference and deduction would be required, and had to go back for the last layer of the solution.

➕/➖ One puzzle surprised us with how it stacked different puzzle styles on top of each other, which was narratively appropriate. The visual cluing was cute, and the and the resolution was nifty. However, some ambiguous components led to an unexpected difficulty spike. (We played an early, pre-kickstarter copy, and expect this ambiguity will be resolved before this game goes to print.)

➕/➖ We enjoyed one puzzle’s unusual pairing. The reveal was a letdown, however, as it was difficult to read.

➕ The writing throughout the game was outstanding… and very funny. It had strong voicing that brought us into this world and its characters.

Tips For Players

• Space Requirements: a small table
• Required Gear: pen and paper
• Note that items marked with a pencil icon are meant to be written on, and there are replacements in the refill pack. That means you can give this game to a friend to solve after you are done!

Buy your copy of Post Curious’ Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition , and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: PostCurious provided a sample for review.

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Learn More on REPOD

For more on PostCurious, check out our interview with creator Rita Orlov on Season 2 of Reality Escape Pod: