Bluefish Games - The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints: An Ells and Ernie Mystery [Review]

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Location: At home

Date Played: March 30, 2025

Team Size: 1+; We recommend 2-4

Duration: 5 Chapters; 30 minutes per Chapter

Price: About $39 + $5 shipping

2025 Golden Lock Award Winner

“In The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints, Bluefish Games created not only a tabletop puzzle game, but also wrote a compelling abridged audio book. These two pieces were so seamlessly tied together that we were able to experience the challenges and excitement of Ells and Ernie’s adventure firsthand through the puzzle pacing and flow.”

REA Reaction

The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints was the latest offering from Bluefish Games, creators of The Curious Stairs of Mr. Hincks and The Curious Elevator of Mr. Hincks. The eccentric Stephen P. Hincks appeared once again, up to his usual antics. This time, Hincks had devised a series of puzzles to allow us to “read” our book club book, which he had accidentally destroyed. In our house it is impossible to enjoy a book without a cat, so Mellow joined us for book club.

A cat sitting beside the "Correct Blueprints" gamebox and atop its contents - mostly hidden in blue envelopes.

We were amused by the humor laden throughout the game, starting with the premise (with imagery of our book sinking in a vat of candy) and continuing through both the puzzle contents and the audio book readings by Mr. Hincks himself. We also appreciated the attention to detail incorporated into the mystery novel which allowed us to make deductions ahead of some of the big reveals. However, in a couple of cases the voice over did draw out a bit longer than we would have preferred (6-12 minutes per recording), which partially spoke to our eagerness to open the next envelope and get back to puzzling!

All of the puzzles were exceptionally designed and logical. Each of the chapters was non-linear and incorporated a multitude of puzzles with a variety of different types. The first four chapters also scaled in difficulty which followed the rising action of the story; as the chapters progressed we had to synthesize more pieces of information to come up with the solution to Mr. Hincks’ query. The last chapter was on the easier side, but allowed us to keep up a fast pace through the ending, which followed the tenor of the story well.

The witty humor, incredibly detailed story, wide variety of puzzle types, and progressively increasing difficulty between chapters made The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints our favorite offering from Bluefish Games to date. We would highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a top notch at home puzzle game and cannot wait to see what we will read next in the SHhhh Book Club.

Who is this for?

Adventure seekers
Puzzle lovers
Mystery Fans
Any experience level

Why play?

You’ve enjoyed other Hincks games (The Curious Elevator of Mr. Hincks, The Curious Stairs of Mr. Hincks, and/ or Hincks Gazette)
An engaging mystery with a humorous, playful vibe
Intricate puzzle design matching the vibe of the story arc

Story

It was our turn to read the advanced copy of Ells and Ernie’s newest mystery novel. What was destined to be an exciting day turned sour when Mr. Hincks gave the bad news that he had dropped the book into a vat of candy! But never fear, Hincks insisted that he could fix his error by dictating the book to us via audio files. Of course, nothing is ever that easy with Stephen P. Hincks. To uphold the number one rule of the SHhhh, We’re Reading Book Club (NO SPOILERS!), Mr. Hincks also sent us a box filled with reference materials and devised puzzles that we needed to solve to unlock the audio files. It was now on us to move swiftly and solve the twists of this mystery before the next book club meeting.

Setup

We opened the box to find five sealed envelopes and a brief introduction letter with a website. Once there, we were greeted with an audio file where Mr. Hincks explained the tragic tale of our lost book. The audio files provided important information about the story, instructions for which envelope to open (and when), and the question that we needed to answer by solving the puzzles embedded in the reference materials.

Screenshot of the Correct Blueprints audio book player website.

In addition to an internet-connected device that plays audio, we also needed paper and a writing utensil.

Gameplay

Bluefish Games’ The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints was a play-at-home escape game that started with an easy level of difficultly and scaled to a moderate level of difficulty as we progressed further into the game.

The game was divided into five chapters which could be played in the same or separate sittings (about 30 minutes per chapter). Each chapter was non-linear and contained several varied and logical puzzles including ciphers, visual observation, wordplay, and logic.

In each chapter, we were tasked with answering a question that Mr. Hincks posed to us about the story by using his reference notes (essentially copies of pages from various other books with notes from Mr. Hincks scattered about the pages). In spite of their seeming randomness, the reference notes and puzzles were all well integrated into the audio excerpts of the story.

Correct Blueprints game box open, with its blue envelopes contents fanned out.

The hint system was built into the website and labeled according to the title of the puzzle page. Each puzzle had a different number of hints depending on its difficulty and each hint gave progressively more information to solve the puzzle.

Analysis

➕ There were several multi-layered puzzles which required us to use multiple documents to find the solution. We enjoyed many aha moments throughout the game as we started to synthesize the information and finally understood what we were looking for. The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints also included some unique implementations of puzzles that we had not seen before.

➕ The attention to detail on the handouts were spectacular. While all of the puzzle materials were paper, the use of different types of paper laden with “sticky notes” from Hincks provided a sense of realism to everything included in The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints. The correlation of the handouts to the details relayed in the story was also impressive.

➕ During the audio interludes the voice acting and sound effects were engaging and entertaining. The mystery was also very well written and provided enough detail that we could deduce some of the twists before they were revealed, but also was not too obvious about the direction of the narrative.

➖ Some of the recordings between envelopes felt a little long, especially since the narration was just audio. We found ourselves eager to open the next envelope and get back to solving puzzles. However, no audio file was more than 12 minutes and a transcript of the audio was also available to follow along.

➕ We were beyond impressed how the puzzle flow followed the story arc. During the rising action as Ells and Ernie were trying to solve the mystery, the puzzles became more challenging with each chapter. Furthermore, after the climax the final chapter included a fast paced puzzle which mimicked a classic whodunit trope where the protagonist, in rapid fire, explains the entire case.

🤪 Bluefish Games’ unique style of quirky, tongue-in-cheek writing shone throughout the game. The silly situations were artfully woven into the puzzles and story while not sacrificing the puzzle flow and playability.