Room Escape Artist

“By Endurance We Conquer”

Location: At home

Date Played: September 9, 2025

Team Size: 1-4; We recommend 2-4

Duration:  90-120 minutes per chapter, 6 chapters

Price: $79.95 + shipping

REA Reaction

My appreciation for history stemmed from the Dear America and American Girl historical fiction novels that I went through like candy during my middle school years. I even convinced my parents to leave the hall light on, claiming “I was afraid of the dark,” so I could read historical books well past my bedtime. The school librarian was confused how I was able to check out a book one day and return it for another the next morning. Escape Mail’s The Shackleton Series brought me back to those moments by providing an interesting historical story (that I had no experience with prior to playing the game) surrounded by an engaging, fun puzzle experience. I couldn’t wait to open each chapter and find out what happened next. Lyra, Vax’ildan, and Aslan (left to right) joined our crew for this expedition.

Each of the chapters were packed full of puzzles that required us to synthesize information from multiple documents and often required multiple steps. Although the game offered a flow card to help decipher which documents were related to each puzzle, we enjoyed embracing the additional challenge by sorting through the documents ourselves. Without the flow card, we found The Shackleton Series to be one of the harder tabletop puzzle games that we have played recently. This game would be an excellent choice for any experienced puzzle lovers who enjoy learning about history in a hands on way. However, we thought that the flow card was an excellent option for less experienced puzzlers or for players that want a more streamlined experience.

We also loved how carefully Escape Mail kept to the historical story throughout the game. Some of the documents were nearly transcriptions of journal entries or maps created by Shackleton and others on the crew. We enjoyed reading about the progression of the crew’s journey through the journal and thought that The Shackleton Series would be an excellent way to teach students about Shackleton’s expedition in a school setting. However, we would have preferred that more of the journal pages were tied into the puzzles so that players needed to interact with the historical account more closely in order to play the game.

In The Shackleton Series, Escape Mail created an interesting and fun tabletop experience for experienced puzzlers, novice puzzlers, grade school students, and history buffs alike by combining a historically accurate adventure with a multitude of puzzles.

Who is this for?

• Story seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• History fans
• Best for players with at least some experience

Why play?

• The attention to historical details
• The quantity and complexity of puzzles
• Clever papercraft interactions
• Fun educational activity for middle or high school students

Story

Captain Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 27 men embarked on their perilous journey to Antarctica in 1914. We found documents from the two years Shackleton’s crew fought the frigid and unwelcoming climate. By solving puzzles crafted by the crew, we discovered an epic tale of determination, camaraderie, and endurance.

Setup

We received the Shackleton box set which included all six chapters and allowed us to experience the full story. Each chapter came in a sealed envelope and contained all of the information and handouts needed to solve the puzzles within.

We also needed a writing utensil, paper, and and internet-connected device throughout our experience.

At the beginning of each chapter we were directed to a website with videos to introduce and conclude each chapter, thematic music, an optional timer, an interface to confirm our answers, and access to the hint system.

Each chapter also included an optional flow card to help sort the materials in the envelope into their respective puzzles. We chose not to use the flow card and deciphered how the materials were related ourselves, which provided us with a more challenging experience.

Gameplay

Escape Mail’s The Shackleton Series was a standard play-at-home escape game with a moderate to hard level of difficulty.

Gameplay revolved around connecting information from a variety of different paper handouts. Puzzles involved papercraft, word play, mapping, logic, and much more.

Each chapter provided a satisfying conclusion allowing us to choose to either pause or immediately move on to the next chapter. However, the story arc for Shackleton’s journey extended across all six chapters. The conclusion of each chapter also involved a meta puzzle which used all of the other puzzle answers from that chapter in an interesting way, including a meta meta puzzle after finishing all six chapters.

Analysis

➕ Each chapter had between four to seven multi-step puzzles. We also noticed a significant variety in puzzles throughout The Shackleton Series. In several instances we were surprised by the clever solutions to several of the interactions.

➖ Occasionally, we encountered puzzles that felt under-clued or vague. It appeared that there was a printing issue which made one color puzzle unreasonably difficult. However, the problematic puzzles were an extremely small percentage of the plethora of puzzles distributed amongst the six chapters of the experience.

➕ The “blue” story pages made this game unique and provided historical information about the journey of Shackleton’s crew. Escape Mail also provided a “historicity” section at the conclusion of each chapter to discuss which elements of the chapter were true and which were fictionalized. We thought The Shackleton Series would be perfect for middle or high school educators because the game was so historically accurate.

➖While the game instructions indicated that the story pages could be skipped, The Shackleton Files would have lost a lot of its charm by doing so. Therefore, we wished there was more puzzle info on the journal pages to discourage players from skipping the historical fiction narrative.

➕ The flow card included in each envelope allowed us to choose a more streamlined experience by knowing which handouts were related to which puzzle. We appreciated that the flow card made The Shackleton Files more approachable for newer players, but was presented in such a way that we could choose not to use the card and rather synthesize the information ourselves. (A minor nitpick: Since all of the flow cards were packed face up in each envelope, we had to be careful to avoid “spoilers.”)

Tips For Players

• Space Requirements: A coffee table
• Required Gear: A writing utensil, paper, and wi-fi powered device

Buy your copy of Escape Mail’s The Shackleton Series, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Escape Mail provided a complimentary game.