Room Escape Artist

66 Confessions of St. Pinel Castle is an anomaly hunting game created by SCRAP.

Format

Style of Play:

• Anomaly identification (see Description)
• Hidden object

Who is it For?

• Fans of the hidden anomaly genre
• Spot-the-difference game lovers

Required Equipment: Computer and Steam account; check system requirements

Recommended Team Size: 1-2

Play Time: about 4-6 hours

Price: $9.99

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

66 Confessions of St. Pinel Castle is an anomaly identification game heavily compared to the game Exit 8. The core gameplay loop revolves around walking through the same, nearly identical church scene hundreds of times to determine if the church is normal, or if there is an anomaly present (for example, the carpet is a different color, or the picture on the wall is flipped upside down). To lock in your decision, you either ring a bell (to declare that the church is normal) or shoot a gun (to declare something is amiss in the church). After seven rounds of this, there is a brief interlude where players are given additional story points. The game repeats in these rounds until all anomalies have been identified.

Theresa W’s Reaction

66 Confessions of St. Pinel Castle was a unique take on the hidden anomaly genre heavily inspired by Exit 8. With the core gameplay loop revolving around becoming familiar with the same space over and over and trying to identify whether there are small anomalies (changes) in the familiar space or not, SCRAP took the genre a bit further by adding a story to back up the gameplay. While I didn’t care for the story, 66 Confessions improved upon the typical gameplay loop and allowed players to “expel” anomalies for all future loops if they correctly identified 7 in a row, taking them out of the current rotation. The experience overstayed its welcome a bit by forcing players to correctly identify 66 abnormalities throughout the gameplay, instead of having the overarching goal of others in the genre of just identifying X in one loop. But the progressive discovery and in-game tracking of abnormalities helped significantly to ease the burden. I would strongly recommend players start with Exit 8 to get the feel for the genre before jumping into 66 Confessions.

Hall & Gwinn Family’s Reaction

An “Exit 8-like” anomaly-spotting game, except instead of doing it 8 times, you do it 66 times, plus all the rounds where nothing is changed. The result is tedious and typo-ridden, with the same one-minute track of a shrieking choir looping the whole time. If you spot an anomaly, you fire a gun; no anomaly, ring a bell. The game redundantly asks you, “Choose which one to choose.” You get snippets of story after 7 consecutive correct rounds, but that story makes no sense. It feels like SCRAP rushed out this game to capitalize on the Exit 8 movie.

Jayna (Jay) Shea’s Reaction

The castle is haunted! Or is it? This was my eternal question while playing 66 Confessions of St. Pinel Castle. As I walked down the (now very familiar) aisle I scoured for anything that was amiss. I soon developed a method to searching, as the anomalies ranged from subtle to literally hitting my avatar over the head. In time this began to feel repetitive. If a mistake is made, the round restarts and all remaining anomalies reshuffle. There are 66 anomalies, resulting in multiple rounds of seven attempts each. I did appreciate how the designers added variety by including a few dexterity puzzles, but I would have liked for these to be onboarded earlier.

Every now and then I correctly identified an anomaly but wasn’t able to record it. When this happened I was able to view the title of the missing anomaly. I found myself wanting this same treatment for anomalies I missed multiple times. In addition to each anomaly being distinctly different, each had a story. These were interesting, added a fun narrative, and even intertwined. Due to the volume, I wished key stories were differentiated in some way so I could easily relook at them.

Overall, 66 Confessions of St. Pinel Castle was interesting and put a lot of thought and care into the setting and story, but for me the volume became overwhelming and prevented the momentum I desired. I also don’t know how long it will be before I hear a bell ringing and don’t momentarily hold my breath.

Disclosure: SCRAP provided the Hivemind reviewers with a complimentary play.