Category: Products

Loaded Deck

Location:  at home

Date Played: Summer 2019

Team size: we recommend 2-3

Duration: 8-12 hours

Price: $25

Publisher: The Enigma Emporium

REA Reaction

We’re big fans of Enigma Emporium’s postcard-based puzzles… so we were eager to dig into their larger, more elaborate, and beautiful deck of puzzle cards.

We ciphered through the cards in two extended sessions and found the experience mixed.

We loved the concept, the art, and a lot of the early puzzles… but as the mystery pressed on, it got repetitive. Then it got really repetitive.

Overall, Enigma Emporium absolutely delivered when it came to production value. From a gameplay standpoint, there was a lot to love and we’re happy that we played through it. At the same time, it’s hard to keep ourselves from imagining other things that could have been done with such a gorgeous deck of puzzle cards.

If you’re into cipher-play and have the patience to buckle up for a 6 – 12 hour mystery, then Carte Rouge is worth exploring.

Who is this for?

• Code breakers
• Story seekers
• Players with at least some experience

Why play?

• Beautiful card art and high production value
• An interesting story hidden behind ciphered messages
• You enjoy progressive discovery

Story

A mysterious and strange deck of cards had arrived in the mail. A note was included asking us to investigate its origins and purpose.

Setup

Carte Rouge was an actual deck of 52 cards plus a pair of jokers. Embedded in the card art (particularly the face cards) we found hidden messages and puzzles.

They were printed on quality card stock. If one wished to purchase this deck and use it exclusively to play card games, that would be a viable option.

The art itself looked fantastic. Enigma Emporium managed to maintain that classic card art, while hiding loads of messages.

Gameplay

Enigma Emporium’s Carte Rouge was a play-at-home escape game with a high level of difficulty relative to most tabletop escape games.

Core gameplay revolved around observing, deciphering, making connections, and keeping organized.

Analysis

➕ We were captivated by the puzzle-in-playing-cards concept. This setup also facilitated collaborative gameplay. We could spread the cards out among players and work through the puzzles as a team.

➕ The cards were beautiful and intricate. They looked and felt like the real deal. The artwork was exquisite.

❓ The puzzling in Carte Rouge was almost entirely deciphering. If you enjoy ciphers, this is your tabletop game; it’s great. If you don’t want to solve ciphers and translate passages, this will not be for you.

➕ Our favorite ciphers were clued brilliantly by other patterns. For us, these ciphers were the pinnacle of the gameplay in Carte Rouge. Most of them appeared earlier in the experience.

➖ Much of the ciphering resolved to narrative embellishments, but didn’t advance the plot of the game. We translated brutally long passages, working through them long after the aha moment. In the end, a lot of it was flavor. This got repetitive.

➖ Multiple puzzles used the same cipher. Once we’d worked out that particular system, we had to work through a number of different instances. This was repetitive and seemed like a missed opportunity.

➖ While sometimes the ciphers were subtly clued in the artwork, other times they weren’t clued it all (as far as we could tell). As we played, we found that there were limited encipherment options. We’d just hack at different possibilities until a passage resolved to something meaningful.

➕ Enigma Emporium crammed a lot of game into only a little space. This was impressive. They fit an incredible amount of information into a card.

➖ The deck of cards itself felt like a missed opportunity. We were anticipating mechanics involving magic, placement, math, poker hands… really anything that one does with a deck of cards. Yet, it didn’t matter how these cards were held or arranged. In fact, there was little interaction between the cards at all. Additionally, most of the cards were barely used. The gameplay revolved around only a small portion of the deck and we didn’t need to do much beyond regard and rotate.

➖ The hint system lacked sufficient granularity. We’d be hinted at the same thing repeatedly and then be provided the answer. Furthermore, the hints for some key puzzles were buried in the sequence of hints for the final puzzles. In an effort not to spoil later puzzles for ourselves, we didn’t find them until well after we needed them.

➖ All these ciphers begged for an interesting extraction, hidden within the cards. Instead, the game resolved with a narrative quiz of sorts. This felt out of character with the rest of the experience.

Tips For Player

• Required supplies: a small table, an internet-connected device, paper and pencil
• While you don’t need a laptop, we found keeping track of solutions in a spreadsheet to be helpful.
• If your reading vision isn’t great, you’re going to want a good magnifying glass.

Buy your copy of Enigma Emporium’s Carte Rouge, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Enigma Emporium provided a sample for review. 

A shadow…

Location:  at home

Date Played: June 18, 2019

Team size: 2-4; we recommend 2-4

Duration: 2-4 hours

Price: $55.70

REA Reaction

We backed Apocalypse: Sign of the Cross on Kickstarter after playing and reviewing the Prelude to Apocalypse a year ago. Our play through of Apocalypse: Sign of the Cross confirmed our growing suspicion not to promote a Kickstarter without playing the game itself. Although we liked Prelude, the full game fell flat.

Apocalypse: Sign of the Cross had solid creative direction, an interesting premise, and one or two fantastic puzzle concepts. It was burdened, however, with repetitious and tedious gameplay.

We can’t really recommend Apocalypse: Sign of the Cross at this point unless you’re super into puzzle/ crime thrillers and are willing to push through the gameplay. Finally, we apologize to those who backed it based on our enjoyment of the demo.

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Armchair detectives
• Players with at least some experience

Why play?

• An intriguing aesthetic
• Some interesting puzzles

Story

A serial killer who goes by the name “Abaddon,” a reference to the Angel of Death from the Bible, had sent us a care package filled with encoded evidence of his crimes and a challenge: learn his secrets and stop him before he killed again.

Setup

We received a package with a bloodied lock box, Bible passages, and other documents. We had to puzzle through them in order to follow the narrative and crack the case.

Gameplay

Argyx Games’ Apocalypse: Sign of the Cross was a play-at-home detective game that blended escape room-style solves into a light puzzle hunt.

It had a high level of difficulty relative to most play-at-home escape rooms.

Core gameplay revolved around searching, observing, making connections, and puzzling.

Analysis

➕ We enjoyed the tangible puzzle components. The props – paper and otherwise – looked good.

➕ Argyx Games designed a mystery with an artsy, haunting vibe. The branding was on point.

➕ Argyx Games incorporated some classic escape room play into a boxed game. This led to a wonderful aha moment.

➕/ ➖ The web-based hint system worked pretty well. It was granular. It also showed the flow of the game so that we wouldn’t take hints we weren’t ready for. We would have liked it to include more description of how to derive a solution, once we’d walked through the hints to the end of a puzzle path.

➖ Apocalypse demanded an obnoxious level of precision. This was especially frustrating when we practically needed a magnifying glass to work with the props.

➖ Many of the puzzles felt similar in style. We spent a lot of time reading and searching.

➖ The final puzzle was a let-down. It was a fantastic concept, but it asked us to make a lot of leaps. David finally solved it, hacking away with a bit too much persistence. At that point the rest of the group had checked out.

➖ I clicked a link which called an international phone number. Then I received a text from Verizon telling me I’d been charged for that call. This was inexcusable. While Argyx Games did provide an alternative way to get the necessary information, we didn’t know that at the time I made the call. It wasn’t until we looked at the puzzle’s hints that we found out this charge could have been avoided.

Tips For Player

• Space Requirements: a small table
• Required Gear: paper and pencil, an internet-connected device (preferably a computer over a phone)
• For North Americans: when the game wants you to make an international phone call, don’t. Check the hints for that puzzle instead.

Buy your copy of Argyx Games’ Apocalypse: Sign of the Cross, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Where in the World is Hahn?

Location:  at home

Date Played: June 27, 2019

Team size: 1-4; we recommend 2-3

Duration: about an hour

Price: $25

REA Reaction

The Escape Game is an escape room chain headquartered in Nashville, TN, with locations across the United States. They are one of the few chains that we regularly recommend.

The Escape Game Unlocked is their play-at-home line of games of which The Heist Vol. 1 Chasing Hahn was the first episode. This is not to be confused with The Escape Game’s Monthly Mysteries, part online scavenger hunt and part mystery game, which we have yet to play and review. This review covers only The Heist Vol. 1 Chasing Hahn, the initial game from The Escape Game Unlocked.

The Heist Vol. 1 Chasing Hahn was a solid starting place for a new series that has a lot of potential, but needs to figure out what makes it special.

From a production standpoint, there was a lot to love. The components looked great and the digital interface was fairly refined.

From a puzzling and gameplay standpoint, most everything was solid, with a few puzzles that felt bogged down in interface oddities. The puzzles were good… with a little too much counting. The hint system was adequate, but could use a lot more granularity.

If you’re a tabletop escape game player, I’d suggest giving this one a try. While the Escape Game has not produced a must-play game in The Heist Vol. 1 Chasing Hahn, for fans of play-at-home puzzle games this is absolutely worth exploring. We’re curious to see where they take the series.

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Mystery solvers
• Any experience level

Why play?

• Solid puzzles
• Fun computer interface

Story

Our handler had tasked us with tracking down the identity and crimes of an infamous art thief who went by the name Vincent Hahn.

The entire game had a Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego-meets-art-theft vibe.

Setup

To get started, we opened up a black sealed envelope of documents and puzzle components. Then we logged into a website where our mission was introduced to us.

The game bounced back and forth between the physical and digital.

Gameplay

The Escape Game Unlocked’s The Heist Vol. 1 Chasing Hahn was a standard play-at-home escape game with a moderate level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around observing, making connections, puzzling, and interacting with the computer interface.

Analysis

➕ The Heist Vol. 1 Chasing Hahn looked professional. The printed materials were nicely designed and used varied paper of high quality. The computer interface also looked good.

❓ The Heist Vol. 1 Chasing Hahn relied heavily on the computer interface. It was nifty, but it also focused the group around a screen for the most of the experience. One person had to drive, taking the group from screen to screen. An acceptable ratio of screen time to printed material time in tabletop escape gameplay is personal; read this however you choose.

➕ The Escape Game Unlocked didn’t fall into many of traps that hamper digital interfaces. For example, inputs were not case sensitive.

➖ The computer interface wasn’t entirely intuitive. Although we figured out most oddities without too much hassle, one interface that was supposed to emulate a DOS-like terminal fell very short. We struggled to even figure out what we were looking at.

➖/➕ We were confused by still images that appeared to be videos. As still images, they eliminated red herrings, which we appreciated, but we were left confounded by the whole interaction.

➕/➖ The puzzle types varied pretty well. The Heist Vol. 1 Chasing Hahn leaned a bit too heavily on counting puzzles, where the challenge was parsing which information went together.

➕We especially enjoyed when the game asked us to use deductive reasoning to solve the puzzles. 

➕/➖ The hint system got us where we need to be. That said, we would have preferred a little more granularity and redirection in the form of questions as opposed to straight instructions.

➖ We know there are more episodes coming, but don’t know when. We didn’t get any closure from this episode.

Tips For Player

• Space Requirements: a small table
• Required Gear: a computer with an internet connection (a laptop will be superior to a mobile phone)

Buy your copy of The Escape Game Unlocked’s The Heist Vol. 1 Chasing Hahn , and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: The Escape Game Unlocked provided a sample for review. 

(If you purchase via our Amazon links, you will help support Room Escape Artist as we will receive a very small percentage of the sale. We appreciate the support.)