Photo above is property of Curious Cats UK
Company: Curious Cats UK
Game: Underground, Lost and Found
Country: United Kingdom 🇬🇧
Language: English
Type of Game: Tabletop Games 📬
Genre: Detective, Mystery
Date Played: March 16, 2022
Difficulty (based on 2 adult players): 6/10
Size of Team: 1-6 Players
Time: Unlimited (Approx. 1.5-2 Hrs.)
Price: £19.99
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The Domestic Counter Terrorism Office in the UK needs your help. They've apprehended a terrorist named Danny Compton while he was planting an explosive. He has informed the police that there are 4 more hidden in the Underground of London. Will you be able to locate them and disarm them before it's too late?
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The game arrived in a small envelope. We were surprised by the amount of content that was able to fit into the packaging. The players should check the paper labeled "classified" (which lists all the items that are included in the game) prior to starting the game play in case of any missing items. All the items were in paper format but they were printed on various textured papers to enhance real life scenario such as magazines, subway maps, recipes, posters etc...
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
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Besides the paper materials, the game also has an online portal. You'll be able to access hints and input answers through the links provided. No final answers were given so if you can't figure out the answer through the hint system, you'll need to contact the company. One thing we did find confusing was that this game had a previous version and some hints were still relevant to the old one (while some places made an indication, some didn't).
The game is nonlinear. Once you open the envelope, there will be many elements for you to look for connections. It could be overwhelming to new players so make sure to stay organized and put away items used. Some will require you to figure out one part of the answer first in order to make that association. Because it's nonlinear, we were able to divide up the game contents and figure some puzzles out on our own. There were fun moments where we shared with each other our individual findings and discovered they were actually useful to the other person.
Please note: You'll need a pair of scissors and color pencils (optional).
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The creator utilized various ways to hide puzzles throughout the game. Some were embedded as a cipher, some in images and some in plain text. It definitely made it feel like the culprit was trying really hard to stop us from decrypting these locations. There was even an added humor element that was embedded into the answers (you'll see what I mean when you purchase the game). One thing that we were hoping the game could have done was inform us earlier on that we can resort to online research to find answers. When we receive a tabletop game, if it's not clearly specified, most of the time we just assume the game is contained within the materials sent (especially when this game's portal is only used for inputting answers). There are several puzzles that we needed to look up online as we were not familiar with the terminology or the item that was indicated. So we only knew that we could resort to online searching after looking at the first hint. There were also some puzzles that we felt would be more familiar to UK players. Even after Googling, we still had to resort to hints to solve them.
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
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The creativity and crafty elements of this game was what made it stood out. Most of the puzzles were not too difficult but you do need a sharp eye to be able to make the connections just like a detective would. With some more clear indication on the game play in terms of using the internet as a resource, it'll take away a good amount of the confusion for the players. If you're into solving crimes with a bit of whimsical storyline, then you might just become a fan of Curious Cats!
Photo above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)
Disclosure: We thank Curious Cats UK for providing us with a sample of their game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.
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