Escape Tales (by LockMe) - "The Book of Rituals"

Photo above is property of Escape Tales (by LockMe)

Company: Escape Tales (by LockMe)

Game: The Book of Rituals

Country: Poland 🇵🇱

Language: English/ Polish

Type of Game: Tabletop Games 📬

Genre: Alchemy

Date Played: May 1, 2021

Difficulty (based on 1 player): 8/10

Size of Team: Unlimited (Recommended 1-2 Players)

Time: Unlimited (Approx. 30+ Hours)

Price: €13,50

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Set in the world of Escape Tales ("The Awakening", "Low Memory" and "Children of Wyrmwood"), you thumb through the pages of this book. Not fully understanding the symbols, pictures or writing, you peruse through the book hoping you can make sense of the contents and see if the rumors are true. By learning the secrets of alchemy, you can become an omniscient being. Beware though, not everything in the book can be trusted.

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Picking up this book, the fabric on this hardcover book feels like something I just pulled off a long-forgotten Alchemist’s shelf and blew the dust off of. Thumbing through the number of pages, the design of each page mimics art and writing done by an inked quill with some showing cryptic puzzles that need to be solved while others are of artwork and symbols that may be useful during the game.

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

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The book is broken up into 3 chapters: Elements, Ingredients and Rituals. Each chapter will lead into the next, but inside each one you can read the pages and play the puzzles in any order. Your goal is to solve each puzzle and input the answer into the app that is provided. After inputting the solution, you will then be given the Alchemical Name and the value of each element and ingredient, which you record in the Alchemy Table. These names and numbers may be required in other puzzles.

On the top corner of each page is the alchemical symbol of the element but at times, they will also tell you what other symbols are required to solve this puzzle. They also give you a question mark sometimes which you will need to discover how the book is to be used to solve the puzzle.

LockMe did a few small things that shows how much thought they put into this book. For an example, the code page and the Alchemy table pages both fold out to allow you to reference and write on them without having to flip back through the pages. I was also able to test the offline capacities of the app as I worked on this game on an airplane. The hint system was also great as they did more multi-level hints. Some will give you 3 layers of hints while others will give you 6 or more to make sure you are guided to the answer. They have also provided a walkthrough video that is linked through the app if you don’t fully understand how to solve the puzzles, or better yet, if you aren’t sure how certain logic puzzles are solved. I did use the walkthrough video a few times to even help me get started on some of the logic puzzles.

Photo above is property of Escape Tales (by LockMe)

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Going from the first chapter to the second, there was a steep difficulty curve. As an

experienced player, I was able to breeze through the first section quite quickly but getting to the second chapter, I had to thumb around all over and play this over time. One nice thing was that the puzzles were set up to easily allow you to pick up and put down the book whenever you can. I was able to solve some puzzles here and there over a few weeks to be able to complete the book. All the puzzles made sense to the story overall and how the puzzles were set up made me nervous filling out the alchemy table, wondering what powers each answer was going to unlock.

The puzzles ranged from logic puzzles to eureka-type puzzles, but both were challenging. The logic puzzles, you knew what to do but had to figure out how to do it while the eureka ones made you figure what to do but once you found it, they are quite doable. A bulk of the puzzles will require you to write on the pages, where at times I would write my notes on the side or for all the logic puzzles, the book provides the puzzles in the back that can be torn out if needed.

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

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"The Book of Rituals" was created by the same people who put together the Escape Room Championships (ER Champ). They absolutely nailed the alchemist theme. Going through the puzzles and the design of the book, the art and writing truly made me feel like I was unraveling the secrets of some mystical, old magic. All the puzzles could be worked on fairly individually which was nice because I was able to work on some puzzles, put the book down, come back a few days later and not miss a beat. They recommend 30 hours to play but I definitely felt like it took me longer. Since there is one small book to read from, I would recommend only 1 or 2 people to play this game, but more can easily be added by each having your own book or copying out pages. I am a huge fan of alchemy and I can absolutely say that this is one of my favorite alchemy puzzle games. This is not an easy book and definitely not a beginner’s book, but it makes sense that you have to work at it if you want to unlock the secrets of alchemy.

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Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of the game:

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(If you do decide to try this game, please remember to let them know that you heard it from"ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)

Disclosure: We thank Escape Tales (by LockMe) for providing us with samples of the game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.

#MatthewLui #AtHomeGames #Puzzlebymail #OneOffs #Alchemy #EscapeTales #Poland #TableTopGames #BehindTheMasterMinds