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Company: Hunt A Killer
Game: Lakeside Slaughter: The Last Vacation
Country: USA 🇺🇸
Language: English
Type of Game: Tabletop Game 📬
Genre: Mystery
Date Played: January 23, 2025
Difficulty (based on 2 players): 6/10
Size of Team: Unlimited (Ages 14+)
Time: Unlimited (Approx. 90-120 Mins.)
Price: $29.99
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Security systems analyst Ryan Bosley and his wife, Monica, book a vacation rental home by a lake to relax and reconnect for a month. But after the couple gets into an argument at a neighbor’s cookout, Monica finds herself alone in their dark and empty rental house. When Ryan sees Monica again, she’s in a pool of her own blood, dead. The police suspect Ryan, but he believes another guest at the cookout is the killer.
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The cover art is pretty rad/cool. It sucks you in like one of those classic horror movie posters. The evocative staging of the dark looming figure, the eerie alien greens of a mind gone mad. It does a great job of setting the trouble in paradise scene, the juxtaposition of lakeside getaway against creepy happenings, which will serve as a haunting backdrop to the players exploration of the game . The materials themselves are well designed, varied, colorful - something fun to work through and pass about. I especially like the physical objects and the creative ways they are incorporated. Not only are they fun to play with, but they act as kind of mementos after the game. Overall a top quality production.
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I am one of those who might lament the fact that Hunt a Killer has moved away from the epic, hardcore, episodic case format, which is one part a economically necessary move to ditch the grossly inefficient high cost of separately delivering the chapters like Sunday prestige tv episodes, but also a smart move towards recognizing the greatest market for these cases are as shorter one shot nights of entertainment. It is a shift towards Hunt a Killer for the masses, and they made the even smarter move of getting the things in big box stores, but it also makes sense because it fits the way in which people generally consume this kind of entertainment. As for the gameplay itself, I went in without high expectations puzzle wise, and a feeling like it would be more reliant on abstract puzzles then being an actual case file, but the designers did a great job of creating a very well rounded case that encompasses all the popular and entertainment aspects of a good case. Plot wise they do a good job of hiding this complex web of motives under the seeming tranquil surface of things. It's a good balance between revealing the plot by gated puzzles and actually having to deduce what is really going on. Surveying the plot at the end I was pretty impressed by the complexity of its construction for such a short case, they definitely created a clever and tight yarn out of this one.
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It has a slight over reliance on ciphers and abstract puzzles as oppose to real case work, which I tend to attribute to lazy design, but what it does really well is give you information through the puzzle while still requiring you to kind of put what is actually happening all together through your own deductive powers. Getting that criticism out of the way, the case was designed with great sensibility for its progressive development and reveal of the plot through this process of puzzle, information, and plot construction, that will keep you guessing, and with sufficient creepy wow factor by the climactic realisation/finale. It's a great formula, and it points to the fact that this case does the foundational elements of a mystery very well.
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I would definitely play another one of these cases. They are perfect to do in a night, with friends. It does it all pretty well, plot, puzzles, deduction. Hunt a Killer doesn't have the right formula in these games, and it's a great production, I think it's a matter of pushing the scenario and puzzles to new and more novel forms. But as a game for your average puzzle and co. this is exactly the kind of mystery that should be on the shelves of big box stores given how perfectly balanced it is. My suggestion: bring back the epic cases!, lean less on ciphers and more on novel and realistic case file type puzzles, and get farther from using the old mystery tropes as scenarios and closer to mystery game creation of popular real cases.
Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of these 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 Hunt A Killer 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.
block blast games really make me feel challenged. The way you have to calculate each step to match the perfect blocks is not only fun but also trains concentration.