Murder & Co. - "Story One: Snow Angel"

Updated: May 1

Photo above is property of Murder & Co.

Company: Murder & Co.

Game: Story One: Snow Angel

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Tabletop Games 📬

Genre: Murder Mystery

Date Played: September 30, 2022

Difficulty (based on 2 players): 3/10

Size of Team: 1-6 Players (Ages 16+)

Time: 30-60 Minutes/ per box

Price: $300 for the full season in box form (alternate subscription and digital options available)

🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈

The young, promising college student Piper Green has been found dead in New Cambridge. The initial reports suggest that this is a suicide, but something doesn’t add up! Your friend Susan, a campus police officer, is determined to get to the bottom of things but needs your expert opinion! She sends you a series of boxes of evidence to help her eliminate suspects and figure out what really happened.

The storyline in Snow Angel is quite the soap opera, with many interwoven pieces that come to light over the course of the series. While we never felt particularly attached to any of the characters and felt like there were some gaps in the story in the end, if you like juicy gossip and scandal, this might be up your alley!

🆃🅷🅴 ❞🅻🅾🅾🅺🆂❞

Murder & Co. is a high-end subscription box, and the quality of the materials in the physical boxes is in line with that. We received a physical version of the first box, and then played the remainder of the season digitally; however, the online version gives you a good sense of what you otherwise would have received in person. There are a lot of paper items, which serve as various forms of evidence. While some of these are on standard paper (e.g., police reports), there are a wide variety of other paper-based items that are typically well-presented, such as photographs or pages torn from a planner (complete with tears in the holes at the edge). Some of the pieces that are less “authentic” feeling can be explained as photocopies of evidence recovered by Susan. The various pieces are also divided into different folders and envelopes that help to keep things organized. At times, we found that some of the items used odd fonts or tried to look handwritten but became unnecessarily challenging to read. Where the boxes really stand out from an appearance perspective is the physical items that are included! These are intended to be high-quality keepsakes, some of which might be functional while others are more decorative. They include a wide variety of accessories, home decor, and even a large magnifying glass that might assist you in future puzzling!

🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈

In each of the episodes you are tasked with a particular goal - to determine cause of death, eliminate specific subjects, or to discern who did and with what. These goals are explained in an opening letter from Susan. You will then go through all of the evidence provided in the box. They include a list of everything that should be included, which we always appreciate! While an order is obviously provided in the digital version, the physical boxes are a bit more explore-as-you-will. As there are quite a few things to look at and read through, this could be divided amongst a group of solvers (or passed around so everyone has a chance to look at everything). Note that, while the gift items are bound to the story to some extent, they are generally not used as part of the actual solving process. Once you have determined your answer, this is emailed to Susan, and you should receive an immediate reply. (There is also a digital entry page if playing the digital version.) There is also a page available for “codes and ciphers” which is their version of a hint page, though these are quite minimal. It would be great to have a more complete summary of each episode available with what you were meant to take away! Although, we did not use these hints to solve the goals. Each episode does not entirely stand alone; we enjoyed the fact that you sometimes needed to go back and refer to evidence that had been sent previously!

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂

There are not real puzzles per se; the primary mechanism is deductive reasoning. For the most part, these goals/deductions are fairly straight-forward, though we sometimes felt that they were not entirely logical. After spending a lot of time poring through everything in the first episode and looking for more in-depth deductions/connections that were not there, we moved through the rest of the episodes far more quickly. There are a variety of ciphers to identify and messages to decode, which was probably our favorite part! Though, we did find a fair number of errors, which was frustrating at times. These codes, as with much of the content, were not necessary for actually completing that episode’s goal, but contributed to the overall storyline.

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂

While this series wasn’t quite our style, it will be best for those who prefer storylines and immersive experiences with light deduction. Those who treasure high-quality ephemera will love the physical boxes and their “curated gifts.” They truly are at a scale and quality that we personally have not seen before! We could also imagine this being fun for a small party or group of friends, with everyone passing around evidence and getting to take home some of the “gifts.”

BUY NOW

(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 Murder & Co. 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.