Photo above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
Company: Society of Curiosities
Game: The Memory Stone
Country: Canada 🇨🇦
Language: English
Type of Game: Tabletop Games 📬
Genre: Adventure
Date Played: March 6, 2021
Difficulty (based on 2 players): 6.5/10
Size of Team: Unlimited
Time: Unlimited
Price: $19.50/Month; $49/3months; $179/Yearly
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One of our researchers, Clarence Gladstone, had gone missing! But right before her disappearance, she was able to find a precious artifact: the memory stone. Our consultant in the field, Victor Hallingsworth has tracked her last known location to the Amazon forest in Brazil. I hope with the information provided by the headquarter, you would be able to assist us at finding Clarence's whereabouts.
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I've never been disappointed by the quality of Society of Curiosities' games. You can tell they put a lot of hard work and personalization into each and every game that they produced. This one was no different. All the papers were aged by hand and if you look carefully, you'll even see the various coloration differences on them. The key is made from real copper and even has a faded ancient look. To keep the review spoiler free, you'll need to find out what other "surprises" came with this package on your own. On the surface, you'll see four "Do Not Open" envelopes, a key with a letter, and a small wrapped item.
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In this game, you'll be using items you've received in the mail, text messaging (this is optional as they do have an online communication portal as well), and other website resources. This is our fourth adventure with Society of Curiosities so we're quite used to their game design at this point. I really liked the added option of interacting with our field agent over the internet instead of text messages as sometimes the text messaging service could encounter some delays, We played this game entirely with the online interface and it was really smooth.
As we initiated our first contact with the field agent, our first mission was given back to us through the text bot. It was quite clear on what we had to do next. Once we input the correct answer, the text bot will then narrate what they are seeing in the field along with website links that we might need as additional clues. Inputs sometimes needed to be quite specific but this is one of my favorite parts of the game. Sometimes I'll type in random things just to see how the field agent would respond. Make sure to play the game in sequence by following the instructions on which envelope to open when told to do so. Don't let your impatient other half try to open everything at the beginning of the game! There's a lot of really cool surprises waiting to be discovered and it's more fun to peel open the layers slowly.
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There's a good mixture of ciphers and visual puzzles in this game. I love how everything that's considered as a prop became a useful tool during the solving process. The narratives paired with the beautifully illustrated pictures really painted the story in front of our eyes. Society of Curiosities never forgets their root (they were escape room owners prior to tabletop game designers) when designing puzzles. In this game, there were definitely moments I felt like I was playing an in-person escape room with the actions I had to take. My favorite puzzle had to be the tactile puzzle that we had to construct in the latter part of the game. It was such a cool piece that they made out of their own laser cutting machine. I was surprised by the details and colors that went on to the game piece. The utilization for it as a puzzle was also quite "dream-like". This piece is definitely going on my shelf of "cool board game prop display".
Photos above are property of Society of Curiosities
🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂
This is yet another really fun experience with Society of Curiosities. Every game we always experience something new and they are constantly improving. I really appreciate how the designers thought of everything a player would need for a game. Make sure to hop on to their website portal before starting the game to get in the mood by turning on the embedded music and making the yummy themed drink! If you're not great at reading scripted writing, they have a typed version for you in the hint area. And if you are really lucky, you might even get the "real" field agent responding to you in real time! Make sure you have your comebacks ready as he/she is quite quick and clever with theirs!
Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of these game:
Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
Video 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 Society of Curiosities for providing us with a sample of this game. Although complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.
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