Photo above is property of Super Secret Decoder
Company: Super Secret Decoder
Games: Captain Montgomery & The Mystery Mansion Mini-Adventure
Country: United Kingdom 🇬🇧
Language: English
Type of Game: Digital Escape Game 💻
Genre: Mystery
Date Played: December 18, 2022
Difficulty (based on 4 players): 410
Size of Team: Unlimited (Up to 10 logins)
Time: Expires 24 Hours from start
Price: £20.00
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Silly Monty. He’s gone and got himself locked inside the panic room in Archie’s Mansion. He hid in there during a storm which knocked out the power and trapped him in there! Can you gain access to the mansion, solve Archie’s mysteries and locate the panic room to free Monty from his imprisonment?!
Video above is property of Super Secret Decoder
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After purchase, you will receive your game code and can start your adventure on their website. This game can be shared and played across different devices and played together but each team mate will be playing alone - you won’t see others interactions. This means that if someone else solves puzzles first and therefore completes an area, they will move on. You have the option to stay and finish the puzzles where you are, or move on and join them. This makes it feel a little disjointed at times when someone has worked out the solution and moves on, they get to see what’s coming next and have to wait if the others want to complete the challenge. If you want to move on and join, you don’t get to see the puzzle resolution or the cut scenes.
The laptop I played the game on with my team really struggled with the game and therefore I had trouble loading the graphics and partaking in the puzzles as it was crawling along - I ended up playing it through again on a different device on my own to experience the story, and when I did this it worked a lot better, smoother and was actually really enjoyable. You can adjust the graphic quality using an icon if you need to.
Even during this second play through I did end up on one black screen once - not sure if it hadn’t loaded properly or i was in a dark room trying to find a light-switch! I refreshed the screen and luckily it remembered my position and loaded properly.
The hint system is a book icon in the top left of the screen. You can also use this to replay any videos if you need to - although these are video calls that progress the story only. These are a fun way to hear from the characters in the story - and in this game they are particularly funny as a language barrier you can’t avoid makes for a good gag!
I found it a little annoying to have to click exactly on OKAY in the message boxes that appeared every time you interact with items. I’d rather these faded away or could be clicked away anywhere on screen. But that said, the humour and pop culture references in these info boxes were so worth reading - there’s a lot of nice nods and funny lines in them.
Photos above are property of Super Secret Decoder
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There are 4 areas to explore in the game and each one has 1 or 2 puzzles. These are mostly logical puzzles and pattern matching, but nice and varied throughout. You also collect and use objects, but once collected they are used automatically for you from the inventory when clicking on any place something needs using so there’s no real need to think about this part of the game.
One annoyance was when you have to use four 3-digit code wheels at one point. You weren’t able to spin the wheels quickly by clicking fast, you had to wait until each rather slow moving dial has stopped on the next number before you could click to move again. This meant that not only did it take ages to get to the chosen digit, but if you accidentally went past it you had to go right round again - as you could only go one way, not back! This got quite tedious and could hopefully be sorted with some code tweaking!
I liked the fact that a couple of the puzzles seemed very easy on the face of it, but a clever twist has been added to them that made me go “ahhhhh clever” when I realised.
I only used two clues and both times it was just because I hadn’t spotted something subtle - so my tip is to look at everything closely before making assumptions.
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I played the previous game "Heironymus Vex & The Secret of the Pancetta Stone" from this company, and whilst shorter than that one, this new game was also a little easier and had a better, more contained story.
I love the art and animation style, and the humour in these games, and the inclusion of video calls to set the scene and to accompany scene changes. Their website is also big, bold and beautiful and it’s clear they are talented artists, designers and writers in this team.
The games feel like a fun little mobile game and don’t necessarily benefit from having more people playing together - if you are going to, purchase the game and maybe one person streams the game screen and others suggest what to do and solve puzzles together by voice, as the multi-player mechanic just doesn’t really work as it stands. If these games could be made where you work together on things then they’d be on to a big winner.
I’d definitely play more in future, and look forward to seeing what happens next with Archie, Monty and Heironymus!
(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 Super Secret Decoder 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.
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