The Curious Correspondence Club - "Chapter XVII: Protege"

Photo above is property of The Curious Correspondence Club

Company: The Curious Correspondence Club

Game: Chapter XVII: Protege

Country: Canada 🇨🇦

Language: English

Type of Game: Tabletop Game 📬

Genre: Mystery

Date Played: June 17, 2022

Difficulty (based on 2 players): 6/10

Size of Team: Unlimited (Age 12+)

Time: Unlimited (Suggested: 60-90 Minutes)

Price: $21.95 (free shipping in North America); Monthly Subscription: $19.95/Yearly Subscription: $179.00

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Inside the Dupont gallery, a cultural heritage foundation, you begin to learn more about Sylvester Dupont, a painter, sculptor and wartime codebreaker. Sneaking into the forthcoming exhibit, you find yourself in Sylvester Dupont’s final studio, where many believe that his final works may have contained a secret message, ready to be deciphered by the keenest of eyes and sharpest of minds. Can you look through the artwork, learn about Dupont himself and find the message that he has hidden away in his final works?

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Unfolding the envelope that this game comes in, you are greeted with Curious Correspondence Club’s standard set up where the story is written on the envelope with a checklist of what should be included on the right and the QR code on the left for the hint page. In this particular game, the key items are (5) pieces of artwork, a gallery brochure, a paintbrush, artist palette and a pigment shelf.

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

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As usual, the story writing for Curious Correspondence Club was top tier. The narrative always feels like it was taken out of a novel. This game specifically though, did have a lot more reading in it than the other CCC games we have played and we found it easy to read and truly believable. The information and pamphlet about the artist felt very realistic and did make us contemplate looking them up to see if they were real or not. With this theme especially, the story and puzzles made sense and worked together quite well. Much like all the other CCC games, we're always impressed with everything that they can fit into the envelope.

The flow of the game revolves around non-linear puzzles that will lead you to a meta-puzzle. This allows you to tackle each of them as you please or can be played with a larger

group of friends. The hint page was useful for our play. There are 2 layered hints that will slowly give you more before the solution, which gives you a full explanation on how to solve the puzzle. Some include a picture which helps a lot as well.

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

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There is a nice range of puzzles in "Chapter XVII: Protege", difficulty and diversity-wise. Reading into the flavor text, some we were able to understand and solve right away, some we had to ponder what needed to be done and a few we knew what the end goal was but then needed to complete them. All the paper items were also fun to play with. One issue we had in this game, each puzzle would reveal a set of numbers but unfortunately, there is no way to self-confirm the answer if they are correct a not. A couple of puzzles were also a little ambiguous on how to extract the numbers once you solved the puzzle and could be misinterpreted. This was where we leaned into the hints and solutions. When we think we got the answer, we would use the solutions to confirm if it was correct.

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

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"Chapter XVII: Protégé" gives you a history and art lesson (though not a real one) through the amazing writing of the story and background of Sylvester Dupont. Throughout the game, I was completely convinced that he was a real person which made for an even more immersive experience. The flow of puzzles also made for a nice game where you could divide and conquer with a larger group of friends. CCC provides a video at the end too which gives a satisfying conclusion to the game. We find CCC continues to provide solid games and have enjoyed all the ones we have played so far.

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(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 The Curious Correspondence Club 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.

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