Photo above is property of The Deadbolt Mystery Society
Company: The Deadbolt Mystery Society
Game: A Strange Occurrence at Crown House
Country: USA 🇺🇸
Language: English
Type of Game: Tabletop Game 📬
Genre: Mystery
Date Played: April 20, 2024
Difficulty (based on 2 players): 5/10
Size of Team: Unlimited (Recommended 1 to 4 ppl)
Time: Unlimited (Recommended 2 - 3 Hrs)
Price: $31.99 USD
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Waking up, you find yourself locked at the entrance of Crown House. Everything seems so familiar here, but you can’t figure out why. You find a note from someone called “the owner” which tells you that if you don’t escape Crown House, lives will be lost. Seeing pictures of your family around, you have no time to lose figuring out what your connection to the house is and how to escape.
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Opening the strikingly designed box with the title of the experience on it, we found lots of contents which included a beginning brief, instructions on how to play, a picture of a corkboard, a business card, 2 envelopes and much more.
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
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After reading the instructions and the beginning brief we were thrust into the story and dove into the content. The beginning brief pointed us in the right direction on what content to begin with. All the items were printed on high quality stock. For those who are new to DMS, how the game progressed is once we solved the puzzles or believed we knew key information, we would scan QR codes and input the information. If we were right, something would open and continue the story or tell us more information. To proceed through the story, they would also have envelopes with more clues and information for us to read once we were told to do so.
One thing that stood out in this game was the signposting was spot on. We found we were able to make all the right connections to each item. There was also some cluing that they put in to help with a few different storytelling elements. A specific note to this game is that you will need scissors to cut some things out.
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
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There was a wide range of puzzles in this game such as logic puzzles, deciphering puzzles and more. The game was played in a fairly linear fashion. Each envelope had us solve a handful of puzzles simultaneously and combine the solutions to unlock the next envelope. The narrative and puzzles worked together seamlessly and complemented each other nicely. There were also a few standout puzzles including one that we needed to use a video to solve.
How the hint system works is there is a document that can be downloaded online. It is a nicely formatted pdf that presents a table of contents at the start that we could find the puzzle we need hints on and go to that page. There are sufficient tiers provided for each of the puzzles. The solutions are provided in a separate document.
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
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"A Strange Occurrence at Crown House" was a solid and entertaining game to experience. With the creative writing and puzzles, we are surprised that DMS still has so many fresh ideas to keep their boxes exciting. We played as 2 veteran puzzlers and found it to be a pleasurable time, though there was enough to keep up to 4 people busy at the same time. Anyone who loves a gripping thriller story or an armchair puzzler would love this game. Are you ready to figure out what the strange occurrence at Crown house is?
(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 Deadbolt Mystery Society 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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