ThinkFun - "Cold Case: A Story to Die for" & "Cold Case: A Pinch of Murder"

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Company: ThinkFun

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Puzzles By Mail 📬

Date Played: 6/5/2021

Genre: Detective, Mystery

Size of Team: Unlimited (Ages 14+)

Time: Unlimited (Suggested 60-120min)

Price: $14.99

Above video has been provided by ThinkFun

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The "ThinkFun Cold Case Series" came in a glossy flip up box. It's quite easy to repackage with this type of design. Inside, you'll find an intro letter that explains the backstory and a checklist of the enclosed documents. The documents came in text and image formats and are contained inside a file folder. "A Story to Die for" had 17 documents and "A Pinch of Murder" had 30 documents.

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After reading the intro letter, you'll know what website to go to to submit your final verdicts. By reading and searching through the provided documents and evidences, you'll need to come up with who's the killer, why did they do it, and how were they able to complete the crime.

Each document is labeled with a number. You can use this to check back with the checklist to see if there's anything. We read the documents by the order of the item list but there's really no need to do that as they are all individual documents and you can read them in any order. I did feel that reading the items in order made the game flow really smooth. Perhaps a little too smooth. The order in which the characters or a certain mentioned item appears to align with the order that the items were already placed in. This made the game feel easier to solve. I think I would've enjoyed more if the items were not numbered so I could piece the mystery together myself rather than reading it like a mystery novel.

The submission of the answers at the end was by multiple choice style. If you submit the wrong culprit, you'll just need to reselect again (Essentially you can brute force and guess the answer. But what's the fun in that?). If you submit the right answer, you'll get an explanation from the criminal on why he/she decided to commit this act at the first place.

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There's no real puzzles in these games. This is designed to replicate real life detective work. You'll be finding lies in alibis and details in evidence photos in order to piece the stories together to reveal the truth. You'll have to use a lot of deductive reasoning and scrutinize the details.

A Story to Die For

A Pinch of Murder

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Game: Cold Case: A Story to Die for

Difficulty (based on 2 adult players): 3/10

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Andrew Bailey was killed on a Friday morning at Finden Hall Woods. No one knew what happened to this young journalist. What trouble did he put himself into that would cost his life?

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Game: Cold Case: A Pinch of Murder

Difficulty (based on 2 adult players): 3/10

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Harold was a lovely religious man living alone in his home in Melmbury. On one Saturday afternoon, he didn't show up to church. Later on, he was discovered dead on his kitchen floor. Who would want to murder an old man in his 80s that's well respected in the community?

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There's a lot of details that went into making the Cold Case Series. You'll get character photos, floor plans, detailed alibis, autopsy reports, and other items that police or detective would have collected at a crime scene. It was easy to relate and paint the story in our heads through these provided documents. For me the game felt more like a murder mystery novel than a puzzle game as there's not much physical puzzles or ciphers that you'll need to reveal. Everything is shown in plain text through the documents. You'll just have to use your sharp detective skills to find the details hidden in the evidences. It really reminded me to episodes I was watching on Criminal Minds or CSI. For players who likes to read, you'll enjoy a well written narrative. For players looking for puzzles to solve, this might not be the right game for you.

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A Story to Die for

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A Pinch of Murder

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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 ThinkFun 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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