Videos/Photos provided by Tokyo Nazotoki Escape
Company: Tokyo Nazotoki Escape
Game: World Detective Mystery - EP. Tokyo (The ENIGMA and the Secret Treasure)
Country: Japan 🇯🇵
Language: English, Japanese
Type of Game: Puzzles By Mail 📬
Genre: Detective
Date Played: 2/6/2021
Difficulty (based on 2 players): 6/10
Size of Team: Unlimited
Time: Unlimited (Approx. 90 minutes)
Price: 1,650¥ (Approx. $16 USD)
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Erika is a college student in Tokyo, Japan. Recently, her grandmother gave her a letter. She said that Erika's father had left this letter for her before he passed away and she's only supposed to give it to her when she turns 20. It seems like he had hid a treasure for her in the city and its up to you to help her find it with his clues...
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The game arrived in a regular letter sized envelope. Inside you'll find an intro letter from the company, back story from Erika, QR code postcard, and 6 double sided rectangular shaped puzzle sheets.
The QR code will lead you to a website that will give you a video intro from Erika. It'll be in Japanese with English subtitles. Once her video is over, you'll begin your quest with puzzle #1. Once you figure out the puzzle, you'll enter the answer on that website. If your answer is correct, you'll be awarded with another video from Erika. This format will continue until the end of the game. Throughout the game, you'll be taken to various popular tourist attractions in Japan. We did like these video "breaks" during the puzzle hunt as they were entertaining and educational at the same time.
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We were quite excited to get this game as this is our first tabletop game that we've ever played designed by a Japanese creator. There were 9 puzzles in total and mostly used imagery. Although most of the time this format did avoid the language issue for puzzle solutions, we did find two places that had minor translation issues (we've reported this to the creator so hopefully it'll be corrected when you receive the game).
The puzzles were short and sweet at the beginning and gradually got harder. Most of the puzzles took forms of multi-step deciphers. There were a few we really had to think outside the box. It was clever after we figured it out with the help of the hint system. The finally puzzle gave us some issues as we were confused by the visual clues on the paper and ended up not knowing how to constructed. Since the hint system only provided nudges and not final solutions, you'll have to reach out to the company to receive assistance. This could be frustrating for international players to have to wait for that final reveal. We've suggested to the creator to add solution as an option to the game. You'll find a full set of the explanation and solution after you complete the game (hopefully this could be moved to be included as a final step in the hint system but until then, if you have any questions feel free to reach out to us as well).
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We love Japan. We've been there numerous times but its never enough. This was such a nice adventure for us since we haven't been able to travel for almost a year now. It feels like a puzzle hunt that we would've done in person but instead Erika took us on a virtual tour. The narrative was quite touching and as we solved puzzles, we were also unveiling a deeper story about Erika and her dad. Get ready to be hungry because not only will you be seeing some cool sites, you'll also be seeing lots of yummy foods along the way!
(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 Tokyo Nazotoki Escape 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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