Best Mystery/Escape Room Style Games & what makes for a good murder mystery or escape room in a box

At the Tabletop Bellhop, we're here to answer your gaming or game night questions. If you've got a question for us, you can send an email to questions@TabletopBellhop.com You can head over to the website and click on Ask the Bellhop and you'll get a form you can fill out. Or you can hit me up on social media where I can be found everywhere as TabletopBellhop (One Word) Now tonight, the question we're answering is, what are some of the best mystery and escape room style games? And to help me answ

er that, I brought in an expert, someone who enjoys these style of games way more than I do. My wife and partner, Deanna, who does a lot of the behind the scenes work that goes into making the Tabletop Bellhop what it is. Hey folks, happy to be here tonight talking about some games that I might like just a wee bit more than Moe does. Now before we get to our game recommendations, I don't want to just jump into a top 10 list or whatever. I want to spend a bit of time clarifying the type of games

we're talking about and then talking about what we think makes a good one. What makes for a good mystery escape room game? OK, I'm going to let you do the whole definition thing. Go to it. All right. So clarifying the kind of games we're talking about these are the games that fall under tonight's umbrella. I want to share cooperative puzzle games where the information provided in them to play through is used to play through and get to some conclusion. Like you win the game, you finish the game b

y solving the case or by completing all the puzzles or by getting the box open or finally escaping. Now these include a murder mystery games where you're presented with a series of clues, as well as escape room in a box style games where you're presented with a mix of puzzles to solve. OK, and while I enjoy both styles of games, the solve a mystery ones are definitely more my thing. You're the one that really digs the style of games, as does our youngest daughter and your mother. You are the one

s that like the mystery. You want a pile of evidence to sift through and collaborate things and and figure out who's lying and not. Whereas our older daughter, Gwen, and I seem to enjoy more of the escape room puzzle style ones, the type, especially if they have physical components where you're manipulating things. So it's kind of interesting because the family overall is kind of split between the two of them. But I think there's a lot of things in common by these two types of games, which is wh

y I grouped them together tonight. And there's some overlap as well. Many of the murder mystery games have puzzles in them and many of the puzzle games still tell a story. So what I'd like to talk about is what we think makes for a good mystery escape room game. And I'll let you go first. OK, so this is a personal preference thing, but I think if it's a theme or an IP that you're interested in, you're going to enjoy the game more. It's true for most games, right? So for me, I'm probably going to

enjoy something that's historical or fantasy based versus modern. And then when we were doing the Coded Chronicle games there was the Scooby Doo one. That was super fun because we could all buy in on it, Scooby Doo. When we played The Shining, neither you or I had watched the movie, so it wasn't... It was OK. It was a playable game, like it wasn't an unplayable experience but it just wasn't as fun as something where we were bought into the IP. Whereas on my side, I think the most important thin

g in one of these type of games is there is some theme or story or IP. I don't want just a bunch of random puzzles that are not interconnected, that have nothing to do with the story or the game. We played a couple like this. I'm not going to call out the bad ones. We're going to focus on the good ones, but we played a few where the puzzle took you out of the game. You're following this logical path. Now go do this puzzle. It has nothing to do with it. OK, now you get a little further. Go do ano

ther puzzle. I think it's important to have some form of theme and it can be even better if it's IP. Yeah. And like you said, I like when it's cohesive and it's all tied together, not do a puzzle to unlock another three sentences of story, to do a puzzle to unlock another two sentences of story. Yes. It's just not as fun or immersive. Now, the next one I would call out is bits. I want cool bits. I want neat things. I want things to manipulate. And I think this applies to both types of games. Lik

e if I'm doing an escape room game, give me give me give me tumblers. Give me code wheels. Give me stuff to play with. Give me neat bits, especially when it's something you don't expect. Oh, yeah. Like that, that the hunter killer game, the Agatha Christie one, when it came and we have the deluxe version, it came in that giant wooden box. And it's just like the game could have sucked at that point. And I was already going to be sucked in. And the game did not suck. But, you know, you have a gian

t box. It's wooden. It has a locked drawer that's actually locked. It's got all these neat components. You don't know how they got like that just sucks you right in right at the beginning. Right. So stuff like that. Even the one we're reviewing tonight, like it wasn't quite as over the top, but it's still like it just the way it was presented. When you open the box, there's a file case in there. Everything's in the file case. So it's just draws you into the game. I totally agree, which actually

kind of gets my next point is I want the game to be immersive. I want it to feel especially this. This is more so on the crime scene style ones I want to feel like I'm investigating a crime. I want to feel like I'm looking at actual bits of evidence. But like that box, like I'll call it out right now. We have an unboxing video. You can go look at it. It's Agatha Christie's murder at the sorry, mystery at the Hunter's Lodge. It's either mystery or murder at the Hunter's Lodge. My bad. Something a

t the Hunter's Lodge, mystery, Mystery of Hunter's Lodge. Thank you. Agatha Christie's mystery of Hunter's Lodge Deluxe Edition. Like just watch that unboxing video like you can't help. There's a pennant. There's there's a drinking flask and the drinking flask. When you pull it out, you find a note that was tucked inside the leather case. Like it feels like you're actually involved. Another example of that, I think, is the body of evidence series that's new from Mysterious Package Company, where

you're not only detective. You're also a coroner and you get a paper cadaver to actually perform an autopsy on. Yeah, that one was kind of neat. Um, this is just me, but I'm really picky about paper quality. If you're telling me I'm doing something that's from the turn of the century but you put it on like super glossy poster stock, that's going to pull me right out of the game. There was a couple of games we played that were on. You know what? It's just better that I can't remember because I'm

not I'm not saying anything negative about anyone, but there's a couple we played that were set in the turn of the century or 1920s or whatever. But the paper and the printing was just, you know, and also it all looked the same. If it was a newspaper clipping or a postcard or whatever, it was all printed on the same paper. Naw, that's not cool. Yeah. Like the good ones take that into thought and have good paper quality. Yeah. My escape room mystery game shouldn't look like it's a print and play

. From my own, you know, HP, it shouldn't look like I printed out in my computer. Yeah. So good proofreading. That's a big one. If there are errors in the text like we ran into one and we were we were using we were playing a preview like the actual prototype. Right. So we're playing a prototype. So I'll give them some leeway there. But there was an error in the text and it became a red herring and sent my mom and I off on like a 45 minute quest to try and figure out something that had nothing to

do with the game. So, you know, you need everything to make sense and to match within the game. And if something doesn't make sense, it had better be part of the puzzle. Yeah, this is a hard one. We've had some very negative experience with these style of games due to mistakes not even necessarily just typos but puzzles that don't actually work or things that don't line up or they send you to passages in a book and it ends up one of the passages was duplicated. I remember trying to solve one ga

me and having to flip through the book and read every passage to find the one that logically made sense to be next. Yes, I'd forgotten about that. That was awful. So and it needs to be somewhat historically accurate. Like I don't need a PhD level history lesson here but I don't want glaring discrepancies. Right? Something is just going to pull you right out of the game, make you go, what the heck? No, I agree. And I'm going to bring up one of our later points now because it fits in here is anach

ronism. If the game is all about going through mafia notes being passed to each other and set in the 1920s, don't have me Google something. Don't have me have to look something on the Internet. Even having to play an audio clip just brings you out of that immersion. Don't throw in anachronism where possible. Like I get it. Some games are app based and I understand it. We're going to talk about some later tonight that are set in medieval times that use apps, but do a good job of it. But like, mak

e sure it's it just it fits. Exactly. Yeah, I find that one to be that can really ruin a game for me. It just brings you out of it, right? Like you no longer feel like you're investigating this. You now feel like you're playing a game. And again, immersion is a huge part of these games to me. And I'm getting distracted by my Facebook messages that are popping up. Right. That's not what I want to do. So something else I'm looking for is accurate age guidelines. And if it's going to be gruesome, t

ell me about it up front. Like that's not necessarily a bad thing, but I want to know the tone of the game going into it. I don't want to be surprised by it. Totally agree. Let you know, like I know I give us a rating. Give us tell us the contents. It's like we talk about with role playing games and safety tools and session zero, like all that information for these style of games needs to be on the box or easy to find somehow, especially on the box. But if you're ordering the game online, it sho

uld be available on your website. Describe what's in here. Content warnings are important. And we're talking about this from experience. So that's why we want to call this one out. And one of the things I look for is a compelling story. Interesting plot. We mentioned this a bit above, but we don't want just a bunch of unconnected puzzles. The puzzles need to be tied to the theme. And I'm going to pull out a negative of a game we overall have good thoughts on. When I mentioned the corner game, we

ll, the corner game kind of pulls you out of it when you find like a silly match. The lines puzzle is the end result once you're in the body. And I'm like, well, what the heck? Like you're making me be a corner. But now I'm playing connect the dots. They give you a full on cadaver. And I mean, on the one hand, it wasn't gruesome. Yeah, it was totally family friendly. But you open up and you have like polka dot puzzles inside. Yeah. There are abstract puzzles inside this cadaver. And I was like,

that's a little jarring. It's still a good game. But that part of it broke, broke continuity. Here's a good example is the exit series of games go kind of both ways. Some have this like great overarching plot and everything. And then others are literally just turn the page, solve the next puzzle. And it's such I much prefer the ones where I feel I'm solving the puzzles for a reason. Yes, And I mean, there's also varying levels of how do I say this? Like some of these are really well written. The

one that I mark out as my favorite is exceptionally well written. Like I was just blown away by how solid the writing is in it. So that's definitely a plus. Now, a draw for us specifically because we do not do these a solo experience. We always it's always at least two of us. Usually it's all four of us. And sometimes we bring in these mom Brenda as well. She loves these style of games and we're playing with five of us. And sometimes Sean is there and we'll play with six. Is what I love to see

in these games is a way to split the puzzles up and have people work on different parts simultaneously. And that really varies in these games. Like some very much feel designed to work with only one person. But I much prefer it. Give multiple people different things to do, whether that you give us multiple puzzles at once or there's just enough different clues that everyone can be doing different parts of it. Someone can grab all the police reports while someone else looks at the witness reports

, whatever that happens to be. Please give us some way for at least two people, like at least two things you can split up, if not more. And I remember a positive example of that is when we did the holiday hijinks of Valentine's Day one. Right away, it unlocked to two branching paths right off the go. So we each had our own thing to do. And that was that was kind of cool. And then we could switch off when we got stuck. So as Sean pointed out for that one, and I kind of agree with him, if you're g

oing for a Valentine's Day theme, it might have been more thematic to have us work on the same puzzles to get. But I did appreciate that. That's true. Let's all work together, apart. Yes, exactly. Length of play is important. Some are very short, some are very long. And in a shocking way, for one of the things, this should be very clearly stated at the beginning, just like content. The length of the game should be very clear. Some companies are great. They say like Exit Games are about an hour.

Holiday Hijinx games are about an hour, except one that very clearly stated it's two hours and can be split over. We had no clue how long the ghost in the machine was going to be until. like we were partway through and I was like, holy cow, we're still in book one. Now, we had a preview copy and it does have the info on their website now. Now, yes, I don't know if it was there before and we missed it or we just didn't do our due diligence. I think mainly at that point, we had probably played 10

different mixes of murder and escape room games and we just expect them to be an hour or two, right? Like that's just kind of the standard length. Not this one. So this is like eight to 10 hours, right? Hunt a Killer was on the long side, too, that Agatha Christie one. You know what? Since they're they're one and done, you can only play these games once and then ideally you can repackage and give them to someone else. I like when they're on the longer side. I feel like I'm getting, you know, it'

s worth the price of admission. No, I agree. The length of play is nice. Just know what you make it clear. So we know when we're going in. I think that's the big thing. Now I'm going to call out something is the replayability. A huge bonus for any of these games is a way to reset it. A way that someone else can play. Most of these games are one and done. I would say probably all of them are one and done for a specific group. And you're never going to be able to play them again because you'll kno

w the puzzles, you'll know the mystery, you'll know who done it. But most of them also get destroyed while you're playing. They expect you to write on things and fold things and cut things, which is awesome because that really enhances the immersion. It's it's the same thing I found. I love legacy games. Risk Legacy taught me that cutting up a card is awesome because what I've done in the game is now permanent. I made a permanent change. My my decisions matter. I can't just restart and play agai

n tomorrow and it'll be it'll be different now. And that's what I love about these games. But even better, though, is when they include a way to reset. And we're starting to see more of that. And it is greatly appreciated. I remember the first exit game we played. We tried so hard to not ruin anything and it ruined the experience. It made it less fun because we were just going out of our way to try not to cut or bend or write on anything. And the one that really impressed me was when we opened t

he Doomensions the other day, it had a replay pack inside it. Not only that, there's a little skull symbol that's on everything in the game that you are going to destroy while playing that will be replaced in that pack. And then, you know, you're not wondering, is this OK to destroy? Should should I be bending this or cutting this up? You know, you can do it and you can still use the recharge pack to reset it, to give it away to someone else. So I thought that was super cool. Now, they did only

include one recharge pack. So you're still you only get two uses out of the game, but that's still better than nothing. I wonder if you could buy another one. That would be a neat thing That's possible. There's something to look up. But that's that's that would be that would be cool. Going back to length of play, if you're going to give me more than an hour, anything more than an hour, give me some way to save the game. Give me a logical break, some way to stop and come back to it later. In my o

pinion, that points an hour. I think some people might even say half an hour. I need to be able to pause my game and come back to it. Just we're adults. Things come up. We have kids that the phone rings, whatever. Give me a way to pause and give me a way to come back, especially with the longer. Yeah, half an hour would be excessive, but an hour or two hours. Give me a save point if the game is not going to be wrapping up at that point. Yeah. And then you have the choice. You can go longer if yo

u want to. But but also it gives you an idea of how much more you're getting into, too. If you're sitting there trying to judge, well, it's eight o'clock. Do we want to keep going or, you know, if there's logical breaks, right? So now a huge one for me and and most games are pretty good at this is a clue system, but more specifically, an incremental clue system where you get a multiple levels of hints where the first hint is all it's going to tell you is, do you have the stuff in front of you? A

re you looking at the right cards? Have you opened evidence pack six? Are you looking at the map? Something or have you already been to the barn? Whatever, whatever that first hint may be, where it doesn't spoil anything. It's just making sure you're looking at the right stuff, because often that's enough in many of the games we played. We're like, oh, this. OK, wait, I thought that thing we touched half an hour ago. We were done with and we put it back in the box. We still need that. That's why

we're stuck. Many times that's happened. And then it's just increments, right? Like now that you have the things, here's what they combine with. OK, now that you know what they combine with, here's the kind of thing you want to look at it. OK, now that you know it's a word puzzle, it's a five letter word, whatever. And then give me multiple steps before you give me the final answer. And then when you give me the final answer, explain why. Because we had a problem with that in one of the first o

nes of these we played where there was part of the thing we would have never got. And nowhere in the game did it explain where that answer came from. And it drove us bonkers. Give me both. If I remember correctly, we looked it up online and we eventually figured it out. Yes, I had I had to watch someone else play through who figured it out to figure out how they were supposed to figure it out. And wasn't there there was some kind of typo involved anyway. So we really would have never gotten it.

Yeah. And that particular one, yes, there was an errata. There were two printings and it changed between the German printing and the English printing. Not to try to hint too much at what company that might be. You know what? Like half the time, I'm like, oh, I don't even want to see clues or hints. It just tempts me. I don't even want to know they exist. But then when you get stuck to the point that like everyone at the table is starting to get titchy and argue with each other, it is nice to be

able to have something to look at. No, and I agree. And we've said this on every review we've ever done on any of these games. Although I don't think it's in tonight's review. Use hints. Don't get to the point you're frustrated. You can you can. I came through the what's the term before frustrated? You know, you can be engaged. You can be working on it. And I mean, challenged, challenged. Yes. Yes. Challenged. Good. Frustrated. Bad. It's it comes more into play in the escape room style than the

mystery games. Unless something's gone really off. Yeah. You should probably be on the right track with the mystery solving ones that you don't need. But with the ones that it's just a series of puzzles, sometimes getting stuck in that one puzzle, it's no fun. Another big one, unfortunately, is quality control. Speaking of no fun. Customer support, because another thing we call out on every one of these reviews now is most of these games come with a checklist to verify what's in the box. Use it.

Please go through there. You don't want to be playing a game for three hours to get completely stumped, only to find out you're missing something like it literally was not in the box. Unfortunately, we've seen this happen. Then. Oh, yeah. Then it comes to customer support. Just we could have just gone through the checklist, and we didn't bother. We skip that step. Yeah. And then three hours in, we were quite frustrated. And that was one of those. So again, I don't I'm not as big a fan of the cr

ime game. So I'm usually the one that's like, I'll grab my phone and Google something and then I'll just kind of sit back and play GM and give hints because I'm not the one that's enjoying the game as much as everyone else anyway. And that was when I'm like, OK, wait, the the the clue is here. And everyone's like, I can't find that. And it was a mess. It was a mess. Also, this is true of most board games these days. Check for an FAQ. I hate that you have to do it, but check for an FAQ probably b

efore you start playing. Yeah. Check for an FAQ and an errata. So I think those are the main points. And then we got bonus points, bonus extra positive points. If you have a good plot twist. There's a couple lately that we've played that had like a really solid plot twist near the end that I enjoyed. And the other thing that you get bonus points for is if you get some kind of artifact to keep at the end. Yeah. Like, you know, something solid metal would some some doohickey that you can keep. And

if there's something for different people at the table to take home, that's always fun. That is cool. And honestly, it doesn't have to be that big a deal. We have played games like those little those little plastic skulls. And yes, the game. Yes, exactly. There was three of them. And, each of the kids got to take one. And it was like, you have a little something to remember doing that and remember doing that by. Yeah. Heck, one exit game when we finished, it gave us a recipe. Even that's just c

ool. Yes, that's like that's just neat. Yeah. Yeah. Give me something. Give me an artifact at the end. That's that's actually one of the things I like about these kind of games. Now, some of the games are basically artifacts at the end. Like Doomensions itself is an artifact. You have a pop up Dollhouse at the end of it. But it's always nice to get something else. And there's the depending on the games, some companies are great at this and some give you nothing at the end. You're just like, oh,

I'm done. Yeah, I got a score. OK. Bunch of stuff to recycle. Yes, really. All right. Now that we've shared some of our thoughts on what makes for a good escape room or mystery game, let's get onto a list of some of the best games we played in this genre of games. OK. Doomensions. I'm going to start with Doomensions. We're just starting to explore this one. But oh, wow. Is it ever impressive? OK, so it's a giant pop up paper Dollhouse. And I know Moe's been sharing a lot of photos of it online l

ately. It's like a two story massive pop up. When you open it up, all the furniture inside the Dollhouse pops up. There's little books you can open and cupboards you can open inside this thing. And I was like, wow, that right there, I'm sold. That looks so cool. And all the pictures of it online. But then when we did the unboxing, you find out it also comes with this really elaborate scrapbook journal. And ... it's ... I'm ... wow. We started playing it last week and I was just so impressed with

it. And it is broken into five chapters with easy spots to stop at. And it is very much it's not a murder mystery. It's an escape room in a box, an escape room in a Dollhouse, really. So it's a it's a string of puzzles. But like the plot around it isn't bad. It's cohesive. It's I was really enjoying it. And yeah, and that scrapbook was surprisingly cool. Had lots of cool little bits in it. You get a giant Dollhouse, you get a magnifying glass, like a big wooden magnifying glass, and they give y

ou a little flashlight to poke around, look in the Dollhouse with. So it was just it was super well done. Yeah, it's extremely neat. And I would say it's kind of a mashup of the murder mystery with the escape room. So far, the puzzles are very escape room feeling The story leading up to it because you've got you've got five chapters and each of the chapters is a different investigator that was there before you who failed. So you actually get like their notes and stuff. So it's kind of cool. It's

got some a lot more story than some of the escape room games we played. So I do dig that. One of the things to watch for, though, is this is a long one because those five chapters, they say each one's one to two hours. And the one we played took us about an hour and a half. And but that was including like learning the game, right? Like reading through there's a thick instruction book, kind of walking it through all of it and so on. And there is a lot of playtime in this box. You're looking at l

ike 10 hours worth of playtime, which is quite impressive. The only thing I'm going to call them out right here on this is it's really silly to start an instruction book by saying no app, no online. You don't need the Internet. You're going to play this at a table together and then have a QR code that reads you off the story. Yes. Like what? This game is going to be totally analog. Put your phones away. OK, now scan this QR code. I'm like, did that just happen? But that was like there. You neede

d an editor there. You've got some conflicting information It was in the wrong order, guys. All right. So my first game on this list is Scooby Doo! Escape from the Haunted Mansion, A Coded Chronicle game from Jay and Sen, some fantastic Canadian game designers published by The Op. We love the Coded Chronicle series. The coded chronicle series is just so well done and so neat. And honestly, this is the best of that series. One of the best family game nights we've ever had with Deanna, myself and

our two kids was playing Scooby Doo! Escape from the Haunted Mansion It was just that engaging. Now, the system's fascinating where you have different characters that have numbers on them, and then you have map tiles with other numbers. You match the character to the map tile to look up a section in a book and each character does something different, like Shaggy tries to eat it. Scooby tries to sniff it. I don't even remember Velma tried to work with it. I think use it. And every character had a

different skill to use such a fantastic system that did a really good job capturing that kind of point and click adventure feel in board game form. And I got to say, the kids just devoured. doing silly things, having Shaggy tried to eat and lick everything. Yeah, it blew me away how much it captured that point and click in a board game. And I was so enamored with the mechanics when we when we first got into it. And I was so excited. at the entire concept of the Coded Chronicle games. And then i

t was just so much fun. It was definitely one of the best game nights we've ever had as a family. The kids were just giggling and we'd also solved a mystery, but they were going around and having, you know, characters do silly things and interact in silly ways. And the theming was on point. It was very Scooby Doo. And our kids aren't big Scooby fans. So even with them not really knowing the IP, they still had an awesome time with it. And it is just like that game is a ten out of ten. It's just s

uper fun. The next one on our list, number three is Hidden Games Crime Scene. Case #1, the Maplebrook Case. So that's the Canadian version. And I think it's neat that they localized it. There was it's still the same game. It's not called the Maplebrook case in the States. And I don't remember what it is called, but they localized it. So I thought that was cool. And for a modern setting, I actually really enjoyed this one. Like you, you do need Internet Internet access. And there were parts where

you even listen to audio recordings but it didn't take you out of the story. It felt appropriate because you were doing a police procedural. Right. So it wasn't as weird as if I'm doing something turn of the century and they're telling me to pull up a sound file. And I just loved like the sheer number of paper clippings and case files and photos and how it was all there to look through. And we just we took over my mom's entire dining room table. And it looked like we were having some kind of ju

st crazy escapade. And it was easy to split up because there was so much to look at. And it was super fun. So the U.S. version is called the Newhaven case. And what they call this is a realistic crime scene game. And I got to agree, it's it's you get a Manila envelope and you crack it open and it's basically we're stumped. Here you go, detective. See what you can figure out. And I thought that was extremely well done. And like Deanna, what I was really impressed by was how much stuff you got, ho

w organized that stuff was and just the the quality. Here was one where the papers were all different. The newspaper was on newsprint and the postcards were postcards and there were Polaroids and it was like a Polaroid. It obviously wasn't a real Polaroid, but it was really close. Like it felt like a Polaroid. And what I really loved about this one is they gave you one tool because a big part about this game was looking at witness statements and the timing things happened. And they actually gave

you a day planner, like a calendar that they fully expect you to write on. And that's where you make your notes on. And that just worked really well to tie everything together. I thought that was a fantastic like prop and tool to include in the game. Yeah. So everyone at the table could make their own notes. And then we were just pulling it all together on this calendar. It's really cool. And I think off the top of my head that the MSRP was really reasonable on those two. So for like a cheaper

game, I was just super impressed with them. It looks like $25 usd See, I thought it was $19.95 But you know what? I might be thinking of five years ago to play that one a while ago. Yeah, we did play that one a while ago. My next one is another Coded Chronicles game because I said I loved the series and that is the Goonies Escape with One-Eyed Willy's Rich Stuff. I thought Scooby Doo was better. I got to say, we don't always present these lists in order, but I will say Scooby's better. But I rea

lly enjoyed the Goonies. Now, when we did sit down to play this, we did the good parent thing and sat down and watched the Goonies with the kids. So they at least knew what was going on. But I don't think they had the attachment to the Goonies. Like, it just wasn't that big a deal. And I got to say, growing up, living in Windsor and the threat being that the kids are going to move to Detroit just had a personal impact, I think, on people in this area that may not have other people watching the G

oonies around the world. So this was one of my favorite movies. And I got to play it in board game form. And that is where they nailed it. This is where Sen and Chris just blew it away, is they worked with some of the original people. And I don't remember what film company produces the Goonies, but they made it part of the movie. It's basically it could be cut scenes that didn't make it in the film and you played through them. I love the way that this let me experience the Goonies, a movie I gre

w up loving in a new way and made me feel like I was part of that plot. That was awesome. And it just felt like it was adding to the story. And it was really well done. The writing was great. And it just felt like it was very on point, very on theme. And I love the Coded Chronicles system mechanically. So I was super excited to have another game to play in the series. But I really preferred the Scooby Doo one a lot. I liked the way that the stuff was broken up into the envelopes for the Goonies.

I just there were parts that felt fiddly to me. I didn't like the way the map laid out and it progressed in weird ways. And it took up a lot of table space. And I remember because we didn't know, for example, that it was going to just suddenly keep building off to the left and then we have to slide it around the table and then it would build off the other side. We have to slide around the table again. So I don't know, it's just fiddly. And I didn't like it as much as Scooby. Yeah, I remember on

e puzzle with a bridge and a rope that was not well designed or we just didn't get it. Other than that, I said, I enjoyed that one. I just think you liked it better than I did. Like, it wasn't bad by a long shot, but not as solid as Scooby. So we're on to number five. And that's Body of Evidence, Best Served Cold, which is also from the Mysterious Package Company. And this game is pretty darn unique. Yeah, you actually get a giant paper cadaver that you just fold out. When you open it, first thi

ng you see is a toe tag. You know, and somehow this is not at all gruesome, despite the fact that there is a almost life-size cadaver. You do actually dissect by opening it in a special way and you play the coroner as well as the detective in the game. But like we talked about this earlier, there was a bit of disconnect between the coroner's examination and the abstract puzzles that ensued. And at the time, that was a surprise that disappointed me. Now, knowing that that's what to expect, I woul

d totally play through another one of these. Like I think they said it's going to be a series. So if they were to come out with another one, I would know what to expect. I'd probably enjoy it more. And this was modern, which is another negative for me. But the storyline was well done. It had really well developed characters. And it felt like you were solving a mystery. Yeah, this one was super neat. And I'll say right here, they have two more coming. So the next two Body of Evidence games are be

ing crowdfunded. I know you can follow the project right now on Kickstarter. I don't know. It might be live by the time you listen to this. So there are two more coming. What we played was a prototype. So we didn't get to see the final version of things. And I didn't know what to think with this. Like I was on the same place as our kids who were like, do I really want to dissect the cadaver? I don't know. I don't think I do. And then I'm like, I don't know. Is it going to be gruesome? Is it not?

But once we got into it, it was pretty cool. Like this was one that I didn't plan on playing. I was going to sit and take some pictures and let Deanna and her mom play. And I end up getting as involved as they did. And I end up helping take part. And I basically I played the whole thing with them. And I didn't intend to originally. And I think what I like there is it did the whole crime scene thing, right? Like talking to witnesses and checking coroner's reports and checking police reports and

figuring out the times of things, but also included the puzzles. So for me, it was like the perfect mashup of the escape room with the mystery. So that was one aspect of a body of evidence I really enjoyed. Yes. And I felt like I could be like, here, you work on the puzzle. I'll work on the mystery. Yeah. Well, it was kind of you and your mom were busy doing something with police reports while I was cutting into someone's head. Next up, I have another mashup that's similar to this. That's on thi

s list for the exact same reason as what I just said. It's La Famiglia from Puzzling Pursuits. This was just I don't know, it just wasn't what I expected because the puzzling pursuits, the name of the company's puzzling pursuit. So this is a case of mixed expectations. I was expecting crime scene. I was expecting piles of evidence. Again, everything you do in a murder mystery, right? And that's not what this was. This was puzzles. I expected clues and got puzzles. So far, both the games we tried

from Puzzling Pursuits had this, but La Famiglia wins by far because the puzzles fit the story. The story was about the mafia, and it was about them passing ciphers to each other to get hidden information around town without notifying the police. And while you had to decipher the ciphers, the puzzles were the story. And it felt like you were deciphering mafia ciphers. And that was fascinating. I really enjoyed La Famiglia. And what's funny is I enjoyed the first game we played for them, Black B

rim, quite a bit for that escape room puzzle experience. But this was just better. It had the story that went behind it. I think it's good we played them in that order because, yeah, we played Black Brim and I was like, Oh, that's pretty good. I like that. And then we did La Famiglia later. And I was like, Oh, no, this one's way better. Of the two, I much preferred that one. The historic tie ins were solid and the puzzles felt like they were part of the story, not break some story and then move

on. Right. Like and it was a while back now when we played this, so I can't remember the exact details, but I remember our eldest daughter. There was something in high school history class that she was currently taking. It actually was mentioned in the newspaper clippings for the game. So I remember that was kind of fun when we were playing it that night. On to number seven, Hunt a Killer, Mystery of Hunter's Lodge. OK, we were talking about this a little earlier. I was so excited about diving i

nto this game because it's the one that comes in the big, big wooden box, which is like a giant jewelry box. It has a locked bottom drawer. You flip it open. There's like a signet ring in there and all kinds of papers and booklets. And and one of the small, silly details that excited me was the paper quality. Every all the clippings and the papers were the right type of paper. They didn't feel like weird, suspicious, modern, you know. And then this is the deluxe version we're talking about. Ther

e's also a regular version, which actually has some neat artifacts, but it's not quite as over the top. So like this, this game was so immersive and it had a great storyline, which is based on the short story by Agatha Christie. But it doesn't have the same answer as the short story did. So you're not spoiled by reading the one or the other. But to give you an idea of how immersive this is, we gave it to my mom as a Christmas gift and we were just going to open it up and take a quick peek at it.

And we were going to play it. And the next thing you know, we're taking notes. We're yelling out ideas and clues. We're like, did you see this thing? Look at this. And it's like three hours later and we're setting it aside to continue with another day. Yeah. And the amusing one about that was my mom was present because it was Christmas while it was Boxing Day. We were probably over at your mom's or possibly on Christmas Day. I don't remember which, but we were there. My mom was there, too. And

my mom, my mom's, despite the fact she goes to Euchre every Wednesday night, claims she's not a game player. Well, she's sitting in the chair kind of in the corner and she keeps helping out. She keeps shelling out clues. And don't forget about I don't remember what I don't forget about the wife or check the fireplace or, oh, wait, did the clue mean this? This was awesome. Like so fantastic looking, so over the top. I have never experienced a game product. that was as impressive as this. We talke

d earlier about how we want games that leave you with artifacts. Well, the whole thing is an artifact. There's nothing in there that's not worth keeping in the end, like from watches to flask to the wooden box itself. There's a pennant that I want to hang up in our game room when we finally finish it. Now, we will call out that this one was the game that we had a problem with because this was completely marred by our copy of the game being incomplete. We were missing an entire booklet from our c

opy of this game, which actually made the case unsolvable. So we will finish it at some point. We were provided PDF copies of the booklet, which talk about being pulled out of your immersion. We do have those. And at some point we do plan on finishing this one. But we're going to have to get through Doomensions at least first. Next up, I have Exit The Secret Lab in general, the whole Exit series. But I want to I want to call it specific games tonight, not just like a whole genre of games and exi

t was actually our first Exit game. But looking back on it, it's actually one of my favorite. So one of the problems I had when we first played The Secret Lab is we had never played an Exit game before. And the Exit games have a very distinct system. They all work the same. The mechanics are the same. You are looking for three things that you're going to put on a code wheel to get an answer and that has you look at cards and the way the cards look at tell you if you're on the right track or not.

That whole aspect of it was rough. It was a rough learning curve in Exit. But once we got past that, the actual stuff you had to do was fascinating. In this game, you're cutting things, you're assembling things. Pretty much every piece of the game, including the box itself, it can be part of the puzzle with the exit series and the secret lab where it ended up shining is we went on to play some other ones that were lower difficulty and they would seem too easy. Like I just wish Exit The Secret L

ab wasn't our first. I wish we had started with one easier just to get that system down, to get the how exit games work. You just you almost need the Unlock series does a great job of this. They include this little small ten card deck that kind of lets you learn the game before you play your first game. I needed that for exit. So while The Secret Lab is my favorite of all the ones we played, I recommend The Haunted Roller Coaster as your first one, because it's fun. It's got a silly, spooky Hall

oween theme, but it's more linear and does a great job of introducing the Exit series and how it works. Yeah, and I remember the kids really enjoyed when we did the haunted roller coaster. Yes. Yeah. My my personal favorite is The Catacombs of Horror. I like that it's set in the catacombs under Paris. It's double length. It's actually a two part. Or you can play it in one night if you're ambitious. It had some really neat components, these little little plastic skulls. And there was an actual ca

ndle. And there's just some really neat stuff going on in this one. And I like that it was it was a little longer and more meaty because sometimes the exit games feel, you know, if we finish them in 50 minutes, I'm like, OK, now what? You know, it just doesn't feel like quite enough for me. Yeah, I agree. So number nine on the list is Chronicles of Crime 1400. Now you're solving mysteries, which I like. You need an app to play and you travel to different places and you interact with and question

the suspects via the app. And there's a VR component. And I have to say, when I first heard about that, all of that sounded awful. Like it just sounded gimmicky and and it's in the 1400s, but you're using an app and VR and like that sounds jarring, you know. But then we played it and I loved it. It was one of my favorite games. I super enjoyed it because the app is not. It's definitely a very integral part of the game. There's no other way that they could have technically done that game because

time passes as you're playing the game and what order you go. And I don't mean. it's not like counting your every second, but what order you talk to folks in matters. It takes time to travel from one spot to another on the map that you're on. It's it's very intricate and very neat. And I really enjoyed the time period and the setting. And yeah, it was just super cool. I want to get back to the table, but Moe didn't really care for it. Yeah. And honestly, I don't even know what it was I didn't l

ike about this. Like the system's very well done. I had more of a problem with the immersion system, like the whole scanning QR codes, because it's all QR code based. So like if you're talking to a person and you want to ask them about an item in your inventory, you scan the item card. And then if you want to move to a different spot, you scan it. I don't know. I then there's a whole thing where you have VR glasses, where you literally hold your phone up and, you know, look around. And you do th

at. And I'm like, it's neat. I'm looking around a crime scene. While you're doing that, you're just shouting out what you see to the other players. And they're shuffling through an item deck as quick as they can, trying to pull out the ones you said. Like to me, like it's neat. It's very cool. It's well done. Maybe if it was modern, like the original Chronicles of Crime is a modern crime series. Maybe it wouldn't have bothered me as much. But something about playing a medieval period where you'r

e like a psychic with a dog having to do all this just took me right out of it. And that is a thing like the VR part was the only part that made it not ideal for playing with multiple people. Right. Because I don't want to be the one only one at the table because I want other insight and other brains at the table. But once you're looking around and trying to spot things through VR, like the only one of you can do that at a time. And with the kids, the kids are like, I want to do it. No, no, no,

no. I don't know. It was interesting. We really should go back to it. I should give it another shot. Like some of the stuff is so fantastic. And like this is what I liked in this game is you could ask the wrong question, which is something you don't get from the we just have piles of paper evidence to read. Like you're interviewing people, but you're just reading things. This let you like we did. We messed up one case because we asked someone in the story the wrong question and they got mad. And

that shut down a whole section of the game. And there was no way we were going to solve the case after that. So which was impressive. But then it also had the which way book problem of, well, now we can't win. Do we replay? Do we restart from the beginning? See, that didn't bother me. That was just like, yeah, it's like the which way book. Just you just reset and do it. And now I'm going to make different choices. Yeah, but this is an hour and a half, two hours in and reset and redo it. You can

't just hit back. My next one is the Groundhog Gambit. Again, like the Exit games, I didn't want to put the entire Holiday Hijinks series on here. I want to call it the best of the best. Now this one is from our sponsor, Grand Gamers Guild. But honestly, we had and played all these games before they were our sponsor. So take that with a grain of salt. These are fantastic. 18 card escape room in a box games by Jonathan Chaffer, who I am baffled by how he keeps coming up with new ways to use only

18 cards. Now I'm calling out the Groundhog Gambit because. it was the smartest and neatest of the bunch using only 18 cards. The Groundhog Gambit, as we said in our review, check that out when you have time is, of course, based on the movie and not as much the holiday. And the way the same 18 cards were used over and over again, giving you a different story each time was just fantastic. Yeah, no, it was brilliant. Overall, I really dig the holiday hijinks games and how they managed to fit like

an entire escape room box. escape room in a box style game into 18 cards. And you get, you know, an hour of play out of this little little thing like this. Right. And Groundhog Gambit, definitely my favorite of the bunch. And again, I liked it because it was longer. It had a two hour play time versus one hour for the rest of the games in the series that we tried. And like the way the cards were were used and then reused and then reused. It was brilliant. OK, normally these lists aren't in any pa

rticular order, but I did save the best for last. The Ghost in the Machine from Mysterious Package Company is my favorite of the bunch. Well, I haven't finished Doomensions yet. I may I may change my mind, but it's unlikely because that's more escape room and this is more murder mystery. The storyline is great. It's just the writing's fantastic. It's a super engaging experience. And well, it isn't quite as over the top as a giant wooden box from Hunt a Killer. It's got really cool table presence

. Like when you first get it, you open the box and inside there's this like it's plasticky when you touch it, but it looks like a leather file folder. And you open that and the whole game's in there. And it's just it's got all these neat physical bits. And it's just it's immersive. I was really impressed with the way the game mechanics. game mechanics worked, which was a combination of like a which-way book system with some sleuthing and puzzle solving. And yeah, it's just one of the most fun th

ings I've done. Oh, and super long, super long. We played it for like four nights, I think. So we got a lot of enjoyment out of it. All right. We are going to be reviewing this one in detail later. The Ghost in the Machine from Mysterious Package Company. So I'm going to save my thoughts for our review. Now, what I do want to do before we go and move on to the next section is call out two honorable mentions. Now, the first one I'm going to call out, because I don't know where else I would talk a

bout these, is EscapeWelt's line of what they call escape room boxes. These are escape the room in your home or something is their marketing. Their English is not their first language. Their English is somewhat questionable at times. But these are high end wooden puzzle boxes featuring multi-step puzzles of various difficulty. To get them open. They look fantastic. And I've got to say they make some of the coolest gift boxes you can ever give someone else. Now, while each box has a pretty ridicu

lous story attached to it, I would kind of throw that out the window and ignore the fact that you're supposedly getting the feel of exploring an ancient pyramid. No, no, it's just a wooden box you have to solve. These are honestly almost more desktop toys than games, which is why I did not put them on the main list. Yeah, they're beautiful. And I think they're neat. Like, particularly if you pop them open and put something inside and use it as a gift box. But if you think you're going to have a

group of people sit around a table and work on one of these boxes together, that is not happening. Like, this is really more of a solo experience. I know with our first one, we did try that. We're like, we'll all work on it together. We're like, no, we'll just pass it around and get frustrated. Yes. I don't know about solo experience, because I don't think any of us on our own has gotten a box open. It's always been, you fiddle with it for a bit, then someone else fiddles out for a bit and maybe

finds out, figures out the next part, then someone else fiddles with it. But yeah, it's not something you can all do together. Finally, I have Fighting Fantasy Adventures from Martin Wallace based on the classic game books. Now, we've only played a prototype. This did fund on GameFound, but it hasn't actually been published yet. So we can't really say, go out and grab it or anything yet. And that, for one, put it off the main list. Now, this felt like playing a which way book, especially when w

e confirmed that you can die by going the wrong way. And yes, you're just supposed to start over like you would in a which way book when you die and play through a second time, knowing where you went wrong. So I wanted to call this series out. Now, Deanna doesn't necessarily agree with me that these count as puzzle games, but I don't know. It's got that which way feel. To me, it feels quite a bit like Ghost in the Machine and a few of the other games tonight in the Coded Chronicles. I think ther

e's some overlap there, but I know she doesn't agree with me. We, we argued about this earlier. It's a which way book. It's a super fun which way book. It totally captures the feel of the books it's based on, but it is not a mystery game or a puzzle game. I don't know, the puzzle was you had to go in and find three coins and then put them in the chest in the right order. How is that not a puzzle? No, no, the puzzle is not remembering which parts of the story I want to revisit when I go back and

die. I don't know. I just, I don't see it. And plus it has, like I said before, it has stats, it has rolling, there's random attributes, all of those things to me, make it not a mystery game. All right, fair enough. So there you have 13 mystery escape room style games, maybe 12, depending on who you ask, that we recommend. Now it's time to do a quick check in with our lobby, our chatroom here on Twitch, who it ends up aren't really into these games, but maybe we've convinced them to check some o

f them out. So out of our entire chat room tonight, the only game that got called out that has been enjoyed a lot of fun is Chronicles of Crime, the original version of the game, Eggman Jr. said they had a lot of fun with that game. So that's fantastic. And hopefully, maybe we've convinced you tonight to check out more escape room mystery style games. Do you have anything you want to add before we move on? No, um, that kind of convinced me to maybe go try the original Chronicles of Crime, which

I have to say until trying the 1400, I had zero interest in. Fair enough. All right, now that we've heard from the chat, how about you listening at home or watching on YouTube? What murder mystery puzzle and escape room games would you recommend we try out? These can be the puzzle heavy type I like or the solve the crime style Deanna prefers. We'd love to hear about both. Let us know by commenting, sending an email off to moe@TabletopBellhop.com or hitting me up on social media where I can be fo

und everywhere as TabletopBellhop (one word.) Or if you want to yell at me about something, you can find me at Deanna@TabletopBellhop.com And now a word about our sponsor Grand Gamers Guild. We've been a big fan of their games for quite a while now. Now we originally discovered them through the abstract strategy game Gorinto, which I actually had the pleasure of playing a early prototype copy and actually had some feedback back then that got it included in the game, which is pretty awesome. But

we still love Gorinto and we still love Grand Gamers Guild's games. Like since then, we have played a number of their games. the Holiday Hijinks series we called out earlier today are by Grand Gamers Guild. And now since we've got Deanna here, I thought it'd be worth getting her thoughts on their games. So what are your favorite games from Grand Gamers Guild? I mean, Gorinto, of course, but I think you've talked about that one enough on the show. Um, I really dig Chiseled, that entire deck shedd

ing versus deck building thing. I super enjoyed that game and I always enjoy bringing it to the table and showing it to someone new and their reaction to it. Um, so I found that one fascinating. And I think Aldabas, Doors of Cartagena. It doesn't get as much love as it deserves. That game is super fun. Even though I don't care for the vaults, you have to jury rig something there. But aside from that, that game is so good. And I've really been digging The Artemis Project and I can't wait to dive

into the expansion for that one. All right. Now, if any of these sound great to you, you can pick them up direct from Grand Gamers Guild, GrandGamersGuild.com, all one word. Where you can use our exclusive code bellhop, that's B-E-L-L-H-O-P to save 10%. While there, be sure to subscribe to their newsletter, keep up with their latest news and releases because I know they have some big things coming for 2024.