CU Adventures: Murder on the Ornament Express (Play at Home)

100% Family Friendly

Six train cars, six suspects, and a snowman melted before his time.

It’s up to you to crack the case and save Christmas in this holiday whodunit by CU Adventures. Murder on the Ornament Express is a 30-60 minute mystery for 1-4 players, where clues and puzzles are on postcards you can hang as Christmas Ornaments!

If CU Adventures had a fan club, we would definitely be card carrying members, we’ve yet to play a game of theirs and not have a good time; The Lost Temple, Floor 13 were good fun but they really pushed the boundaries with their puzzle T-Shirts, The Treasure Cove of Pirate Cove, and Escape from the Maze of the Minotaur. So when we were asked if we wanted to check out their new Christmas game, we didn’t even have to think about it.

We’ve seen Christmas games with punny names, but this one could be the winner – Murder on the Ornament Express is truly an inspired name. Even before playing you have a pretty good idea of what you’ll be letting yourself in for (assuming you’ve heard of Murder on the Orient Express that is).

This is clearly a Christmas game, but really you could play it any time around the festive period if you wanted. We were quite surprised as we thought this may be an easier game and that we’d blitz it, but in reality it kept us going for 50 minutes! We played as a team of two but they recommend 1-4 players.

Life has been pretty hectic lately but we managed to find time to sit down by the fire, open this wonderful envelope, and work out what happened to poor old Flakey the Snowman.

CONCEPT/EXECUTION

There’s really not much to this game and the beauty of it lies in its simplicity. Nothing big or bulky that needs shipping, just a lovely little red envelope. What I didn’t realise at the time, and only just noticed in the description of this game is that you could turn the postcards into Christmas tree ornaments if you wanted – we chose not to as this game is actually 100% replayable (if you don’t write on things) and we think it could offer a nice challenge for our family on Christmas Day!

Like everything by CU Adventures, Murder on the Ornament Express hasn’t just been rushed out, they’ve clearly taken the time to find the best materials possible so that this feels like a quality experience. I must admit though, I’m most impressed that they managed to turn the song ‘Frosty the Snowman’ into an original song (I most definitely butchered it with my singing though, sorry Liz).

It’s worth noting that you will need the internet for this game, but it is only needed to enter the results of your investigation and to use the clue system.

PUZZLES

We sat down expecting a ‘puzzle-light’ experience but that wasn’t what we got. It could be that we’re just not good at whodunnit adventures, but we seemed to struggle at times with this game. We found lots of things that we needed but piecing them together into something we needed often stumped us. In hindsight we had both managed to overlook one crucial bit of information which had we spotted earlier would have made our life much easier!

The puzzles heavily revolved around observation and deduction. Singing, despite being a challenge for me, was not a puzzle, fortunately. This is one of those games where you look at something and think you have seen everything, but the more you look, the more you find.

Signposting was decent although there were a couple of occasions where we (Liz) found something before we were meant to. So when we completed one puzzle it was telling us to look at something we had already found – didn’t spoil or change anything, but even things that may be hard to see will guide you to them eventually.

CLUE SYSTEM

The hint system, which is accessed through a webpage, is nicely detailed and is laid out in a way so that there are no spoilers for puzzles you don’t need help with. When you click on a question it will expand and give you a simple pointer. If that’s not enough you can click on ‘more detail’ to get a little more help, but if that’s still not enough, then you can get the solution to help keep you moving.

Once you finish the game you get a nicely detailed rundown of what happened, who had motives but couldn’t have done it, and finally, confirmation of the person who did commit the deed, and why.

FINAL THOUGHTS

We were expecting an easy ride on the Ornament Express, but it wasn’t to be. This game unexpectedly challenged us and kept us occupied for nearly an hour. This would be a lovely little game to break out for the family, and as it’s replayable, you could get competitive and break into teams to see who can solve the mystery in the quickest time.

TOOLS REQUIRED

• An Internet Connection if you need clues, and to enter your solution

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players

Time Taken: 50ish mins

Website: https://www.solveourshirts.com

*Disclaimer: we weren’t charged for this experience, but this has not influenced our review.