Escape Hunt: Murder at the Mansion (Play at Home)

It’s still all logical

Murder at the Mansion takes you, a distant descendant and sole heir to the family fortune, back to the fateful night of a lavish party at the old Blackwood estate, following which Lord Blackwood’s body was discovered. The crime was never solved.

Can you put the suspects under the microscope to discover who did it, where and with what? Sift through the evidence, listen to witness statements, and step deep into a world of mystery and intrigue.

Sift through the evidence and step deep into a world of mystery and intrigue!

Having not long completed ‘Stolen’ one of the other Escape Hunt games, we thought we’d try out their latest game, Murder at the Mansion. Escape Hunt had stuck with what they know and this game followed the same format and layout as the other game, with the same type of outcome – basically, it’s one big ‘whodunnit’.

One thing worth noting about this game is that it is classed as a print at home game but you don’t actually need to print it all. Escape Hunt are very good at giving instructions on what needs to be printed to complete the game, and what can remain on your screen as a digital file. This was much appreciated as the pages that do need to be printed are pretty heavy on ink.

CONCEPT/EXECUTION

The download file for this game contains 16 pages but you can get away with only actually printing 3 pages to save on some ink. Because we’re arguably wasteful we decided to print it all and get the full experience.

The good thing about this game is that you can easily play it remotely while in different locations. As long as you all have the PDF file then there is nothing to stop you working on it as a team and solving the mystery simultaneously.

The issue we had with Stolen was that we felt the ending fell a bit flat, so we were very pleased to see that they had fixed this and the ending was much more clear. When you think you know whodunnit you have to go to a special URL and enter the name of the suspect, if you get it right then you’ll be congratulated and there is a nice dossier which shows how all of the evidence came together to help you make the right deduction. We particularly liked this addition as there is a good chance that you may have missed something along the way.

One part of this game relies on automation and for us, it broke. We completed this task at around 8pm on a Friday night yet received no response until I contacted Escape Hunt directly on Monday. I did send a message to them on Twitter and it was read but not responded to, so if you’re planning on playing this game, if you have any issues you will likely only get a response during regular work hours – but hopefully, it will work smoothly for you.

PUZZLES

If you’re not a fan of logic puzzles then move along, you’ll not like this game. Essentially this game plays out like one massive logic puzzle where you have to eliminate suspects to get down to just one. Fortunately, Liz loves logic puzzles so she was in her element in this game, that’s not to say there was nothing for me to do, each suspect has their own little puzzle to solve to help you eliminate them, and these little tasks did bring a little bit more diversity to the game.

CLUE SYSTEM

Escape Hunt have used a tried and tested technique for their clue system, nothing groundbreaking but it does work. There is a link that you go to and you will find all of the clues are broken down by ‘Evidence #’ so you simply find where you’re stuck and then find the clue. The downside here is that there is only one clue per piece of evidence so if you really aren’t getting it your only other choice is to get the solution which is also available on that page.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Escape Hunt have improved on their other game that we played and the artwork and materials involved are all of good quality. I am never going to be a fan of these games that are giant logic puzzles as I prefer a more diverse range of puzzles, but saying that, if you’re looking for a decent game to play with friends (remotely) then this should keep you occupied for a while

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Printer
• 3-14 pages of paper (depending on how much you choose to print)
• Scissors
• Device (Laptop/desktop/phone/tablet)
• Internet connection

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players

Time Taken: 45:00

Website: https://escapehunt.com/uk/play-at-home-games/

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