Finders Seekers – Washington DC (May Review)

Location: Your Home!

Players:  We recommend 1-2

Price: $30 per box

Puzzling with the Freemasons

Theme:

Each month, Finders Seekers invites you to accept a mysterious mission from the head seer. These “finds” are located in cities around the world and involve high stakes, cryptic puzzling, and shadowy societies! You’ll need a clever mind and some google-fu in order to piece together the puzzles and complete the find! And when you do, you might even receive a reward! This month, we’re hopping over to Washington DC to take on the Masons in a Puzzle Hunt Challenge!

First Impressions:

I’d previously enjoyed Finders Seekers’s London box, and thought I’d sign up to give a new city a go as I do love a good puzzle hunt. Upon opening the latest box, the contents did feel a fair bit sparser, but the online interactions from the last hunt did make up the bulk of the experience, so I wasn’t too worried. What was included seemed to be of good quality, so off we went!

High Points:

There are a lot of puzzles to solve in this month’s box, which follows a linear puzzle hunt path towards a big meta puzzle reveal. There’s definitely a good amount to work on, though the sweet spot is 2 players due to the nature of the hunt this go round. The wooden coin props, and a couple of the nicely presented, historically based props are well done, and bring the storyline to life. Puzzles are varied and some are even nicely tactile, allowing for a well-rounded hunt that everyone at the table can enjoy. The origami puzzle in particular was a very satisfying solve, even though it seemed insurmountable at first!

History meets puzzle hunting in this month’s box!

Low Points:

While the previous Finders Seekers experience in London was a non-linear affair, Washington DC was a very strictly linear experience. This turned out to be a very big deal, as when we were stone cold stuck on a particularly poorly clued puzzle midway through, we had nothing else we could work on at all. The hint system for this puzzle was also very poor, as the hints only let us know what we already had figured out. We spent a good long while stumped on this one before we were accepted into the Finders Seekers Facebook group, where we had to pore through many messages before finding where we went wrong. This puzzle had not indication as to why it was set up this way and felt extremely arbitrary in it’s solving. Beyond this, there were only minor issues, one of which was due to the ambiguous printing of one puzzle in which it was hard to make out details in a detail oriented solve, and the slight let-down that some puzzles were just printed pages.

Verdict:

Washington DC wasn’t quite as fun as London,  but still presents a nice challenge for puzzle hunt enthusiasts who would like to enjoy a hunt from the comfort of their own home. This one I can only recommend to die hards, however, as it can get majorly frustrating when it does stumble. I’m going to have one more go at Finders Seekers to see where I stand on subscribing long term, however, as when the puzzles are strong, they’re really fun. Order your next puzzle hunting adventure here! If you sign up through our link, we’ll earn credits towards a free box, and can bring you more content! They also provide a fun free Chicago mini hunt if you’d like to get a feel for their style of puzzles!

6.5/10 (Alright)