The Deadbolt Mystery Society – Copycat (Review)

Location: Your Home!

Players:  We recommend 1-4

Price: $24.99 per box, plus $4.99 shipping

Let’s get meta!

Theme:

From the Deadbolt Mystery Society website:

A new series of victims belonging to The Toymaker, The Seaside Strangler, and The Black Rock Butcher have been found. The only problem? Those maniacs are either incarcerated, institutionalized, or dead. That can only mean one thing: a copycat is on the loose!

First Impressions:

I love a good meta case, and copycat fits the bill nicely! Promising a look back at the previous Deadbolt Mystery Society Cases and a return of the methods of several notorious killers, I was excited to see how this case would unfold. With several interesting threads having woven throughout a few of the previous cases to lead to this mystery, we were ready to get started as soon as our box arrived!

High Points:

The storyline for Copycat is excellent, weaving together the themes of a few cases, with the puzzle styles and locations coming together to create an entirely new case. Though this could create a sense of deja vu, in this case, everything is kept feeling fresh, so no worries there! Evidence continues to become ever more high quality as Deadbolt enters its second year, and everything looks sharp and engaging as we puzzle. For veteran Deadbolt investigators, this case will absolutely hit some excellently familiar points, while presenting an insidious new enemy via The Chimera.

The game flow works excellently, and the entire experience is presented strictly non-linearly, so there is always a lot to do. Several times, we were stuck on an interaction, so we had the freedom to jump to a different puzzle and once we returned with fresh eyes, everything clicked into place. There are a few great moments of revelation, and poring over evidence while puzzling can trigger these amazing ah ha moments in a most satisfying fashion. Small clues and reports hidden within the interviews and ciphers become important, and the game challenges players to keep a keen eye out for buried details.

Not merely a copy, but an evolution!

Low Points:

A particular puzzle can become much easier with prior knowledge of previous cases, which is thematically appropriate, but might frustrate some players. The puzzle is solvable via process of elimination, though some parts may feel vague to some, and a particular answer pops up in a way that is contrary to the initial internal logic of the puzzle. Another puzzle contains some outside knowledge that is slight, but doesn’t quite have enough cluing to make the required connections without a logical leap.

As an aside, I’ve come to miss the evidence notebooks that were a staple of a run of some previous mysteries. Tossing the suspect cards in the box as we eliminate them is quite satisfying, however, so it’s sort of a neutral point, if anything. They make a lovely “thonk” sound.

Verdict:

Copycat is an excellent capstone adventure for veteran sleuths, while still presenting an accessible challenge to newer players. Though I’d definitely recommend completing, at the very least, The Toymaker, The Seaside Stranger, and Wanted before taking on Copycat, it is eminently playable as a stand alone case. Join the Deadbolt Mystery Society here! Right now, you can get 30% off your first box with the Promo Code ESCAPE30! You can also see the rest of our Deadbolt Mystery Society reviews here!

8/10 (Great)

Full Disclosure: The Deadbolt Mystery Society provided a complementary box.