The Deadbolt Mystery Society – The Secret of Easthaven Forest (Review)

Location: Your Home!

Players:  We recommend 1-4

Price: $24.99 per box, plus $4.99 shipping

There’s something unnatural in that there forest.

Theme:

From The Deadbolt Mystery Society website:

When a group of mischievous kids sneaks into Easthaven Forest to escape the prying eyes of their parents and have some fun they are surprised to see a dark stranger dragging a body wrapped in plastic through the brush. They get closer to try and see what is going on and watch in horror as the killer meticulously covers the body up with leaves and scrub so that no one will see it. When one of the kids accidentally steps on a dry branch, alerting the killer to their presence, he gives chase, intent on keeping his secret a secret. The kids hightail it back to town on their bikes and head straight to the police station to report what they saw. After several hours of searching in the forest, the police finally locate the body. However, given a recent string of disappearances, they have a theory that more bodies may be hidden in the woods. You and your colleagues at The Will Street Detective Agency have been hired to consult on this case and dig deeper for evidence that will lead to the killer’s capture. The kids are reluctant to say much out of fear that the killer will be coming to silence them for good so you have your work cut out for you. Find out as much as you can from the kids and identify the mysterious stranger in the woods. Easthaven Forest is a place where many dark secrets live and thrive. If you investigate this case properly and turn over the right stones, you may learn what some of them are and they may change much of what you’ve come to believe about Valley Falls.

First Impressions:

I can’t tell you how excited I was for The Secret of Easthaven Forest. The kids on bikes/Stephen King’s IT vibes were real with this one, and as Stephen King is my favorite author, I couldn’t be more thrilled. As of this writing, I’m actually reading back through his entire body of work, so this was great timing! The day this hit our stoop, we had dinner and immediately set about solving the mystery.

High Points:

The Secret of Easthaven Forest is one of the smoothest Deadbolt boxes we’ve played in terms of game-play and connections between puzzles. Everything is incredibly intuitive, providing great connections between puzzles and solutions while still keeping these sign posts subtle to maintain the challenge level. Each clue on every puzzle thread flowed well into one another, and there were several threads to follow at any given time, ensuring that if players are stumped, they can always find a new thread to unravel while they ponder the previous one. This non-linearity also makes this a fantastic box for teams or couples who enjoy solving separate puzzles in tandem. The mechanic for figuring out the suspects has been tweaked, and an extra layer or two has been added, adding to the level of immersion as all these extra steps have a story based reason for their inclusion. Overall, this clever method of suspect deduction is really cool, and greatly to the mystery. The game itself involves a lot of code breaking, but there is a great variety between each enigma, and while a couple of these codes will be very familiar to those that have played many puzzle boxes or puzzle hunts, they’re still presented in a way that keeps them feeling fresh. New players will benefit from the intuitive set up of these codes, and at no point will any outside research need to be done in order to solve the box.

This box is one of the best recent boxes for world building and characterization. While we love The Jester, it did feel at times that we never really got to know the characters and suspects as well as we would’ve liked, but The Secret of Easthaven Forest really adds some fantastic touches to the people involved with the story, giving us a fleshed out sense of their personalities and quirks. The expansion of Valley Falls’ lore through the mystery  of local cryptid Red Fang is engaging as well, and fits perfectly within the mysteriously established world of the town. There are several side stories and each new plot point is integrated into the puzzle solving excellently, ensuring that it doesn’t feel as though we are jumping back and forth between puzzling and receiving exposition. The climax is great, and ties all the loose threads together while still providing a spooky cliffhanger to finish things off, and I absolutely love that a particular part of the adventure is left open for possible further investigation.

Low Points:

One puzzle seems to be a bit of a stretch story-wise, and we were a bit surprised at it’s inclusion, as it didn’t quite fit the usual puzzle type of Deadbolt experiences. The only other downside to this one, for us, was that it was a quick solve, however, as veterans of puzzle solving and mystery cracking, it happens sometimes when everything lines up just right. Long time fans should be aware that this one is a little easier, but it is absolutely worth it, as it’s a fantastic time.

Verdict:

The Secret of Easthaven Forest is a gloriously fun time, and a great introduction to the series for new players with it’s incredibly smooth game flow and variety of intuitive code breaking puzzles. Experienced players should also give it a go, as the entertaining puzzles and fantastic story are all absolutely worth it! 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!

9.5/10 (Excellent)

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