Location: Your Home!
Players: We recommend 1-4
Price: $29.95 per box
The Monster Mash
Theme:
From the Sleuth Kings website:
Sullivan King had only heard whispers about a new criminal group – until their reign of terror made things personal for him.
The group – filled with self-proclaimed zombies, vampires, and other monsters – has its hand in everything from selling drugs to abducting people. Although they have police baffled, Sullivan is sure of one thing: he’s going to do whatever it takes to stop them.
First Impressions:
The third installment in Sleuth King’s first long form series has arrived, and it’s time for zombies to take the spotlight! I have really enjoyed this wild and weird theme, and couldn’t wait to see where last month’s cliffhanger picked up! With Sullest hanging in the balance, the stakes were high!
High Points:
Sleuth Kings has done a brilliant job of tying together a longer term story rather than the usual one shots, and I’m very glad to say that their excellent characterization and world building fits perfectly within this new style of case. While overall the experience stays mostly the same, mechanically, having a longer term story allows us to get more invested with the narrative, and has us looking forward to what comes next even more than usual. It reminds me of the special series in which Sullivan was searching for his father, a group of cases that had us itching for the next part of the story every three months. I definitely think this method of case delivery has been a success, and look forward to future multi month cases. Case 203 in particular ties up the cliffhanger from last month excellently, which is good, because my wife was starting to get worried about her ongoing Sullest shipping, but doesn’t let us off the hook too easily, as there’s quite a bit of puzzling to be done before we can breathe a sigh of relief! The climax caps things off well, and not only sets up the finale, but delivers a bonus puzzle to keep things rolling along. I always love getting an unexpected puzzle, and this one is no pushover.
The puzzles themselves are overall very good, and generally intuitive, so don’t be like us and over think them. They’re not overly obvious, and do require some thinking, but if you’re starting to build a conspiracy theory board, you might be on the wrong track. The props are great, and continue to provide some fun items to keep as mementos, though if we ever play certain cases again, we’ll have to remember to scour our fridge or display shelves to make sure we have everything. I really loved the ideas behind the puzzles, as well as how they integrated into the story, and one particular character was a lot of fun to investigate. Sleuth Kings are masters at delivering a light hearted story along with a great puzzle flow full of logical, but mind bending enigmas!
Low Points:
One puzzle points towards a pattern, but it needs another hint to pinpoint exactly what pattern that is. We used some extra information to solve this one, and unfortunately, though we were able to deduce some sort of pattern, it wasn’t the most correct pattern. I could definitely understand the workings from the back end, but a mite bit more refinement will ensure this one only has a singular answer. A couple of puzzles within this case will feel a bit familiar to long term sleuths, so these interactions may be somewhat easier for the experienced.
Verdict:
Case 203 is a great continuation of the Monster Madness story line, and we are anxiously waiting for the epic conclusion this October! I highly recommend picking up this series, as it is a fun, multilayered run of puzzles and fun mystery, and you can never go wrong with Sleuth Kings. You can purchase this and other previous cases from the Sleuth King’s archives here, and if you’d like to subscribe to upcoming adventures, you can use the promo code ESCAPEADVENTURE to get $5 off your subscription here! You can also read the rest of our Sleuth Kings reviews here!
8/10 (Great)
Full Disclosure: Sleuth Kings provided a complementary box.
Escape Room Adventurer 