Modern Treasure Hunt – The VOC Treasure (Review)

Location: Your Home!

Players:  We recommend 1-4

Price: €49.95 ($59.02 at the time of writing)

Hunting for treasure in the comfort of your own home!

Theme:

From the Modern Treasure Hunt website:

The VOC Treasure is an #AtHomeMystery treasure hunt. It is an adventure based on a true story that took place at the end of the Dutch Golden Age. It is a 1-4 player (maximum of 6) experience allowing you to play solo or coöperatively. Larger groups can compete or also work together using multiple boxes.

First Impressions:

The VOC Treasure came to us from the Netherlands one day, packed inside a nice wooden box, and holding some very interesting treasures to puzzle through. We had quite a backlog to work through, but the tempting wooden box continued to call to me until we finally got a chance to uncover its secrets! Spoiler alert, it was absolutely worth the wait.

High Points:

One thing that is immediately apparent about The VOC Treasure is that it is a beautifully designed game. The props are all authentic feeling and sturdy, and feel as though they are made to last. Each item is important, and beyond looking good, even the most standard piece of the game plays a major role in the puzzle solving. Not one bit felt extraneous, and it is always wonderful to find a game that has zero fluff included. This amazing attention to detail and design doesn’t end with the presentation, as the puzzles and game flow are excellent as well. Even a particular puzzle that seemed, at first glance, like it would be a slog proved to be an engaging and challenging solve. Code breaking is included, but is non-standard, ensuring that the process to solving is interesting and allows players to engage with something beyond the usual pig-pen/ceasar cipher banality that some games can fall into. The meta-puzzle for this game builds fantastically through each of the challenges, and it is a lot of fun to work through all the way through. Once all the information has been collected in order to solve this enigma, the logic puzzle at the end is properly challenging, but immediately intuitive, ensuring that players aren’t led to logical leaps or red herrings. The whole experience flows beautifully, and it is a brilliant time to work through each logical step in order to finally locate the VOC treasure!

The VOC Treasure is a moderate to high challenge game, and it definitely took our experienced team a full two hours in order to fully complete the game. While some of the conundrums included are very difficult, they were always fair, and just required us to look at things from a different angle to test out a new theory borne from a new piece of information. Once methods of solving have been set up and the ah ha moments have been arrived at, it is generally easy to complete the solve, and there are no arduous processes to muddle through during these puzzles. The experience remains fast paced and enjoyable throughout, and while the complexity of the game has not been sacrificed, Modern Treasure Hunt has ensured that the entire adventure remains an absolute joy throughout.

Low Points:

One particular puzzle can be easily skipped, and though we went back to reveal its secrets, it didn’t quite have the ah ha moment coolness it could have, had it been gatekept better. Another puzzle that underwhelmed took place on a really cool prop, but ended up being a bit too seek and find-y for our tastes. Though the story set up is cool, there isn’t a proper climax, so things felt as though they were left hanging.

Verdict:

The VOC Treasure is a wonderful time, and we absolutely enjoyed every second we spent with this box of excellent puzzling! I absolutely recommend this experience to enthusiasts, as the challenge was more than worthy of our time, but new players will be able to enjoy this one as well, as the intuitive nature of the game and the well layered hint system ensures that players of all skill levels will find something to love. Order your search for The VOC Treasure here!

9/10 (Excellent)

Full Disclosure: Modern Treasure Hunt provided a complementary box.