Mystery Mansion Regina – D’Vile’s Curio Shoppe (Review)

Location: Your Home via the Magic of the Internet!

Players: 3-10 (We recommend 4-5 players)

Price: $25 CAD per person (About $19.73 USD at the time of writing)

Time to Escape: 75 minutes

It ain’t Cruella’s shop, that’s for sure.

Theme:

From the Mystery Mansion Regina website:

Local paranormal Youtuber, Estelle Jacobs, was searching for her missing boyfriend, Alex. Shortly after visiting D’Vile’s Curio Shoppe, Estelle vanished without a trace. It’s time to venture inside the Curio Shoppe through a live video feed and find out the truth about Estelle’s disappearance…

We recommend playing Night Terrors before playing this room for story continuity.

First Impressions:

Mystery Mansion Regina is one of the escape room companies out there who we recognize as doing an amazing job adapting to virtual play. They’ve created rooms that are specifically built from the ground up to be online experiences, and because of this, their games shine as few others can. It is always a massive treat to explore one of their rooms, and we were very pleased to be returning for D’Vile’s Curio Shoppe!

High Points:

As I mentioned, this room is tailor made for online groups. While the room can be played live, the online version has been adjusted for online play, and ties into their amazing Night Terrors room beautifully. It was brilliant to return to the world of The Sleepy Man, and with this room ending on an exciting cliff hanger, I can’t wait to see what comes next! Per usual, the acting from our avatar and special guests was fun and immersive, and they tailored their performance to our shenanigans. I always appreciate versatile GMs, especially those that don’t mind playing along with us, and Mystery Mansion Regina’s GMing is top-notch. The room itself was wonderfully spooky, using lighting and sound excellently in order to create a dynamic, creepy atmosphere for us to puzzle in from the safety of our own homes. The entire space feels lived in, and there was so much more than what meets the eye hidden in the dark crevices of the Curio Shoppe. The props involved were devilishly fun, and just soaking in the ambiance and investigating all the weird and wonderful items in the Shoppe was hugely entertaining. All this comes together with a seamless integration into Telescape to translate the game into one of the best remote experiences we’ve played!

Puzzles are fantastic, and have been tweaked from the original room to fit the modified theme, ensuring nothing feels out of place. Some of my favorite enigmas within play with the remote nature of the game fantastically, and I really enjoy seeing how creative the room can get. Mystery Mansion Regina really does an amazing job crafting interactions that work beautifully within the virtual space, and provide an experience that not only feels like an authentic escape room adventure, but is also a one of a kind mystery you won’t find elsewhere! The game is densely packed with puzzling, and there is more than enough included to keep an experienced team busy, ensuring players will receive a good value for the cost. Intuitive and smoothly flowing, D’Vile’s Curio Shoppe absolutely ups the ante for Mystery Mansion Regina’s virtual experiences, and ranks up there with some of our favorite rooms of all time!

Low Points:

Only one puzzle didn’t work flawlessly, and though we felt it was a little unwieldly, we like the idea overall. It definitely tries to play with the game’s tools in a way that is married well to the theme, but it just doesn’t quite work perfectly. A slight adjustment, though, and this is a flawless room!

Verdict:

D’Vile Curio Shoppe is one of those games that I couldn’t wait to play, was 100% enthralled with during, and would recommend to anyone! As always, Mystery Mansion Regina has done a beautiful job creating a one of a kind experience that combines excellent storytelling, creative puzzling, and masterful GMing. You should absolutely check this, and their other brilliant rooms out here!

9.5/10 (Excellent)

Full Disclosure: Mystery Mansion Regina provided our team with a complementary game.