Gruzzle – The Musician (Review)

Location: Your Home!

Players:  We recommend 1-4

Price: $30.00 month to month, $87.00 for 6 months, $172 for a year’s subscription

Theme:

From the Gruzzle website:

World famous conductor and composer, Frank Siltz, is missing. His partner and musical collaborator, Clara Munschan, reported that after completing his latest concert tour, Art did not return home.

Clara went to the Concert Hall to check Frank’s dressing room for clues to his whereabouts. There, she found a number of puzzling items clearly left behind by Frank. Despite being a major force in the musical world herself, Clara feels inadequate to tackle this puzzling challenge.

Please help Clara, and the whole musical community, discover what has happened to Frank Siltz!

High Points:

It is rare that a puzzle box is so effortlessly complex, yet intuitive and family friendly, yet Gruzzle is consistently just that! Each new experience from Gruzzle contains some of the most original puzzles I’ve encountered, and even though many are brilliant challenges, the experience is still completely accessible to new players. Puzzlers of any experience level will have a great time working through the disappearance of Frank Siltz, and veteran solvers will find there are a bevy of challenges that will keep them busy for a while! The Musician is filled with varied puzzles as well, and kept us busy for a good couple of hours. Our team of two found that during our solve, though the experience is mostly linear overall, there were no choke points that stymied progress, as everything was intuitive, and contained enough clues that even if we weren’t one hundred percent sure of what to do next, it only took a little more thinking to make the connections! The story is interesting, and builds upon itself as more puzzles are solved and envelopes are opened. It is per usual, a great, mysterious, but still family friendly affair, that allows puzzlers to take things casually without having to worry over much about a murderer lurking around the corner. While we love tracking down murderers and monsters, it is always wonderful to kick back and take it a little bit easier with a Gruzzle box. As usual, this box can be solved almost completely offline, (the final solution needs to be entered on a webpage, but the rest of the game can be played without the need for any tech,) and it is great not to have to worry about flipping through a bunch of webpages or sorting through evidence on your phone. Every single bit of the game is important, with no extraneous bits or red herrings, and it is always fascinating to see how props, sometimes literally, fold in upon each other. The difficulty curve is smooth, and ensures a few easy wins are doled out to get your momentum going, but ramps up the challenge once players are warmed up!

Low Points:

One particular puzzle included a fun reveal as it’s solution, but the method of getting there was amazingly tedious. Definitely worth it, but similar to puzzles that involve a lot of cutting, or long decryptions, the process became a little arduous.

Verdict:

As always, Gruzzle has done an amazing job creating an experience that is more than worth the price of admission. One of the few mystery subscription boxes out there that can appeal to puzzlers young and old, neophyte and veteran, I highly recommend subscribing to this excellent puzzling experience! Start your search for Frank Siltz here! You can use the promo code FIRSTTIME to get $5 off your subscription!

9.5/10 (Excellent)

Full Disclosure: Gruzzle provided a complementary box.