Location: Your Home!

Players:  We recommend 1-4

Price: $29.95 per box

Homecoming

Theme:

Sullivan’s investigation into his father has cost a life, and the evidence this person was able to dig up for him disappeared with them. Resolved to make sure they didn’t die in vain, Sullivan calls in a few favors to attempt to figure out where the evidence could have possibly ended up, as well as bring the murderer to justice. In a break no one could have predicted, Sullivan receives a package from the recently departed, promising to lead him to the answers he desperately seeks!

First Impressions:

Isaac Case 005 is the latest in a meta-case that we have been working on for over a year now, and each subsequent case solved tends to leave off on a cliff hanger that we cannot wait to see resolved, so once we’d finished our fourth case following Case 004, we couldn’t wait to get our hands on the next chapter of Sullivan’s investigation into his father’s disappearance!

High Points:

As the story of this meta-case becomes more twisty and the cast of characters grows over the course of a year, it’s great that Sleuth Kings provides a story so far update for players. In a “Previously on Sleuth Kings…” style, everything up to this point is succinctly summarized so that the story is fresh in player’s minds before beginning the next leg of the adventure. Puzzles are enjoyable, and a couple are highly satisfying perception based challenges that clicked into place as we ruminated on what the clue itself could possibly mean. As usual, it is fun to see some excellent easter eggs dropped into one of the clues, (I see you Pugicorn!) which seems nonsensical at first, but becomes a fun interaction once we determined it’s use within the investigation. The connections between the puzzling and the layers to dig through are excellent, and ensure that this case remains challenging from start to finish. Though we had a good time with the clues, I think the main star of this case is the story developments that come as a consequence of solving the case!

There are a few small story advancements while we solved, and what happened to the person that left this package for us becomes clearer as we put together the pieces, but the story kicks into high gear by the end of the case! What we originally thought would be a milder case that involves looking into some evidence and hopefully catching a killer becomes a huge milestone in the series. I wouldn’t want to spoil what happens, but we definitely did not see that twist coming. (Spoiler Alert: Nick Fury shows up and invites Sullivan to join the Avengers. Really. Not really.) In true Sleuth Kings fashion, a moment in which I’m wondering “How could they possibly follow that revelation up?” is immediately followed up on in a highly satisfying way, and yet again we’re left with a cliff hanger that whets the appetite for another entry into the King family drama!

We found Walter right away, but finding the evidence was a bit more complicated.

Low Points:

There was a typo that threw off the first puzzle for us, but we were able to get in touch with Sleuth Kings and get everything sorted out allowing us to solve the puzzle properly and continue the investigation. Sleuth Kings was very quick to respond to our questions about the first puzzle, and were extremely diligent in ensuring that we could solve the puzzle with as few spoilers as possible. The difficulty curve of this particular box seemed somewhat parabolic, packing a lot of the challenge into a couple bookended puzzles, so the experience ended up feeling somewhat uneven overall. Some familiar codebreaking may be old hat for experienced players, but it is still enjoyable to work through, and delivers the story well.

Verdict:

Though you’ll need to do quite a bit of sleuthing in order to receive this case, it is certainly worth it, especially for the great adventure this ongoing story will take you on! A free case every four cases is, as always, one of the best values added to any subscription box available, and I highly recommend checking out Sleuth Kings! You can purchase 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.