Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. – Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley, the mother of science fiction, author of Frankenstein, was, and remains, a renowned writer. Still, what do you know about her story? Can you work your way through her winding words, amongst poetry, music, and stars, and make heads or tails of the puzzles that lie before you? It’s time to play and see!

What Is It?

Cooperative Game – Players work together through the narrative game. There are 3 envelopes to work through, and a lot of letters and reading. Players should read through everything closely, either aloud together, or to themselves

Puzzles / “Escape Room” – Players are presented various types of puzzles throughout the game and will need to solve for solutions, ultimately bringing together their findings for the final conclusion

Who Is It For?

  • 1 or More Players – There are no roles, player pieces, et cetera, so it’s really just working through the puzzles together, and you can do that with however many players you want. That said, the storytelling element gives the game a very linear feel, so there’s not much for a large group to play. I liked it a lot with 2 players, and thought it was nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of. It could be a good solo experience too, I’m sure, but I don’t think it would be great with more than 3, personally, since there wouldn’t be enough to pass around at any given time.
  • Ages 13 and Up
  • Fans of literature / Mary Shelley
  • Fans of puzzles / escape room type games and players with a keen eye for details

PROS

  • Components – I liked the foam pieces a lot, they were fun to play with
  • No outside knowledge required, everything you need is provided
  • Smooth gameplay
  • Engaging narrative
  • Because everything is separated by envelope, it made it easy to pause the game and come back later, since it does have a longer play time
  • The poetry envelope was my favorite; I thought the puzzles were fun, and it felt the most satisfying when I solved it
  • All of the envelopes felt very different which was fun because it was always something new, and could play to the strengths of different types of players

CONS

  • The envelopes are hard to open, and just end up ripping, which I didn’t like because I didn’t want to clean up the game to pause it and get things stuck to the envelopes
  • Some of the puzzle / riddle solutions did seem like a bit of a stretch, but there weren’t many
  • The ending of Vol. 1 didn’t have a huge pay off, and since you don’t technically have to play all 3 volumes, I wish there had been a more exciting conclusion

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed this game! I’m huge on escape room/puzzle games, so I was excited to see what this had to offer.

I don’t want to give too much away, since the game benefits from going in blind, but in general I thought that the puzzles were fun and engaging, and I was invested in the story the whole way through. Keep in mind, I have only played Volume 1, but I am definitely hopefully that the rest of the series is just as good.

I will say, that I thought it was odd that you’re meant to buy a refill pack to repackage everything, mostly because there are so many games like this already on the market that don’t require anything like that, so it feels a little bit dated.

Still, I definitely recommend this game if you’re into literary themes and puzzles galore!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 7/10

Designers – Terry Pettigrew-Rolapp, Tommy Wallach
Publisher – Arcane Wonders
MSRP – $39.99 (Vol.1)
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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