*AD – the item in this review was gifted to our household for this post. All opinions, as always, are our own.
When it comes to escape rooms, I really love the concept of puzzles and mysteries, but often find I need to go at my own pace. With that in mind, coming across puzzles that you can receive in the post, allowing you to play out a little escape room or adventure in your own house is something we’ve always thought was pretty cool. As Dann and I love adventure and games, and Dann is very good at puzzles, we were very excited to play through Puzzle Post – The Missed Flight.
Lucy Kingston has gotten into some trouble and went into hiding. She didn’t do anything wrong, but looking at the various bits of paper, she just knows too much. She has sent you a secret message through the post – and it’s up to you to find a code to solve it. Inside the envelope, you are given a variety of items on different materials and of different sizes – a menu, post card, coaster, itinerary and more, all for you to decipher. These items felt real and tangible – as if they were taken from a bar or a used business card. Using these items, you will produce a code that can then be put into a url online, to reveal a video message ending the game.
When it came to figuring out these codes, we had a fun time trying to find whatever it is we were looking for, then digging deeper for our number. Some of these puzzles used two items together while others used one. Some were quite challenging for us – some came to us easily. Overall, the two of us spent around an hour playing the game and had a ball doing so. At one point, Pancake came over and laid on everything – I am sure he was trying to be helpful, but in fact, is never helpful when it comes to anything involving reading. When it came to equipment outside of the game, we grabbed paper and a pen, as well as used our phone as well for a few bits. I would say all of those items are required!
We did enter the code incorrectly the first time – but the website has a way to check each puzzle’s number, meaning we could find out what puzzle we had failed. Speaking of failing puzzles, Puzzle Post has done a wonderful job of providing hints to go along with it. Using their website, you can get up to three different clues (containing more spoilers as you go) before revealing how to get the answer. Though we only used one or two, it’s still nice to have thee options there. When it came to equipment outside of the game, we grabbed paper and a pen, as well as used our phone as well.
The game itself has an interesting story! We both felt that the story wasn’t as strong as other puzzle games, but the puzzles were very strong and had a great variety to them, which kept our mind occupied anyway. Some puzzles required maths, others working out words and some required following little puzzles and connecting the dots. They each felt different and like solving one really didn’t help you solve the next. I feel that it wasn’t too difficult, though we were SURE we got one of the puzzles right twice before figuring out we were way off – the clues really even it out.
If you are looking for a cute date night, a challenging thing to do at home with your family or just something different, Puzzle Post has a bunch of different puzzles with different themes that are great for a fun night in.