Nyarlathotep Crate 1 by Mysterious Package Society

Inspectors' Review:

• The old smell of paper in the air ...ah this is the stuff!

• Things I can knock over are awesome!

• This pocket watch last metal-y.

• This package requires extra sniffing - better up my rate!

• Oh, a wooden box! Can I fit?

• Give me the pocket watch!

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Boss' Review:

It has been over two years since Mysterious Package Company launched a new game. Having played all their games up to date (with the exception of a few of their narrative antiquity boxes), I was excited to hear they were launching a new experience. Nyarlathotep lauded it would be a ground-breaking experience with not one but TWO crates and filled with more puzzles than before. It continues MPC’s draw on the lore of H.P. Lovecraft and as a sucker for aged components and a nailed crate I put down the whopping $400+ CAD to pre-order this experience back in August. The first crate shipped out October 5th and I decided to provide the review of each crate individual so let’s dive in.

Story:

The premise of this experience has a duality to it. On the surface you receive this crate after accepting a job at kauket Analytics and Operating System. Your predecessor left the position quite suddenly and the company needs you to continue his research quickly. His desk space was quite full with his research so they will have to send you the contents over two shipments. The letter directs you to a new app, mihOS, that has been created to help with your research. As you begin to examine the artifacts, antique documents, and online articles available you to you start to piece together the relationship between two extraordinary men who touched the surface of something no one else has done before.

This crate opens up a lot of interesting questions in the narrative regarding Lovecraft, his friend Logan, our kauket predecessor, and more. Very little is resolved but, rather, think of this as the appetizer for the upcoming crate. I thought the mystery and intrigue worked to tie the narrative to something tangible but the impatient player in me wonders if I should have waited for the second crate to arrive. There are definitely some unanswered questions and trails to follow but there is an ending to let you know you’ve reached the end of the chapter. I think it should be a little more specific but just know when you are told phase 1 is done; you must wait until the second crate to continue onto phase 2 Overall, there is a lot of promise in this story so I hope it meets these expectations when it culminated in crate 2.

Puzzles:

In terms of puzzles, there is one prominent one that takes the stage with a few smaller ones that I would better describe as more fun nods to the theme and story than actually contributing to the overarching narrative. The fun side puzzles are mainly cipher based while the prominent one is a multistep puzzle. It relies on observation and pattern recognition and it an extensive puzzle. From beginning to end it took be around three hours to complete. I highly recommend having a pen and paper available to track your steps as you navigate this puzzle because you can easily become lost. That said, it did fit well with what it was meant to do and the satisfaction when I made progress and finally reached the end was exhilarating. Now, the majority of the puzzling requires internet access (for the kauket website) and an app (requires ios and android 11 or higher). The app is the main part of the puzzle and I really enjoyed how it interacted with the components in the crate – that said this app is quite demanding on your phone so I recommend having a fan nearby to blow cool air onto the phone to keep it from overheating (it never overheated but I feared it might).

Note: I may have accessed a part of the app that shouldn’t have been accessible yet (essentially an item showed up on the app that I don’t have yet) but hopefully this is addressed later on.

Customer Service:

In terms of customer service, the game arrived to my home 2 days after shipping which was amazing. Everything was well package and I also enjoyed taking a pry-bar to these crates – I thankfully didn’t break the lid this time! The items in the crate were well aged and had an authentic feel down to the smell emanating from the old cigar box. When I had a question about the completion of this crate, they were quick to respond to me email on a Saturday which was awesome.

Conclusion:

To conclude, the first crate of MPC’s Nyarlathotep is a beautiful crafted box filled with mystery and tangible components that thrilled me to engage with. If you are passionate about your Lovecraftian you may find the placement of Lovecraft at the center of this story as a character odd but I found the relationship to be interesting and opened the door for lots of questions. In addition, many things are still left unanswered with hopes the second crate with fulfill these gaps in the story. I think this was an excellent start and I hope the second crate continue the momentum the first crate provides. This is not a cheap experience but if you like beautiful craftsmanship, narrative mystery, and challenging puzzles this shows to be for a good option!

Check out Mysterious Package Company here.