Inspectors' Review:
THIS PAPER!
We're dragon hunting today??
My sense of direction is PURRFECT, boss!
See this letter? Good, you might want to read it!
I love the smell of a mailed envelope, don't you?
Grooming is a key part of puzzling, you know.
Boss' Review:
If you haven’t seen my six other review (Newspaper: Intro to Mysteries, Cabaret in Lapin Blanc, Distress Call from Outer Space, Breakfast for a Serial Killer, Wild Mansion of Mr. Ferri, and Screaming Venice: Art Heist) of this series so far, you may not know about Scarlet Envelope. They are a Canadian owned mystery puzzle subscription service run by Anna and Lisa. Each month players receive a red enveloped filled with documents, letters, brochures, and more that create immersive worlds filled with puzzles. This project launched as a Kickstarter back in June 2021 with the promise of 12 games and to date 7 of the games have been released. Each episode focuses on an entirely different theme from investigating a museum theft to solving a good old fashioned murder mystery. An overarching meta experience takes places with a mysterious figure known as the Game Master who has been sending you on these various journeys. At the end of the twelve episode there is a hidden thirteenth episode for those who complete their “initiation.” I backed for the full year subscription and this review will focus on the most recent episode launched, The Tale of the Golden Dragon.
Story:
The premise of this episode follows you being tasked by the royal family of Severen to stop the tarrying golden dragon wreaking havoc on the land…except all is not as it seems. This not a simple “kill the dragon” scenario and you will need all of your brain power to puzzle through these conundrums. I found the story to be light in terms of plot development but with a good selection of characters to engage with. There is also an exploration element that allows you to get a better sense of the world this game takes place in and seeing this introduction of world building was something I enjoyed. There is a great deal of reading for this particular game as you explore the world or make progression but there is a break in this with character dialogue to unfuse the experience. Overall, I think the break from the traditional “kill the dragon” idea was well done, and the characters were interesting and memorable.
Puzzles:
In terms of puzzles, I found this to be one of the easier experiences for Scarlet Envelope. The puzzles range from logic, pattern identification, and code breaking. Many of the solutions are easily inputted into the online system and trigger the next sequence as long as you know where to put the answers (hence the exploration element of the game) I found the element to these puzzles was once you got the “aha” moment on how to solve them the solution itself was easy to extract – there aren’t any multiple steps to the majority of the puzzles. I found there was once puzzle where extracting the answer may be a little stretch for new players, but my recommendation is to just treat things literally.
Customer Service:
For customer service, I always like to highlight how much Scarlet Envelope cares for their player. They are easy to reach and extremely helpful. Their hint system has continued to build off of the feedback of players and it truly makes a difference. For some of the puzzles there is an element of spatial awareness and in the hints, images are provided via hyperlinks in players need to extra nudge, which I greatly appreciate. In addition, the care in the creation of this game is phenomenal. The map which is the “board” to which to travel on is detailed and exquisite. I loved how exploring different regions resulted in learning more about the kingdom, and the little easter eggs I found relating to other famous fantasy series was a fun surprise. I felt the theme was really captured here for this experience.
Conclusion:
Overall, The Tale of the Golden Dragon is another excellent contribution to the season of Scarlet Envelope. Diving into this fantastical world filled with magic, puzzles, and well done characters was truly enjoyable. I think the easier puzzles are great after those long days of work where you want to dive into a puzzle without being overwhelmed. This episode is probably one of the favourites of this series so far! This experience took me about 90 minutes and for the price it is pretty reasonable. I am definitely excited to see what comes next, especially because they are collaborating with USB Escapes!
Check out Scarlet Envelope’s website here!
