Games in Central London by ClueQuest
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Solid experience but a little on the easy side. Some good ideas with puzzles but felt Part 2 (which we played first, and which did give us a substantial clue as to one of the answers so would not recommend doing this) was much stronger in terms of puzzle quality and game experience. Again too much cutting (some of which having played it was avoidable!). Having enjoyed Part 2 as much as we did though, I would definitely play future at home experiences, and I do like the physicality of assembling the puzzles IRL rather than on a computer.
We've enjoyed playing clueQuest's real-life games in London - they're full of cartoonish fun, with a rich set of characters and high-quality puzzles offering interesting interactions. So we had high expectations for this game. Unfortunately, it becomes apparerent that cQ's experience does not lie in creating paper-based games, and this adaptation feels awkward.
Firstly, there's the preparation: it took me, no exaggeration, 40 minutes to cut out all the pieces before starting to play the game. While the game itself took us only one hour to complete. Some of that cutting out is not strictly necessary (I'm sure most players would be fine with looking at a printout of a photo on a full A4 sheet without it needing to be cut to 6"x4" size, for example), and whoever does the cutting out gets some pretty big spoilers (if not the actual solution) of the puzzles while doing so.
The printed artwork and accompanying web videos are high-quality, but somehow fail to capture the fun of the cQ franchise.
And the puzzles are solid enough but, in all honesty, I've seen better executed elsewhere.
For the next game in the series, I'm hoping cQ learn from experience of others more practiced in creating puzzles for printed media - D.A.S.H. or Puzzled Pint, say - as I'd love to bring Professor Blacksheep and chums into my home once more.
Spent an equal amount of time cutting out the puzzles as we did solving them!
There is a lot of faff cutting paper pieces out getting ready to play this game: however, ClueQuest completely make this worth your while. A succession of incredibly well thought out puzzles that are challenging, yet logical enough that we never became frustrated or needed to take a hint. Given this is all paper based and playing on a table, they have designed this incredibly well in terms of interaction with the environment and it felt immersive - the videos between game parts really add to the experience. Enough to do that at times we could work on separate things. Several a-ha moments as the puzzles came together - really recommend playing this, great value.
