by The Mystery Agency (website)
£40.00
Can you unlock the ancient chest, find the Balthazar Stone and break the ancient curse?
Join Elsa Winslow on her journey to Sharktooth Island. To solve the mystery, you must unlock an ancient treasure chest, find Balthazar’s Stone and break its ancient curse.
Overall rating
based on ratings from 17 users
combined with 1 pro review
Your review
Player reviews
One of the best at-home escape rooms we’ve played and a lovey change from the purely paper-based ones we usually do. The box and its contents are all super quality and gorgeous. I assume they have addressed the production issues reported by earlier reviewers because our box was perfect. Great mix of puzzles, all well themed and fair, and just the right level of challenge for us (I can imagine some more hardcore puzzlers might find it a bit on the easy side)
Well made and it was nice to see some good components. Unfortunately we were missing one part and other parts weren't attached as they should have been. This resulted in us eventually having to go to the online hints. Overall it is good, but felt too easy and not as satisfying as other games of the genre that we have played.
We approached this a little unsure of how it would end up. The promo material left us fairly certain that it would have a decent build quality, but we were unsure of how the puzzles and story would play out: a decent challenge for puzzlers, or a name famous in a different realm cashing in on the escape room bandwagon?
As we expected, the materials were all generally good quality, although on unlocking the stone at the end, we realised that this bit of the box wasn't glued and we could have just slid the wood aside without troubling the padlock!
When it came to the puzzles, we found that some puzzle elements weren't coherent with the story's timeline, which lead to us not realising that we hadn't used some things fully. The overall story didn't quite hang together.
We've only done 2 of the 3 so far - do this one before The Ghost in The Attic as it's the weaker of the two.
Reviews by escape room review sites
This was an amazing debut by The Mystery Agency, founded by Henry Lewis of the wonderful Mischief Theatre (for even more fun check out their plays, DVDs and TV shows!)
We kickstarted the full set of three, so they worked out cheaper than they are now available for, but I feel that as long as you fully immerse yourself in the story and take the puzzles and adventure slowly, then this is great value for money.
There were some known issues with the inside of the chest for earlier adopters, such as our box structure mentioned earlier, with broken internal walls or locks that had come away from their shackles. Be sure to take your exploration of the physical elements slowly and don’t use these as an opportunity to cheat! There are also some logistics issues for the deliveries but considering this is a new venture for a small team new to the market, its initial popularity and what with Brexit, Covid and other barriers to deal with, this is not surprising and some patience may be needed, but it is very much worth the wait.
We can’t wait to see what other mischief we get up to in the other two titles from this group, and from the website, it looks like a fourth is already in the planning!
You are sent the box by The Mystery Agency, hoping your puzzling skills might be able to help in uncovering the mystery that surrounds the Balthazar Stone. After all, the professor who had it last went crazy trying to decipher the riddles and open the case. He even tried *whispering* brute forcing the lock, but alas! The Balthazar’s Stone keeps it’s secrets.
I loved The Balthazar Stone. It had all the right elements of mystery and discovery that I want in a good at-home escape game. The game materials are great quality and feel like real artifacts.
The puzzles are really well designed, making me feel like a real armchair treasure hunter. The seamless attention to detail that I’ve come to love about Mischief Theatre is clearly evident here.
I’d recommend this game for anyone who’s a fan of Society of Curiosities and is hungry for more. It’s less challenging than the Society of Curiosities games, so I’d say it lends itself more towards a casual or family game night.