The Mystery Agency: The Balthazar Stone

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.

The Balthazar Stone is nearly a great game, but unfortunately it gets lets down by a series of minor niggles in nearly every aspect so it's hard not to leave feeling frustrated, both as a player and on behalf of the creators that they didn't deliver the potential that the game clearly has.

Let's start with the good: the game centres around a physical box. Even though it's laser-cut plywood, it's a good size and weight and and it's beautifully-decorated. It feels interesting and satisfying to interact with. As you play through the game, you'll find various smaller artefacts - all above average quality, that would make nice souvenir pieces if you're the sort of person to display trophies of your game conquests, say. The puzzles are relatively solid, and there's an online hint system if you get stuck. The game is totally non-destructive, and there's also an excellently-clear guide as to how to reset the game and pass it on to someone else.

But...

- There's a lack of clear signposting at one point near the start, which led us to spend 10 minutes trying to solve a puzzle without yet having been given all the materials required to do so. We then eventually decided to give up and consult the hints site, only to discover that the first online "clue" you can reveal is actually required to proceed in the game!

- One of the puzzles is either broken, or contains red herrings - it's a bit hard to say. But it certainly made us waste time solving things that turned out to have no relevance to the game.

- A part of the game requires internet access, but it's very thin webpage content, and does not make nearly as good use of the medium compared to similar games from Society of Curiosities or The Detective Society. The simplistic presentation of the online components also does not match the quality of the physical presentation of the box itself.

- Even though the story and puzzles were generally well-executed, there was nothing we hadn't seen before, and everything very much sticks to the standards expected of a "haunted pirate box"-esque game. That's not a huge problem, but don't expect any surprises.

- But the biggest problem: the final puzzle has a catastrophic mechanical failure, which led to us reaching the end of the game after only solving about half of the puzzles. Frustratingly, it seems that this was known about and has been reported by several  reviewers who received early copies of the game (who were then sent replacement fixed boxes), but KS orders were still sent out using the defective boxes, and despite contacting the company I've not been offered a replacement.

It's such a shame, as this could have been one of the top at-home games, but instead we left with a sour taste. I'm awaiting delivery of the next two in the series, and am hopeful the designers will learn from their mistakes... fingers crossed!