50 Clues - "The Leopold Trilogy - EP1: The Pendulum of the Dead, EP2: White Sleep, & EP3: The Fate"

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Company: 50 Clues (Distributed by Norsker Games)

Game: The Leopold Trilogy - EP1: The Pendulum of the Dead, EP2: White Sleep, EP3: The Fate of Leopold

Country: Denmark 🇩🇰

Language: English

Type of Game: Puzzles By Mail 📬

Genre: Thriller

Date Played: August 10th, September 2nd, & September 19th (2021)

Difficulty (based on 4 players): 5/10, 7/10, 5/10

Size of Team: 1-5 Players (Ages 16+)

Time: Unlimited (Suggested 90 Mins)

Price: $17.00

** Content warning - Mental illness, violence, murder and child abuse.

Not suitable for children, recommended for 16+.

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"The Pendulum of the Dead" is the first game in the trilogy of Leopold. 5 years ago, somewhere in Denmark, a suitcase with a dead boy inside was found. Wrapped in tinfoil and lead sheets and buried deep in the dark forest. A deranged woman is sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime. You are Maria and you have to get out of this terrible place and find your son, the chosen one, in order to destroy King Leopold and stop him from spreading his evil. You can’t remember much because of the medicine they are giving you. Will you be able to escape and find your son?

In "White Sleep" & "The Fate of Leopold" you continue as Maria in your quest to stop King Leopold, each game picking up where the last one left off.

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Photos above are property of 50 Clues

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The games come in small cardboard boxes that each contain 54 cards in ominous grey scale with striking blood-red details. The drawings are sketch-like and capture the feeling of being caught in a nightmare. The first 3 cards are instructions on how to play and on the last card you can write down your scoring at the end of the game.

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You'll need a device that can scan QR codes or you can manually enter the website's address. This will lead you to a tutorial video that clearly explains the set up of the game and how it should be played. Once you get there, activate the game by entering the unique serial number that came with the game box. You can replay the game if you like as in ep 2 and 3 you can choose a different path but the puzzles will be the same. The serial number on each box can be activated 30 times. You are playing as Maria, locked in a forensic psychiatric ward. The tutorial takes place 5 years before the Leopold trilogy and also acts as the prologue.

Each of the games picks up where the last one left off, and even though I would recommend playing the games in order, it is possible to watch a recap and jump straight into the 2nd or 3rd game.

The first card will give you the stage as to where you are and what your first mission is. The card itself will have numbers printed on the images. If you see a white number with a box around it, that means you need to take out that numbered card from the game box. If you see a black number, you'll need to enter that as a code to get more information from the game. Sometimes it'll reveal a storyline and other times it'll inform you to take another card. The black numbers can also be choice numbers to a puzzle. If you brute force or use the trial and error method for the answers, your score will be affected at the end. The red numbers are to be combined with other red numbers to unlock items or scenes. If you randomly try to combine those, the final score will also be affected. If you answer correctly without wrong answers, you'll get more stars for the submission. The scale is on a 5 star rating.

Throughout the game you will check your answers through a website that also provides small nudges if you’re almost right or hints if you need some help. The game isn’t timed and you mostly won’t get any points deducted for taking your time (except for when a timer pops up on the screen and you have to solve a puzzle before it runs out but I think it's more to add the urgency and perhaps you score better if you solve it in a shorter amount of time).

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Except for the traditional puzzles we know from escape rooms, you also progress the storyline and solve situations you find yourself in by combining objects from the cards. Sometimes there are multiple steps to get to the desired outcome, which requires you to think more about which objects to combine, and in which order, in order to not lose any points. And sometimes you are required to take actions on other humans that you would never even think about doing in real life.

You will receive a little nudge in the right direction if your answer is almost correct, to acknowledge that you are on the right track, instead of just getting an error message or having to take a hint.

"The Pendulum of the Dead"

The wide range of puzzles felt very natural in this story and we progressed smoothly without any obstacles, not because the puzzles are very easy but because there is a lot of discrete signposting to help you stay on track. If you have played an escape room or escape game before, some of the puzzles might feel familiar, but there are a few challenges in there as well.

"White Sleep"

This was the biggest challenge out of the 3 games for us. I would say that the difficulty level is generally higher than in The pendulum of the dead. But it might also be because there are more “aha puzzles” in here, as in puzzles that aren’t obvious how to solve from the beginning, but once you see it it makes sense. We enjoyed most of them, even though we did have to use a few hints to understand what we were supposed to do, we found the puzzles to be clever and exciting.

* Full disclosure: there is one puzzle in there that none of us understood even after reading all the hints, but since I don’t understand it, I can’t really say too much about it 😂

"The Fate of Leopold"

Oppositely from "White Sleep", we found this game to be the easiest of the three. I’m not sure if that’s because the puzzles were easier or if we had become Leopold-experts at this point. Just as in the first game, the puzzles ran smoothly and they all played a role in painting the final story. Some of the puzzles were timed to create a greater feeling of urgency, which I believe was a smart way to keep engagement high. We didn’t have to use a single hint but we still felt satisfied at the end. With that being said there was at least one math puzzle that I still would be working on if it wasn’t for the rest of my team. I would say that we used a bit of outside knowledge in this one, and that we were greatly helped by the fact that we are a group of science nerds.

50 Clues likes to use a good amount of direction, spatial and visual puzzles as the illustrations are their main focus of the game. By picturing the situation and storyline through puzzling will ultimately reveal the answer you're seeking. We quite enjoyed this type of game design which felt very different than games we've played in the past.

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"The Pendulum of the Dead"

The first thing I have to talk about is the violence and themes in this game. You'll encounter things like assault, murder and dead children. This might not be a game for everyone. But the story had me and my team invested from the start. The game is very story driven and as we progressed we got more and more curious to what was going to happen as well as more and more willing to make some gruesome decisions as Maria. Some elements did make us feel uncomfortable at times, just like a thriller should.

The story is intriguing and the puzzles fit well with the narrative. All in all, "The Pendulum of the Dead" is a thrilling card game with a narrative you don’t see that often in this genre. If the content warning doesn’t scare you away I would recommend giving it a play.

"White Sleep"

After playing the first game, we just had to know what was going to happen to Maria and we were invested! But OMG, if you thought the first game was violent you should know that "White Sleep" is even more intense. I didn’t mind the actions I had to take in "The Pendulum of the Dead", but I did feel really bad about one of them in this 2nd chapter. I personally enjoy these uncomfortable feelings, and even though I understand that not everyone does, I appreciate that there is a game on the market that explores this dark topic and allows me to experience it too.

If you enjoyed "The Pendulum of the Dead", I am sure that you, just like us, have to figure out what happens next!

"The Fate of Leopold"

At this point all of us have been heavily desensitized, and if you made it through "The Pendulum of the Dead" and "White Sleep", I believe that we can skip the “gruesome talk”. But be assured that "The Fate of Leopold" has its fair share too.

I really enjoyed all these 3 games and the twist and turns in the storylines drastically changes as we process which kept us intrigued the entire time. We have to find out what happened to Maria! But at the end of this 3rd chapter, it’s clear that we are not at the end of the story and maybe we’re still only in the beginning. To actually find out what is going on, we must take on the role of the detective tracking down Maria in the next trilogy by 50clues - Dead or Alive. So after an immediate and VERY brief frustration of not having all my questions answered at the end of the game... I’m now very excited for the next round!

Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of the game:

(If you do decide to try this experience, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)

Disclosure: We thank 50 Clues for providing us with samples of the game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.

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