Photo above is property of Grand Gamers Guild
Company: Grand Gamers Guild
Game: The Pumpkin Problem
Country: USA 🇺🇸
Language: English
Type of Game: PDIY Escape Kits 🖨️✂
Genre: Mystery
Date Played: October 26, 2021
Difficulty (based on 1 player): 5/10
Size of Team: 1-4 Players (Recommended ages 13+)
Time: 60 Minutes
Price: $9.99 (Physical Game)/ $4.99 (Print-N-Cut)
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You were ready to head out trick-or-treating until you discover that the chocolate bars your family were supposed to hand out aren’t chocolate bars at all! Can you find the missing candy and save Halloween?
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I opted for the print and play version so I could download the game right away. You will need to print the game in color (or at least have the colored file on hand) as there was one puzzle that was color dependent. The download came with the instructions for the game, how to assemble the 18 cards and a link to the website to input your answers. The front of the card has a door with a number on it and the back has the puzzles.
Photo above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈
The website/app to put in your answers was easy to use. As you solved a puzzle, you would input the answer into the website/app and then a prompt would continue the story and tell you what cards to look at next. There was a cute overall narrative to the game. It was not too in-depth but enough to keep me motivated. The hint system was also well written. I was able to easily use the layered hints and not have the solve moment ruined for me. The website will also track your time and it will give you a rating at the end based on your time and how many hints you needed. Some of the puzzles required some outside knowledge of certain codes but the website/app had a list of them but sneakily enough, you will not need them all.
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The game had a nice ramp up of puzzles. The first couple were quite easy but as the game progressed they did get more difficult with a nice mix of “Aha” puzzles, logic puzzles, word puzzles and more. The puzzles also started to become non-linear. In the first phase, you only needed to solve one puzzle to continue on but further into the game, you needed to solve multiple puzzles to continue on which makes it fun for playing with multiple people. The last puzzle also wrapped everything up quite nicely and left me satisfied.
🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂
This was a treat to play to get into the mood for Halloween. They do sell the actual game for a very reasonable price but if you cannot wait to get it shipped or you cannot find it at your local board game shop, then print and play is the way to go. The print and play will also give you a deal on their “Holiday Hijinks” series if you buy them all. I enjoyed how easy the game was to assemble, having the cards fold for the front and back rather than deal with the hassle of trying to print the fronts and backs separately. The game is fairly light but really delivered on fun at a very reasonable price. If you are an expert solver, you could probably finish it quite quickly but if you are looking for a game to be playing while handing out Halloween candy, this would be a great choice.
(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"!)