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Company: Mobile Escape
Game: Escape Mail - Shinobi: The Ninja Scroll
Country: Canada 🇨🇦
Language: English
Type of Game: Tabletop Game 📬
Genre: Adventure, Ninja
Date Played: March 12, 2024
Difficulty (based on 2 players): 7/10
Size of Team: Unlimited (Recommend 1 to 6 ppl)
Time: Unlimited (Recommend 2.5 - 3 Hrs)
Price: $32.95 USD
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There has been a fraction of rebels that are spreading chaos across our beautiful homeland. We need your help to restore peace upon this land. Will you be able to complete these tasks of Ninjutsu to prove your worthiness?
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The game came packaged in a tube. We really like the design. Simple yet unique. Inside the tube, there is a scroll with wood framing (on the top and bottom), 8 shuriken parts, 7 grappling hooks, 6 logic tokens, 3 solution sheets (2 are spares), 1 pairing chart, 1 mailer tube, 1 storage bag, and 1 key (actual metal).
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
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You'll need to be able to access internet for this game. The game has an intro and is paired with music throughout the game play. This definitely enhanced the immersion. Once you scan a QR code, it'll bring you to a website where you'll be able to start the game. This game can be played in two ways: beginner or standard. If you chose beginner, you'll get a visual hint when you press a symbol. This will definitely help you with a starting point. We played the game in "Standard Mode" and when pressed on a symbol, you only have a place to enter the solution. Both modes will have nudging hints should you need them.
The website was really easy to navigate. Should you want to want to switch from beginner to standard during the middle of the game, you can do so as you please. You can also leave the game or pause the timer. And when you want to come back to the game later on, it'll be exactly where you had left it off.
If you are able to solve all 9 puzzles successfully, there will be an outro video waiting for you at the end to welcome you into the Ninjutsu world.
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The puzzles can be solved in any order. You can go from left to right or select any symbol to work on that particular puzzle. You'll be able to find clues associated with that symbol on the scroll. There are also other components that came with the game that would be used in collaboration with the visual clues. The game creators were quite clever in where to hide these information, just like Ninja's in stealth mode.
The puzzles ranged in difficulty level from simple visual ones to multi-step logic puzzles. We were able to work on them as a team and not have to crowd over each other's space since the puzzles could be solved simultaneously. Sometimes it also helped to visualize it from a different perspective when one of us couldn't see through a puzzle or solution. There are a few minor visual clues that we were confused with. I've given my suggestions to the creators since this review so hopefully that could be improved in the final version of the game.
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I've always been intrigued by the Ninja culture (in fact I'm watching Netflix's "House of Ninja" series right now and it really reminded me of this game). There's something really secretive about them. I felt that sense of mystery emitting from this game. The 9 "tests" also gave me that sense of urgency to want to complete my mission so I had to finish the game in one session.
There are a couple of additional things I like to commemorate the game on: replayability (nothing will be destroyed so you can regift it), sustainability (the scroll could easily become a cool artwork to be hung as a memorabilia after the game play) and winnability (it's a guaranty that everyone (yes, even your pet detectives) will become a Ninja after the completion of these missions)!
Photo above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)
Disclosure: We thank Mobile Escape 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.