Photo above is property of Thames & Kosmos
Company: Thames & Kosmos
Game: Adventure Games: The Grand Hotel Abaddon
Country: USA 🇺🇸
Language: English
Type of Game: Tabletop Games 📬
Genre: Haunted Mansion
Date Played: June 30, 2022
Difficulty (based on 2 players): 5/10
Size of Team: 1-4 Players (Ages 12+)
Time: Approximately 3-6 Hrs.
Price: $19.95
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You have come to the historic Grand Hotel Abaddon for a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of a tragic fire… in the wake of which the hotel has been rumored to be haunted! Each of you also has a personal, vested interest in the hotel and its history in some way. As soon as you arrive and are greeted by the owner, the unusual events begin. Could it be ghosts? What other secrets does this mysterious hotel hold?
Video above is property of Thames & Kosmos
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The game is cleanly designed with lovely artwork, particularly on the map cards, in a style befitting an old, haunted hotel! It is primarily card based, along with the adventure book, but you do have standees for your characters and some cardboard bits to mark the non-player characters (NPC's). There are also pieces that serve as reminders of tasks started, but not completed - which we found to be very helpful! For a mass market game, particularly at this price point, the materials are of quite good quality. Be aware that it is a table hog, particularly in the later chapters! But it looks super cool by the time it is all laid out.
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"The Grand Hotel Abaddon" plays in a similar way to the others in the Adventure Games series, sort of like a point-n-click computer game combined with a choose-your-own-adventure. You can play with any number of characters, but we recommend using all 4, regardless of your player count (there were two of us playing, so we each played 2 characters). While the actual need for this, based on the special abilities of players, is not as strong as in "Adventure Games: Monochrome, Inc.", we very much enjoyed being able to discover the backstories of all four. As you move through the game and discover new parts of the environment, new map cards are laid out. Each one has various things that you can investigate, and you will also come upon objects along the way, which you may then need to combine with locations or other objects to solve a problem. Various actions combine to yield different numbers, which are then looked up in the Adventure Book, and the subsequent passage is read to tell you what happened or what you saw (and all the better if players are up for a dramatic reading!).
In contrast to some of the earlier games in the series, this one does introduce two new, fun aspects. The first is the NPCs. You will interact with a variety of them throughout the game, being able to talk to them to get information and take actions that will cause them to go to different locations. Your interactions will also impact your own game and story! This is a fun way to add an additional element and another level to the story-telling and immersion. The second addition is that each character also has a personal mission that they will try to accomplish throughout the game, though it is not necessary to complete those in order to “win” the main mission shared by all characters. However, this new layer also adds more background and engagement with the story and development of each character, far more than we saw in Monochrome, Inc.
The game is divided into three chapters, making some nice breakpoints. They say each one is about 90 minutes; the first one took us closer to 2 hours, and the others more like 75 minutes. There is a little time invested in breaking the game down and resetting for the next chapter, but it wasn’t too tough - just be sure you take a picture of the game before you pack it up!
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This is not primarily a puzzle game, though there are a few puzzles along the way! These will feel relatively light to enthusiasts, but they are fun to encounter during the adventure. You will want to take notes as you go - information learned in the early stages of the game will come in handy later on.
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We had a blast exploring "The Grand Hotel Abaddon". While we enjoyed Monochrome, Inc. (the only other game we’ve played in this series), we definitely felt that this one took things up a notch! The gameplay was really smooth, the story was cohesive and well-developed, and we felt far more invested in the individual characters. While it is slated for ages 12+, we think slightly younger kids with longer attention spans could also enjoy this game. It’s small and compact enough to bring with you on a trip, though you will need a good sized table to actually play! If you are looking primarily for a puzzle-heavy game, this may not be for you. However, if you are open to a charming, story-driven adventure with a few light puzzles thrown in, then definitely check it out! It certainly makes us look forward to trying more games in the series!
P.S. There is one (adorable) card we never got during the game, and we were totally stumped how we missed it! If you’re in a similar situation, look at the extra cards, not the book..or feel free to ask us! It’s a very sweet sort of consolation prize if things went less well earlier in the game…
Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of the game:
Video 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 Thames & Kosmos 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.