Company: Trip 1907 (by Georgios Kiafas)
Country: Greece 🇬🇷
Language: English (can be played in German, Polish, French, Italian, Czech and Hungarian)
Type of Game: Tabletop Games 📬
Date Played: June 20, 2022
Size of Team: Unlimited
Photos above are property of Trip 1907 (by Georgios Kiafas)
Game: Trip 1907: Dark Sails
Genre: Mystery
Difficulty (based on 1 player): 8/10
Size of Team: Unlimited
Time: Unlimited
Price: $16.99 (Paperback)
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It has been many years since you have had those dreams, but they seem to be returning. Why now and what do they mean? You decide to start up a journal to record your thoughts and have something to sketch in. Let’s hope that the journal will keep you sane when you head out to sea.
Photos above are property of Georgios Kiafas
Game: Trip 1907: Forbidden Mine
Genre: Horror
Difficulty (based on 1 player): 6/10
Size of Team: Unlimited
Time: Unlimited
Price: $16.99 (Paperback)
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Having found a job with the Cobycha Mining Co., you head off to the Norton Mine. Excited for finding work in the 2 things you love doing, drilling and sketching, you cannot wait to start this new position. Being underground though for such an extended period of time can mess with someone’s sanity and you never know what you might find down there…
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Both are a soft cover books with an enigmatic symbol on the front. Flipping through the book, you can find each page beautifully sketched with eerie scribbles that I’m sure will have more meaning as we dive deeper in.
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Opening the books, you can find a small introduction on how your journey begins and how to start playing the game. As you solve the puzzles, you enter the answers into the website. If you are stuck on a puzzle, there are 2 hints at the bottom on the answer input website which you can use but they will use up sanity points. You gain sanity as you solve puzzles but using hints will cost you sanity. Once you are out of sanity, the game is over and you need to start from the beginning (but don’t worry if you continue on, we won’t tell). When you get the correct solution you will then be given a code word which will unlock the next puzzle for you. Having these codeword does limit your gameplay though since you need the previous answer to move on to the next puzzle so you will have the play the game linearly.
The art for both books was amazingly done with black and white pencil drawings, straight from the sketch book of someone who is documenting in their journal, sitting on the bunk. I also really enjoyed the stories that accompanied this. It guided me through a creepy tale but left enough to my imagination that I am still left in suspense what is out there.
While "Forbidden Mine" is the second book in the Trip 1907 series, "Dark Sails" is the 2nd Edition of the first book in the series. The updates for the 2nd edition mostly consist of taking components offline and putting them in the book such as the narration and the sanity tracker. There are 5 puzzles as well that have been changed from the original.
Photos above are property of Georgios Kiafas
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The puzzles did ramp up well at the start but the quality and difficulty did fluctuate throughout the game. Some puzzles I was able to get with no issues, while some I needed to use the hints and felt there was no cluing to the solution. There were also some that required me to put the book away and come back at a later time as the hints did not help and solutions are not available. Of the puzzles that were solid, there were some clever and creative ones that required some fun outside the box thinking. Some of the puzzles were also puzzlehunt style and did require outside knowledge. Between both books though, I did find the puzzles more refined in "Forbidden Mine".
Photos above are property of Georgios Kiafas
Photos above are property of Georgios Kiafas
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Overall, there were some satisfying moments playing the Trip 1907 books with some clever puzzles, unnerving sketches, and haunting account of the characters, but there were some frustrating moments as well. There were puzzles I would be stuck on for weeks without any proper means of moving forward. If you are into puzzlehunt style games or one to avoid hints, I would recommend trying this out. If you are planning on trying these books out though, I would recommend playing with more people, each having your own book to bounce ideas off of. Without a viable way to get the solution if you get stuck, this is a game you would want to play over a long span of time and over many sittings.
Trip 1907 (2nd Edition): Dark Sails
Trip 1907: Forbidden Mine
(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 Trip 1907 (by Georgios Kiafas) for providing us with a sample of their game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.