Time for another escape-room-in-a-box game produced by Deckscape. This time the game was Behind The Curtain and was a magic themed adventure.
We’ve always enjoyed playing Deckscape games and were looking forward to this. Unfortunately, for our 13th game it proved “13 – unlucky for some”, as this game was not as good as we expected!
As usual the box contains a single deck of 60 cards. This time there is also a sealed envelope. The game is for 1 to 6 players and involves team work. With no rulebook or board there is little game setup involved. You just need access to a pen and paper and a clock.
To start, all you have to do is turn over the first card and start reading.
This time you have been invited to a magic show at a temporary theatre in New York. You have been sent your ticket (this is an item card, that will be needed later in the game.) The next instructions card explains that there will be Puzzle Cards and Item Cards. Puzzle cards show a picture and a question to be answered. Items are required to solve some puzzles. In fact, you cannot solve the puzzles without the correct item card.
As well as a score card, there is a helpful hint card available. When we played, this hint card often alerted us to to the fact that we needed another item card before we could solve a puzzle. Yes, we used a lot of hints for this game which we found very frustrating.
Some puzzles, including one of the earliest, did not make sense at all. This did not bode well for the rest of the game.
Some puzzle cards were split over three faces, so instead of you reading the front of a card, then flipping it for the answer, when you flipped it you found additional instructions and uncovered a partial solution on the card below. At first we thought we may have done something wrong but it was just the way the game flow worked……..Or didn’t work. When it came to splitting the deck into various piles the whole game flow went to pieces.
Did we finish the game? Yes, we did.
Did we enjoy the game? No not really. We found it very frustrating compared to all their other games.
If you want to try it for yourself Behind The Curtain is available from Amazon.
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