Screaming Venice: Art Heist, Tale Of A Golden Dragon
23 January 2022
at home
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
The Escaperoomer invited me over to play envelopes VI and VII of Scarlet Envelope, a series of escape room esque games that come in a bright red envelope. Each episode has a different theme and time period in which we’re tasked to solve puzzles and hunt down clues, combining the provided props and online resources.
Envelope VI is themed around the theft of Edward Munch’s The Scream in a gallery in Venice. I’m a little undecided about this one, as it felt like we were solving one long puzzle rather than several smaller ones. It took a while to figure out what we were doing, as all props supplied seemed to be connected (which they were) and we needed to find our feet with this one. Once we had worked out the biggest part of the puzzle, some loose interpretation was needed to get to the next step, which I personally found a little too tenuous.
The hint system was definitely needed here as we couldn’t figure it out, going down a completely wrong route. But once we got back on track, we breezed through the rest of the game almost comically fast!
Envelope VII has a very different theme, bringing us to the fantasy kingdom of Severin, where we are tasked with catching a break-out dragon, the Princess’ beloved pet. This one was incredibly fun to play! Though there was a lot to read on the screen and I would have loved a voice-over option here. There were a few voice-over moments, but still way too much to read.
We had to find locations on a map, find magical objects, decode old diary entries, study the behaviour of dragons, and more. This episode definitely had my favourite prop out of the whole series so far! And I loved how the story developed, drawing up a charming image of this little kingdom and its inhabitants, including quite a few fun easter eggs as well.
I can’t wait for the next instalments to come around, what a great series of games!