The Book Of Rituals
14 February 2022
at home
4.5 out of 5.0 stars
Having played, and absolutely loved, all previous Escape Tales games, I was very excited for the release of The Book Of Rituals and jumped right on playing it as soon as it arrived at my door!
Escape Tales are story driven escape games that offer different outcomes according to the choices you make along the way. The stories all felt very rich and fascinating as I played them, and this very book was mentioned in several of them, so it’s a brilliant tie-in!
The game plays in three chapters, Elements, Ingredients, and Rituals. First off, players have to find information on a variety of elements, and later ingredients, to find their alchemical names and values, which are then used to solve the puzzles in the rituals in chapter three.
Each double-page contains a puzzle or riddle, some of which reference previous or later pages (this is not a linear game) that can be solved with the help of an “app” (the company call it an app, but it’s really just a website…) that also includes a generous hint system, which lets you choose how easy or difficult you want to make it for yourself. I find that there is such a great variety in these puzzles that some of them definitely click easily with me, and others are a complete mystery that I can only figure out when watching the provided walk-through video after using all the hints. Escape Tales really like to challenge players in all directions! There’s so much to do and discover in this book.
While there wasn’t much story to this game itself, I loved all the little nods towards the previous games, and how immersive it all felt. It took me a good seven hours to play through, over the course of two evenings, so there’s plenty of puzzles for your pennies, being one of the cheaper at-home games out there.
I’ll definitely keep following this series with any new instalments that may be released in the future!