RATING: 4 Keys          RESULT: Win          REMAINING: Not Timed 

Gather the gang – err actually avoid the gang – just hurry up and find the loot!

Gangster Dutch Schultz rambled on incoherently as he was dying from gunshot wounds in 1935. His final words are believed to contain directions to a massive money stash he buried when the law was cracking down on him. Armed with a promising new clue, you must solve the puzzles and get to the bottom of a decades old mystery. The riches could be yours!

Tales of the famous treasure long ago hidden by the legendary gangster have swirled around the New York City streets for years. A whisper here. A fake treasure map there. It had all but become almost a joke – that is until now.

A cryptic note was just found hidden inside the wall of a building under renovation in New York’s Lower East Side. That just happens to be Dutch Schultz’s old stomping grounds. Maybe his famed treasure is real after all.

With his first clue in hand, it’s best to act fast because one thing is for sure – if word gets out about this there’s going to be a mob of people chasing after his treasure.

As we’ve touched on previously, being a home game, we define “Scenic” from a graphic design perspective, as well as the quality, weight and feel of print materials of the product.

Mob Treasure is contained (almost) entirely within the pages of a paperback book. The cover has a smooth, high quality finish to it with graphics that immediately provide a sense of mystery as to what may be hidden inside.

Each of the puzzle pages are gray scale illustrations of varying styles. Some sections take on a comic book/cartoon aesthetic, others showcase photo realistic graphics, and a few seamlessly blend the two. This variation in design helps the story to move from one location to the next in a believable fashion.

Different writing visuals are employed throughout the book that further immerse treasure hunters into the world of the infamous Dutch Schultz. Hand written notes appear to be exactly that while long lost type written journal entries are appropriately printed in a typeface font.

One additional aspect that isn’t truly part of the designed scenic is how Mob Treasure brings the real world into the game. There are times where investigators will be doing some research into the mafia and coming across images of actual gangsters from eras long past. This helps bring the scenic to life by further immersing treasure hunters into the dangerous storyworld.

Dutch Schultz is no fool. Well, was no fool. He’s dead now, but his legend lives on in the treasure he hid behind a long series of puzzles and dangerous tasks. Seventy five of them to be exact.

Mob Treasure splits the adventure into fifteen chapters that each have a very well defined ending point. Within these are individual puzzles as well as a meta puzzle that ties them all together. The tasks stay mostly within the mob storyworld that is created and follow the narrative arc of visiting multiple well-connected families along the way.

A varying degree of difficulty will have treasure hunters overcoming some roadblocks in a matter of seconds while getting snagged for much longer elsewhere.

A good mix of activity types keeps brazen sleuths on their toes throughout the journey. Simple arithmetic, wordplay, spacial reasoning, and logic puzzles are just some of the challenges that Dutch put between greedy thieves and his valuable loot.

There are moments where outside the box – err book – thinking is required. Some of this includes the need to possess knowledge not contained in the book, or to do some simple research. In normal games, the need for prior knowledge would be a huge detriment and would warrant a zero Key rating, but Mob Treasure clearly lays out this detail at the beginning of the book. Also, being a home game with the internet readily available for assistance, these moments in the experience take on more of an investigative overtone which happens to work perfectly within the storyworld.

Mob Treasure is the first puzzle book published by the creative minds behind Crux Club, a New York City based live action puzzle hunt and augmented reality company. This medium of escape game style fun – packaged for at home or on the go – is certainly tricky to pull off, but the finished product is one that will provide a few hours of challenge and entertainment to readers of all skill levels. It is worth noting that while there is no accompanying website that needs to be used to complete the game, internet access will prove helpful for the times where a little real world research is required

The experience is strongly driven by its narrative, and that proves to be one of the highlights of Mob Treasure. An exciting tale of danger and trickery with a potentially large payoff is quintessential “treasure hunt”. With the main character – that is, the reader – traversing all over New York and visiting several infamous mafia families, the sense of adventure keeps the pages turning quickly.

With seventy five puzzles, there is bound to be something for everyone to enjoy solving. The flip side of that gold coin is that there is also likely to be some tasks that just don’t click for every sleuth. Mob Treasure includes both hint and solution sections in the back of the book. These definitely come in handy as there are times where Dutch Schultz made finding his treasure exceedingly tricky. The preview version only provide one clue for each puzzle, but there are plans to have a stepped hinting system in future releases.

Mob Treasure fits into a relatively small but expanding niche of the escape game world. The level of detail put into the storyworld, graphics, and game play hopefully bodes well for future offerings from Crux Club and others looking to be inspired to create unique puzzle books!

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Venue:  Crux Club

Location: At Home Game

Number of Games: 1 (1 book with 75 puzzles in this purchase)

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: Not Timed

Capacity: N/A

Group Type: Private / You will not be paired with strangers (but if you are, call 911 immediately to report a home invasion.)

Cost (at Publish Time): $15 (Special Kickstarter Price)

We thank Crux Club for inviting us to play this game. Although a complimentary copy was generously provided, that in no way impacts the opinion included within this review.