Review: Unlock! Short Adventures | The Birmingham Murder

RATING: 3 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 9:06

“Alright gang, listen up! For this job, you’re going to do exactly what I expect of you, even though I never said what that is, because I’m the boss.“

Story

Birmingham. You are David Stevenson, a member of the Blue Bird Rifles gang. One of your fellow members was found dead in an alley this morning. Your boss has summoned you for a meeting in which she orders you to track down whoever is responsible.

The Birmingham Murder – from the start – clearly attempts to deliver a highly narrative-driven experience. In fact, its very first card continues the official story as pasted above to further attempt to bring its characters to life.

Bits and pieces are introduced throughout the thirty minutes that follow, but, sometimes frustratingly, they feel like simply that – bits and pieces. We’re immediately introduced to the leader of our apparent gang, yet at no point is she named despite both being a pivotal part of the story and pictured on the first card. Even our gang of choice, the Blue Bird Rifles, is really not qualified in any sense to give it any real backstory. We’re in the club, we wear blue newsboy style hats, and Rick was killed.

If reading that summary feels like we may have left out a few critical details, that’s because we, too, never received them. To say the least, it does make the story all that much more difficult to truly become immersed into. Just the same, a moment of silence for Rick – our… friend? …enemy? …work acquaintance? We’ll never truly know, because he’s dead.

Scenic

As always in the Unlock! series of games, The Birmingham Murder exists solely across a small deck of cards. Being one of the Unlock! Short Adventure titles, it is, of course, abbreviated, and designed for a quick thirty minute play through,

Those who have played Unlock! before will come to expect a delightful graphical presentation across both the fronts and backs of every cards. The Birmingham Murder takes a rather unique approach for the brand, carrying its noire detective graphic novel style throughout, with completely unique backs for each and every card. Combined, they paint a picture of the seedy back alleys and lesser desirable parts of town around Birmingham, setting the tone for Rick’s demise and the mystery surrounding it.

Unlock! Short adventures rely strictly to the cards themselves and do not include any sort of physical props or puzzle items outside of them. The game is powered by a free Unlock! app which interacts with puzzles, offers clues and provides a custom cued background music track to help bring the adventure right into your living room.

Puzzles

Something that always serves as a feature to look forward to is discovering just what quirky new game mechanic Unlock! has cooked up to bring a fresh perspective for each new deck. The Birmingham Murder absolutely has one, and it’s largely unlike anything Unlock! has used previously. To that end, it’s a satisfying epiphany.

Here’s the problem: that unique mechanic is never truly communicated, even within the game’s standard rules card. It largely goes against the rules of a traditional Unlock! game, but does so in a way that really does feel organic to the action within the storyworld. Were it just communicated more clearly, it would likely be a far more satisfying feature of the game.

And then there’s The Birmingham Murder’s finale step: an app based interaction that gives your tablet or smart phone all new life. It’s ingenious in its own way, but similar to the gameplay mechanic referenced above, it’s just not at all communicated. Even as players highly experienced to the Unlock! world, having played the vast majority of their fifty or so different games, it led to a several moments of staring at the screen wondering exactly what it expected from us. And worse than just having no real direction, it goes so far as to say you only have one shot at this, so make sure you get it right. Here’s the problem: it’s not even clear what you have one short *at* accomplishing in the first place. Stranger, it also seems as though the choice you make relative to this doesn’t really even matter to the outcome of the game? We tested other answers and all led to the finale.

Overall

It’s worth stressing again that Escape Authority remains huge fans of the Unlock! brand of At Home escape games. Simply put, they’re our favorite by a healthy margin. But – when you have more than fifty to choose from, you’re bound to get a small percentage here and there which don’t measure up. The Birmingham Murder was an interesting case, because at times we were completely engaged, and in others, annoyed and confused. In just half an hour, this game mixes every degree of good and bad. The clever bits are really fantastic, and end up diminished simply due to a lack of clear direction and communication of their outside-the-box intent.

Worse though, is that some of its mechanics are so different that, for a player new to the Unlock! world, they’d likely never even think to try in the absence of such direction. That sort of thing could result in The Birmingham Murder being a player’s first – and last – Unlock! At Home experience. That false impression alone would be the biggest crime to solve in the story what is otherwise the most imaginative contender on the At Home escape game market.