RATING: 2 Keys          RESULT: Win          REMAINING: 33:51

Maybe it’s time to stop worrying about who committed the crime and just focus on the fact that crime is bad.

As Chicago’s leading private investigator, you’ve had your run-ins with Mafia enforcer Mickey Malone. However, finding Mickey taking a dirt nap on your office floor and shot by your own gun is a whole new kind of trouble. The Mafia doesn’t take kindly to losing one of their own. With the Mafia after your head and the police hot on your heels, get ready for your hardest challenge yet–because if you can’t crack this case, you won’t escape your office alive.

With Mickey dead, the urgency to find the true culprit is quickly apparent to avoid being framed for it yourself. Problem is, there are several different individuals with motives that verge dangerously close to probable cause that could have done it – four, in fact: Mafia don Luigi Caputo, his associate Vinnie the Blade, a dirty copy named O’Sullivan, and Rosa De Luca, the victim’s lover.

Each character has their own extensive backstory which adds depth to the mystery, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t caveat this fact with ‘for better or worse.’ It’s no secret that the EA Team are big fans of a compelling story in a game, as oftentimes it can be that secret ingredient to turn a good experience into a great one. But the key word is “compelling.” Murder in the Mafia’s story segments are long – like, really, really long. And at a certain point, they just start to come across as giant walls of words that impede the action of the game itself.

With each new ‘chapter’ of the game comes with a full page backstory for the next character to be introduced. The amount of unnecessary detail in them gives a strong ‘exposition for exposition’s sake’ vibe, which can quickly become off-putting. In truth, upon the completion of the case, we found ourselves just lightly skimming the even longer finale novella rather than actually reading it all. The story had just lost us by that point.

Being a home game, we define “Scenic” from a graphic design perspective, as well as the quality, weight, and feel of print materials inside the box.

ThinkFun has impressed in this department with their previous games, and Murder in the Mafia embraces the evolutions found in their other more recent sets.

Upon opening the box, brave adventurers will first need to construct the detective’s office. Very thick and sturdy cardboard sections of the house fit together easily and create a surprisingly dimensional set, with several organic hiding spaces around the ‘room’ that one would expect in real life, but probably not think possible for a home game. The photo attached to this section is one we actually took after setting up the game. It’s definitely neat to be able to set the camera in it and frame the pic as though it was taken in a brick and mortar escape game. Drawers can open, there are secret compartments and tons of surprises to be discovered.

This game has no accompanying app, and everything needed to proceed is self-contained in the box. A Spotify playlist can be found on the official ThinkFun website that really adds an immersive mood with period appropriate background music. This does come with a catch, however; unlike games with self-contained apps, this one plays through a streaming service. With commercials. That got really annoying, very quickly, and each time one popped up, it shattered the storyworld for the few seconds that it played. There seemed to be one commercial every two or three tracks – so it was a lot. It’s also worth noting that by going this route, it will require players to register for a Spotify account if they don’t already have one. It’s free, but it’s certainly a step that could have been avoided with an official app.

The remaining content in the box – all the pages, envelopes, puzzle pieces, etc, are also made of thick and solid materials. They don’t feel like cheap pieces of paper. Glossy graphics make everything truly pop. This set feels premium through and through.

Ok, good night everyone!

Oh, you’re still here? You’re really going to make us do this? Sigh. Alright.

Puzzles throughout this game completely fall off the cliff. At the start, they seemed sensible, but pretty quickly devolved into needing the solutions guide for every single one of them, and, even with solution in hand, there were some that we could not piece together the logic of how one was intended to find their way there. Worse- remember when we said they seemed sensible at the start? Well, while in the solutions guide, we checked that one after the fact, just to better understand how the information is presented for a puzzle that actually made sense. Yeah, we weren’t even close to solving it ‘the right way’ and apparently just flat out got lucky with our answer.

The further into the investigation, the more nonsensical and illogical things got with the puzzles. It’s almost as though things were designed in Photoshop, where of course they all look right, but are impossible to validate from a player’s perspective. By the finale, things got so convoluted that we actually screamed out loud at the solutions guide at one point.

Here’s the thing, we’re big fans of the ThinkFun brand. We’ve loved all three of their prior Escape The Room home games, with two of them receiving 5 Key scores and one getting 4 Keys. We’ve given awards to some of them. Murder in the Mafia is the classic ‘nobody’s perfect’ story to tell.

The only saving grace to earn this game a 2 Keys score is it’s ‘Scenic,’ because it’s always very cool and unique to get to play ‘in’ a ‘physical’ game built out of the box as newer ThinkFun games have evolved to be. But here’s the thing, although Murder in the Mafia certainly executed that quite well, The Cursed Dollhouse, the game which preceded this one in the Escape The Room series, in truth, did it a lot better.

ThinkFun has unquestionably cracked a code by managing to recreate a Brick & Mortar escape experience packaged as at at-home game. The physical set comes together in such a way that makes the adventure about as immersive as this style of game can be. We continue to highly recommend their other three Escape The Room products, but, unfortunately, have no choice but to send Murder in the Mafia to go sleep with the fishes.

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Venue:  ThinkFun Games – Escape The Room

Location: At Home Game

Number of Games: 4 (available, each sold separately)

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: 120 minutes

Capacity: 3 people

Group Type: Private / You will not be paired with strangers

Cost (at Publish Time): $29.99 (Amazon.com)

We thank ThinkFun 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.