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Deadbolt Mystery Society is a monthly subscription box for puzzle and mystery lovers. Each package is a stand alone case file that includes everything you’ll need to crack the case! Boxes have interactive components and immersive scenarios which really bring these stories to life! Subscriptions are $24.99 monthly and with code dadsday and our link you’ll receive 25% off any subscription product. NAT received this package at no cost for review purposes.
Subscription Box Unboxing
Subscription Box Review
Our first glimpse inside the Deadbolt Mystery Society Sanitarium Edition.
Everything that we received in the Sanitarium edition of the Deadbolt Mystery Society Box. There is so much in here and we have to say that it’s the most comprehensive of any puzzle subscription we’ve ever done!
So what is all this stuff? (also spoilers ahead)
First up in this package is our “start here” page. This explains how we will use everything in this subscription. It also tells us where to go if we are needing some help. The premise of this entire mystery is to solve who killed nurse Faith Edgarton who worked at Saturn Hills Asylum.
This letter from Benjamin at the Willow Creek Detective Agency explains our mission and his connection to it. He was a friend of Nurse Edgarton’s!
Our case brief includes clues and information about the murder of Nurse Edgarton.
Next is our Wastelands of Warael game. This was played by not only Nurse Edgarton but also some of the patients.
Some of the puzzles involved adding hit points up and figuring out who DIDN’T kill Nurse Edgarton.
Another puzzle is figuring out which suspects plays as each character in the game. You’ll need both to solve the mystery!
One of the first puzzles is using this QR code to find out the REAL name of Nurse Edgarton!
To figure that out you’ll have to hold this card sideways.
Once you do this you’ll see that the ID badge included in this box will be the password that gets you the information you need.
Here is the ID. This interactive component works with your phones camera and allows you to see online only clues and information.
You find out that Nurse Edgarton’s real name is Barbara Ellison.. which is crucial to finding out important information about the government operation she is on.
One of the patients at Saturn Hills is an assassin and is triggered by a code word. Faith Edgarton was using these code words to see what patient at Saturn Hills was an assassin. When she was found she was holding a balloon which coincidentally or not? Was one of the code words.
These pages are filled with notes on the suspects who also happen to be players in the game Wastelands of Warael. These hold VERY important clues that you’ll need later on. We found this to be one of the most interesting aspects of the game, how detailed each character’s story was!
The Dr. at Saturn Hills is Norman Blackthorn. We receive a page of his notes which also happen to contain some important clues. The first puzzle is a Rohrschach test and what each patient sees when they look at it. The next are notes the Dr. made about each patients demeanor (many of their demeanor’s and what they see in the test match their character in the game.)
This next puzzle was harder for us than for our husband who immediately figured it out… we make a great team since he’s more logical and we take more to extrapolating the important clues from groups of information. This puzzle will be used with an eye chart to solve one of the suspects (who can’t speak) word puzzles.
Here is the eye chart. The puzzle turns out to say that, “No One Plays with Stars.” This means that none of the star characters in the deck will be used by the suspects.
The King in Yellow is a theme echoed by one of the suspects. To solve this puzzle we arrange the letters in sequence of the numbers to get the world Carcosa which is a region of the Wastelands of Warrel game. This tells us which character this suspect is aligned to.
In addition to information about suspects we also get 2 pages of interviews from patients. The first is from, “The Countess” she gives us valuable information about both Nurse Edgarton and characters in the game. The second is from Richard Queensacre who was also a government agent. He gives us one of the QR code passwords – hacksaw. This tells us more about the government operations that are involved in this case.
Like this (but also so much more)!
This card is a collector card and we think one of these must be included in each Deadbolt Mystery Society Box.
The back tells us all about the Wastelands but doesn’t give much in the way of clues.
This business card for Valley Falls Lawn Care has a website on it and was one of the first places we went when solving this puzzle. It’s the website where we’ll find out most of our online information. It shows up as an government site with a place for operations, protocol and updates for government agents. It was found in Nurse Edgarton’s locker!
This puzzle is from one of our suspects (the same one who created the eye chart puzzle) it’s meant to be read backwards in a mirror and includes clues about where this suspect is from in the game and his own psyche.
If you look at the map and the board with names of the suspects you can correlate what area of Warael their character hailed from. This will be really important in helping to solve the puzzle.
This is another one that our husband figured out.
We had so much fun doing this puzzle. We of course sat down with some wings and beer while we enjoyed. This took us about 2 hours!
Once we were ready to solve we use this QR code and a password to see if we are right!
And we were right! The killer was Markus!
So in summary
Presentation: The Deadbolt Mystery Society was well put together and we really love how much thought is put into this subscription box.
Quality: We have to say that this is the most cohesive, comprehensive and fun mystery / puzzle subscription we’ve ever done. We really enjoyed this a lot!
Curation: We thought they really put a lot of time in bringing all the elements (and there were a lot) of this puzzle together! We would recommend this for couples as well as groups for a fun night of sleuthing!
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