Unlock: Supernatural Adventures

• Designers: Clara Capmas, Mathieu Cassin, Leif Eriksson, Jeremy Koch
• Publisher: Space Cowboys
• Players: 1-6
• Age: 10+
• Time: 60 minutes per episode, 3 episodes in box
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4haLUYq
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Unlock! is a cooperative card game inspired by escape rooms that uses a simple system which allows you to search scenes, combine objects, and solve riddles. Play Unlock! to embark on great adventures, while seated at a table using only cards and a companion app that can provide clues, check codes, monitor time remaining, etc.

Unlock! Supernatural Adventures includes three separate scenarios for you to explore:

• Nova City under Threat
• Dia de Los Muertos
• Ragnarök

Note: Unlock! requires a free application to be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play. Once downloaded, an internet connection is not required during game play.

The Unlock! franchise was one of the first to hit the scene in the escape room/puzzle game genre. The initial editions of the game were highly anticipated – prior to Unlock! The Formula – the majority of the puzzle games came in big sized boxes (see T.I.M.E Stories, Escape Room: The Game, etc), and getting a small format was super cool. Since then, the EXIT series as well as the Deckscape series have also provided more portable versions of these puzzle-y games. This franchise has thrived, as evidence by the fact that Boardgamegeek has 69 entries in the Unlock Family page!

This newest iteration of the game has you dive into three unique supernatural settings with UNLOCK! Supernatural Adventures—battle super-villains as a superhero, celebrate Dia de Los Muertos, or sail with Viking warriors. Each adventure is designed to test your puzzle-solving skills and decision-making in a race against time. Can you resolve the crises and succeed before the clock runs out?

I can explain how the game works using cards and ideas from the original tutorial (in part because our previous reviews have used the same examples) – the game can be learned through a 10 minute mini game that uses just a few cards (which are included in the game):

Each scenario is self contained within the sealed card deck. When you open the game, you can unwrap the cards, but you are instructed to not look though the card deck (either side of the cards). Before you get started, you’ll have to download the free Star Wars Unlock! app to run on your phone or tablet.

The top card of each scenario lays out the rules and goals for the specific scenario, then it instructs you to flip over the card and start the timer on the app. Once started, you have 60 minutes to achieve the goal.

Generally, the back of the first card is a location card. You’ll see a location with a bunch of circled numbers on it. You now flip through the deck, looking ONLY at the backs, and find cards with the matching numbers on the back. They are removed from the deck and placed face up on the table. Any time that you find a location card, you will then rifle thru the deck to find the matching cards.

You are not allowed to spread the deck out (to learn what numbers are on the back) nor should you really rifle thru to peek. Though, I’ll have to admit, it’s hard to not read and remember the numbers as you have to dive thru the deck searching for particular numbers…

As you flip the cards over, you’ll find a couple of different card types that are helpfully color coded. There will be red and blue puzzle piece objects. These are objects that interact with other objects. In general, you will always be combining a red object with a blue object. Often, you end up adding the numbers together – so if you take a piece of bread on card 12 and combine it with a toaster on card 45, you would look through the deck for card 57 (12+45) – and if this was the correct move, you’d find that card in the deck, and likely there would be a piece of toast on the back of it. If you had made an incorrect move, let’s say that you were really supposed to make a sandwich with the peanut butter on card 30… you might find a card 57 which would then have a penalty shown on the other side telling you that you didn’t do the correct thing. OR, you might not find card 45 at all in the deck – which tells you that you weren’t supposed to combine those two things together, but you don’t suffer a penalty for the error as you didn’t reveal it on a card.

You will also find Yellow cards – these cards refer to codes. As you play the game, you’ll eventually figure out when you’ve generated a code. Whenever you get to that point, you go to the app, hit the “Code” button and input the code that you think that you’ve found. If you’re correct, the app will do something (tell you to find a specific card to reveal, tell you that you’ve won the game, etc). If you’re incorrect, the app will tell you that you are wrong.

There are also Green Machine cards. These cards are never used directly with red or blue puzzle cards but they often provide modifiers to those numbers to help you find new cards to explore.

Penalty cards come up when you make incorrect deductions. The penalty cards tell you how many times to hit the penalty button on the app, and each hit will take a few minutes off the clock.

As you reveal new cards from the deck, you might see some numbers struck-through at the top of the new cards. When you see this, you can remove the struck thru numbers from play. Those cards can be returned to the box, you will not need them any longer. All other cards remain in play for you to examine and read until you are told to discard them. Do NOT get rid of any cards until you are specifically told to do so!

As you play the game, you might find that you are stuck or not sure what you should be doing next. The app has a helpful hint system. You simply hit the Hint button on the app and then type in the card number that you’re stuck on – and the system will (hopefully) give you some help to get you on your way.

The rules also make clear that there are hidden objects on the cards. There may be hidden numbers or letters disguised in the card art. If you think that you see a hidden number or letter, you then look thru the deck and see if you find a card with that number. If so, you reveal the card and add it to the table.

That’s pretty much it. You have to get through the entire scenario within 60 minutes in order to “win” – though even if the time runs out, you can continue playing and using the app – you just won’t be able to score any points for your game.

My thoughts on the game

Central to the experience is your smartphone. In fact it is essential. You need the app to help you maneuver through the adventures, and Space Cowboys really has doubled down on how they use the technologies found in modern smartphones through successive Unlock releases.

While the explanation above gives you the basics – each adventure has its own special circumstances and abilities that are laid out as you go through the card deck for that particular adventure. The beauty of this system is that it is easy to jump into each game, especially if you’ve played an Unlock before – but at the same time, the designers are able to keep each one feeling fresh by giving you unique rules/abilities via the smartphone app.

The three adventures in this box are of quite varying quality. I personally liked the first one (Nova City) the best, and it was so good that I was eager to play the other two. For me, the quality of the puzzles trended down as we continued through, and to be honest, the final adventure (Ragnarok) was honestly maybe the worst Unlock I’ve ever played. So many of the puzzles were extremely difficult/impossible, and even the hints didn’t really make sense. No one that I have talked to who has played Ragnarok has had a positive impression of that one.

The game is rated for 1-6 players, but as I keep playing this franchise, the more convinced I am that this is maybe best at 2 players max. The main reason for this is the reliance upon the smartphone app. Without spoiling anything, let me just say that many crucial discoveries come from visualizations in the app. And as you might expect, only someone who is able to see the smartphone will get the fun and amazement that comes from seeing those things. Unless you really really really like your gaming mates, two people is probably the max number of people that can be close enough to see things on a six-inch smartphone screen.

Don’t get me wrong, the gimmicks/tricks/etc in the app are really amazing. But in the game when I wasn’t the one holding the phone, umm, I felt more like a bystander than a teammate.

As all of these different puzzle franchises evolve, they are finding their own niche. For the Unlock series, I think that they have done the best adding augmented reality elements into the game – and if that is your thing, this is the series for you. I prefer games to stay analog – part of the reason I play games is to get away from screens – and as a result, I feel like I’m less and less the target audience for them. Additionally, I feel this series is getting harder and harder to play with my four player group, which also is a bummer for me.

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4haLUYq

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

I love it!

I like it.

Neutral.

Not for me… Dale Y