The Mystery Agency: The Balthazar Stone

The Balthazar Stone is nearly a great game, but unfortunately it gets lets down by a series of minor niggles in nearly every aspect so it's hard not to leave feeling frustrated, both as a player and on behalf of the creators that they didn't deliver the potential that the game clearly has.

Let's start with the good: the game centres around a physical box. Even though it's laser-cut plywood, it's a good size and weight and and it's beautifully-decorated. It feels interesting and satisfying to interact with. As you play through the game, you'll find various smaller artefacts - all above average quality, that would make nice souvenir pieces if you're the sort of person to display trophies of your game conquests, say. The puzzles are relatively solid, and there's an online hint system if you get stuck. The game is totally non-destructive, and there's also an excellently-clear guide as to how to reset the game and pass it on to someone else.

But...

- There's a lack of clear signposting at one point near the start, which led us to spend 10 minutes trying to solve a puzzle without yet having been given all the materials required to do so. We then eventually decided to give up and consult the hints site, only to discover that the first online "clue" you can reveal is actually required to proceed in the game!

- One of the puzzles is either broken, or contains red herrings - it's a bit hard to say. But it certainly made us waste time solving things that turned out to have no relevance to the game.

- A part of the game requires internet access, but it's very thin webpage content, and does not make nearly as good use of the medium compared to similar games from Society of Curiosities or The Detective Society. The simplistic presentation of the online components also does not match the quality of the physical presentation of the box itself.

- Even though the story and puzzles were generally well-executed, there was nothing we hadn't seen before, and everything very much sticks to the standards expected of a "haunted pirate box"-esque game. That's not a huge problem, but don't expect any surprises.

- But the biggest problem: the final puzzle has a catastrophic mechanical failure, which led to us reaching the end of the game after only solving about half of the puzzles. Frustratingly, it seems that this was known about and has been reported by several  reviewers who received early copies of the game (who were then sent replacement fixed boxes), but KS orders were still sent out using the defective boxes, and despite contacting the company I've not been offered a replacement.

It's such a shame, as this could have been one of the top at-home games, but instead we left with a sour taste. I'm awaiting delivery of the next two in the series, and am hopeful the designers will learn from their mistakes... fingers crossed!