Review – Deckscape: The Mystery of Eldorado
Amazon Affiliate Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3mJ6uEl
Price – $22.90
Disclaimer: this game was a birthday gift, this review is not sponsored. All thoughts are our own. If you decide you’d like to purchase the game, we’d love it if you could buy through our Amazon Affiliate link to support our purchase of new games to play and review
The Product:
Deckscape products aim to recreate the fun and excitement of a real escape room in the form of a deck of cards that can be played anywhere. All players will need is the game, some time, and a mind that’s willing to work.
The Mystery of Eldorado has players adventuring through a jungle as they search for the lost city of Eldorado. They’ll need to overcome challenges involving jungles, animals, tribes, and ancient mysteries. Solving puzzles and collecting useful items are key to progressing through the game. Players will flip through the deck to continue through the story, but the deck does have mechanics to allow for branching paths and player choice.
This game is marketed for 1-6 players and advertised to take about an hour.
Our Thoughts:
This was our first Deckscape game and overall we enjoyed it quite a bit. The game’s format keeps rules simple, which allowed us to jump right into playing. Almost everything we needed was within the single deck of cards, but the creators did show a lot of creativity as they made the most of their escape room in a deck concept.
The Mystery of Eldorado’s story is a simple one of hoping to survive the jungles and find the lost city. However, the tale takes advantage of its setting to theme the reasoning behind the puzzles. In that respect, the game does well and gives the puzzles purpose. There are a few twists and turns added in as well to keep players on their toes. While we might not be begging for the novel adaptation of the story, it does its job well of carrying players through the game in an entertaining fashion.
The puzzles were plentiful (a whole deck full), but they never felt too challenging. For those who might need it, there are two potential hint systems that are introduced in the game. We did not use either though since we never felt we needed them. The game also tries to be very family friendly by building in a few safety nets for players who might be struggling. Again, we didn’t need them but it was nice that they were there for others.
The game’s puzzles were still fun, even if they weren’t super hard. The Deckscape designers did a good job incorporating many different types of puzzles and a few other surprises to keep the game interesting and worth the time investment. Players will still have to think, use clues, and use inferencing and deductive reasoning to find success. This is supposed to be a trek through the deep jungles, not a complete cakewalk.
The game has a built in scoring system, which provides a fun challenge (even if how things are scored is not revealed completely until the end of the game). We started off a little worried we might score poorly, but by the end of the game we felt pretty confident. Our final score put us in the second tier with a “you have done well!” Our biggest ding was taking closer to 80 minutes to complete the game.
With so many games on the market, it can be hard to choose the one that’s right for you. Deckscape: The Mystery of Eldorado is a solid choice, especially for those looking for a well-priced, quick to jump into, family friendly experience.
Official C&C Rating:
Narrative: 3/5
Puzzles: 3/5
Overall Fun: 3.5/5
Final Averaged Rating: 3.2/5 Stars
Chaos & Confetti 