Review – Crimes & Capers: Lady Leona’s Last Wishes
Website Link – https://renegadegamestudios.com/crimes-capers-lady-leonas-last-wishes/
Price – $35
Disclaimer: we purchased the game with our own money, this review is not sponsored. All thoughts are our own.
The Product:
Crimes & Capers: Lady Leona’s Last Wishes is a cooperative puzzle game which will have players attempting to solve puzzles in a search for a deceased woman’s fortune.
Everything the players need to actually play the game can be found in the box. However, players have the option to add to the experience by dressing up, role playing, and supplying whatever enhancements they may desire. This system provides what could be the foundation for a group activity along the lines of a murder mystery party, without needing the host to sit out on the actual puzzle solving.
The intention of the game is for players to take on the roles of high society and serving class people as they compare notes and observations to work towards a shared goal of working through Lady Leona’s final words. There are some twists and turns along the way to keep the evening interesting.
The game does offer a virtual option as well and includes a code to give players access to digital components.
The game is designed for 4-6 players, and claims to last about 90 minutes. With our group of four, we did take about the advertised 90 minutes.
We tackled this game as a group of four. Our adventuring party consisted of us, Chaos and Confetti, and Chaos’ sister and her husband (Magpie and King). All four of us are experienced with puzzle solving and have quite a bit of history completing puzzles and escape rooms together.
Our Thoughts:
Lady Leona’s Last Wishes offers a lot of flexibility on the kind of experience players can take from it. For those who want a more straightforward puzzle, the resources are available for solving. However, the designers clearly hope players will roleplay as they work through the story. Whether that equates to simply playing their characters or going as far as theming an entire evening to the game and dressing up, will be up to the players. For ourselves, we role played along with a few props, keeping in character as we sorted through the available clues.
*The game suggests that players read their characters’ journal to one another, but we found it more fun to not share our journal directly and instead to relay the information in character and as if we were guests coming together with what we knew.
The actual story is well composed and paints a good picture of both the events surrounding the mystery and the people involved. This made it easy to role play, but also gave us a little leeway on how to portray our characters. There were also quite a few twists to keep the story engaging.
The puzzling aspect of the game is central, but also not extremely deep. Players will have a few puzzles to solve and even a lock to open, but the puzzles will mostly be based around deductive reasoning and there is some repetition in the design of puzzles available. We consider the overall difficulty of the game to also be pretty easy. For those who like to read, there is plenty of that here.
Overall, Lady Leona’s Last Wishes led to an entertaining play session for our group of four. It gave us a small but fun challenge which had us both laughing and taking on puzzles seriously throughout the evening. This is an experience that rewards what you put into it. If you are simply trying to solve a puzzle, the game won’t be too deep, but if you are open to a little role-play and lean into the game’s premise, there is a lot of fun to be had.
Official C&C Rating:
Narrative: 3/5
Puzzles: 2.5/5
Overall Fun: 3.5/5
Total Averaged Rating: 3 out of 5
Chaos & Confetti 