Review – Funny Pages by the Enigma Emporium
Website Link – https://www.theenigmaemporium.com
Price – $50.00
Disclaimer: we purchased the game with our own money, this review is not sponsored. All thoughts are our own.
The Product:
Funny Pages: A Comical Puzzle Mystery is a test of players’ puzzle solving skills using single panel comics. Each comic will contain a different puzzle but also tie together into the larger mystery.
When a famed newspaper cartoonist goes missing, it’ll be up to players to solve the case using the final twenty-eight comics he left behind. Players need to decipher their proper order and what messages were secretly left behind.
While many of the puzzles can be solved using only the comic provided, some will require outside research. Players should have an internet enabled device handy.
Funny Pages is marketed for 1-10 players, ages 14+. It advertises itself as taking 5+ hours. As a duo, we completed the game at about the five hour mark.
Our Thoughts:
After receiving Funny Pages, we couldn’t wait to dive into the plethora of comics and puzzles included. There was also the mystery of the mini cheese grater that needed to be answered.
Funny Pages’ biggest strength is its mass of puzzles. With 28 puzzles immediately available to players, there is a lot to do and explore. This is great for any sized group, but this should make larger gaming groups happy since each puzzle can be solved individually and in any order. The nonlinear structure should eliminate any fighting over components.
We’re happy to say that the twenty-plus puzzles are unique and well put together. The difficulty level varies greatly. Some puzzles we solved immediately. Plenty of puzzles took some thinking. A few needed a lot of pondering and trial and error. There were even a couple that eventually had us checking out the hint system. This should be a welcome game for puzzlers who enjoy a good challenge.
Most of the puzzles should be doable based on the comic but some do require some outside research and a few will utilize the cipher and code bookmark included in the game. We enjoyed the majority of the puzzles and were often rewarded with the well earned feeling of success when we finally cracked a few. Our only gripe might be that a couple that required outside knowledge weren’t super intuitive or required a much more specific criteria of searching then we expected.
That brings us back around to the hint system. Funny Pages’ hint system requires either the use of a QR code, the game’s website, or the ability to cipher. There is a little work involved with getting clues. The progress clue system will never give the final answer but instead just larger hints. Anyone looking for an answer checker will be disappointed.
The story of the missing cartoonist is pretty simple and straightforward. Players will get the opening details of the narrative and then will have to wait until the end of the game to get much more story progression. This makes sense due to the structure of the game requiring players to have already cracked all the comics. Thankfully, where the game lacks in indepth story, it makes up for it with genuinely funny comics. Plenty of them had us honestly chuckling.
Overall, we found Funny Pages to be a lot of fun. The glut of puzzles is great and they were a lot of fun to solve. We appreciated the ability to jump around to wherever insight hit next and to figure out puzzles in any order. This is a great game for skilled puzzlers who enjoy a strong challenge and for anyone who enjoys laughing at comics.
And the cheese grater? You’d have to play to find out about that.
Official C&C Rating:
Narrative: 2.5
Puzzles: 4
Overall Fun: 4
Total Averaged Rating: 3.5
Chaos & Confetti 