Doomensions: Mystery Manor is the successfully backed 2022 Kickstarter campaign from Curious Correspondence and The Mysterious Package Company (who have now fully merged together). The ghost-themed pop-up and mystery experience sounds fantastic and we eagerly await its delivery (hopefully, soon-ish).
To sate backers’ (of a certain level) puzzling desires, the Doomensions prologue experiences have been sent out, and that is what we are here to discuss today!
While not a pop-up experience, the prologue is meant to introduce players to what they can expect in terms of puzzling and story. The game only requires the use of the physical artifacts that come within a standard-sized envelope. However, the hint system would need to be accessed digitally.
As a duo, we completed the prologue in a little under an hour.
OUR THOUGHTS:
Quick Notes: We will not be judging the prologue experience on our typical 1-5 scale. The prologue is meant to be a small-scale and quicker introductory experience, so it would not be fair to judge it as a complete and standalone game.
Puzzles:
The Doomensions prologue experience consists of four unique puzzles. Along with an introductory letter which will also bring all the answers together and an item for story purposes, there are four documents that each contain a specific puzzle.
The puzzles presented here are not give-mes, but they are heavily clued and extremely doable. In fact, a lot of the cluing is already circled and underlined in red for players. Our guess is that the creators want players to experience some puzzles and build their confidence going into the main game, without too much worry or stress.
Without spoiling any of the actual puzzles, we did like the actual design of the puzzles overall. This gives us a positive about what we may be able to expect in the main game, and we look forward to seeing what they are able to pull off within the realm of a pop-up mansion.
Narrative:
The narrative pieces introduce players to the story of a discovered/stolen artifact and the possibility of paranormal activity. The prologue is very surface level but it does introduce a few names that will probably belong to key players and gives a hint at the tone of the main game experience.
We can forgive this game for not going too deep narratively since it wouldn’t benefit the main game to develop major plot points in a prologue that not all players will see.
Overall Fun:
Overall, we like what we’ve seen from Doomensions so far. The quality of all components seem good and the story feels like it could be headed in an interesting direction. The puzzles here definitely lean towards the easier side, but we have to imagine the main game will provide more of a challenge and less of a guided experience.
We look forward to getting to play the main Mystery Manor soon, and will be sure to share our thoughts with you once we do!
FINAL SCORES:
No official scores this week due to this game being only an introductory tie-in to a larger game. We’ll rate the full Doomensions experience once it arrives!
Official C&C Final Score: N/A
The Product: Doomensions Mystery Manor – Prologue
Website Link – https://mysteriouspackage.com (but Doomensions itself can be pre-ordered through BackerKit: https://doomensions.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders/458732)
Price – $110 for Doomensions Deluxe Edition (includes prologue and epilogue), $80 for Core experience (no prologue and epilogue).
Disclaimer: we purchased the game with our own money, this review is not sponsored. All thoughts are our own.
Chaos & Confetti 
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