[Before I even start, The Turkey Trail is an “escape room” deductive-puzzle mystery game. If I am vague on many points of this review, it is not only to prevent specific spoilers but also to mask what may or may not BE a spoiler. Everything in the game could matter at some point. -dc]
The story you are about to read is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent from spoilers. It was Thursday, November 23rd. It was cool in the barnyard. You peek in the window to see what the humans are up to and it forecasts your doom. You’re a turkey. Your job, ESCAPE!
I can all but guarantee that my young niblings, with whom I played The Turkey Trial along with my sister, have no idea what I referenced with that opening paragraph. If you do, you may need to pop a few aspirin for your back before continuing. But yes, back to my niblings. This sister has three kids between 14 and 5, and they all joined in on the fun. That’s something I really want to drive home here. The Turkey Trial honestly CAN be played by anyone. I’m not saying a 5 year old can do it alone, but they can participate. Despite already knowing that was the case with these games, I was nevertheless surprised when the 9 year old insisted we were going down the wrong path on one of the puzzles and eventually it turned out she was entirely correct. It was a humbling reminder that being old doesn’t equal being correct.
The Turkey Trial is a fun barnyard romp in which you, a turkey, need to find a way to escape in order to remain simply a turkey and not a turkey dinner. Along the way, you’ll encounter your other barnyard friends as you solve various puzzles. As with all of the Holiday Hijinks games, there are only 18 cards. You’ll start by opening up a website where you’ll enter your puzzle answers, get hints if you need them, and that has some general information to account for player’s lack of random knowledge. As an example, The Cupid Crisis page included a list of classic romance stories, semaphore and maritime signal flags, along with several other language cyphers. The expectation is that the average person probably doesn’t know these things so the designers don’t hold it against you. When you are working on specific puzzle cards, you can also ask the page for hints specific to that puzzle. When you ask for a specific hint (or the answer if you want to give up) it will use that, along with how long it takes you, and give you a final score. If you care about the score, great. If not, also great. You win either way!
When it comes to games, there are a few things that I am usually wary about. Print and Play stuff, stuff that requires separate technology to play, and anything with deductive reasoning. The Holiday Hijinks games are the exception to all of those. Somehow even though I’m pretty terrible at this sort of game, I keep coming back for more because the series is so well made. The big reason for the other two exceptions ultimately comes down to price. The physical version of the game is only $11 USD and the PnP is half that price. In either case, there is no requirement to permanently deface or destroy any of the cards. So, while the game isn’t playable by YOU more than once, you can pass along the love to other people when you’re done. That makes for a great value in my books. The other reason that these are some of the only games I’ll actively recommend the PnP version for is that it’s EASY. There are only a few pages to print off (but it really does need to be in colour) and the assembly is similarly fast. Cut, Fold, Glue in almost any order. Glue, Cut, Fold doesn’t work well. Don’t ask why I know that. Here are a few tips when assembling the cards:
-Make sure you do your best not to look at the front of the cards in any detail. Seriously, not knowing what’s on them beforehand is the point of the game.
-Print them in colour, not greyscale. Yes, this is important enough to mention twice.
-The instructions say to tape or glue the cards together. Gluestick is best, but tape works just fine as long as it’s transparent. The cards are individually numbered on both sides; you don’t want to blindly tape over that number or anything else that might be important. (Blindly, because you didn’t look at the front… RIGHT?)
-I don’t recommend sleeving the cards as an alternative to gluing them. I made the mistake of doing that with The Kringle Caper. It was less than ideal for several reasons.
-Having some cheap card sleeves or another set of the cards (greyscale may be acceptable) around in case you wanted to write on the cards isn’t a bad plan though. You can always write on the regular cards if you like, I just hate doing that.
The other nice thing about the PnP is that it makes it super simple for all your friends to play along over a video call. On December 12 we’ll be hosting The Birthday Burglary in celebration of both our birthday here at TheRatHole.ca (7 years today, in fact) and Dave’s birthday later in December. You can order your copy of The Turkey Trial, The Birthday Burglary, and the rest of the Holiday Hijinks series at https://grandgamersguild.com/collections/holiday-hijinks and work with him to figure out who dunnit! You can also find Grand Gamers Guild on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/grandgamersguild.
Don’t forget you can read all of our current and past holiday reviews at TheRatHole.ca/Christmas!
This review marks several occasions. In America it’s Thanksgiving. In Canada we celebrate Thursday. Here in The Rat Hole it’s our birthday and the first review in our annual Holiday Series. You can read all of our past, current, and future reviews at TheRatHole.ca/Christmas. Part of the tradition of this series is ending each review with a bit of holiday cheer. Please enjoy a rare Thanksgiving Carol: Gobble Gobble by Mathew West.