[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 holiday season has a bit more meaning here in The Rat Hole. If you’re reading this, there is a decent chance you already know what we do: Every year between American Thanksgiving (or as we call it in Canada, Thursday) and Christmas we push as far into the holiday spirit as we can, putting out as much holiday content as we can. But that’s not all. American Thanksgiving marks TheRatHole.ca’s birthday! We mark it by the holiday rather than the actual date (November 23, 2017) mainly so that I can make that Thursday joke every year. But wait! There’s more! My own birthday is on December 22nd. For a few too many personal reasons, the holiday season is a difficult time for me. The season is hard for many people. Be kind. One of the ways I cope with the season, and by extension my birthday, is this very holiday review series. I started the tradition even before I launched this website when I was reviewing games and comic books for another site.
From the beginning, I’ve always tried to include more than just the ubiquitous Christmas-themed games in our holiday cheer. This year we are even going to have a game celebrating Winter as a whole, coming just after Christmas had the opportunity to include the Thanksgiving-themed Turkey Trial, and now The Birthday Burglary. Because, dammit, Imma celebrate my birthday like the holiday it deserves to be!!!
Even better, I got to stream The Birthday Burglary, with a bunch of friends playing along at home. Better still, I streamed The Birthday Burglary on my sister’s birthday so that I could post the review you’re now reading on my Birthday. You can watch the recording of that stream, BUT if you want to play the game yourself DON’T WATCH. Subscribe to our channel and watch something else because the game will be spoiled. I will, however, do my best not to spoil anything while you read this review.
Now, this isn’t my first foray into Holiday Hijinks but I shouldn’t assume the same of you. So get ready gumshoe, here’s what’s going on. The Holiday Hijinks series are 18 card escape room style mystery games from Grand Gamers Guide. The player or players will use their wits to solve a series of puzzles. These puzzles could literally be anything, and not everyone can know everything. Because of that, there is a second aspect to the game: before starting, someone in the group will go online to a website that has a bunch of very generic bits of information that may or may not be needed during the game. Different cyphers, signals, or even literary references. Anything that the average sleuth may not know offhand. When a puzzle gets solved, the answer is entered into that same website. If the general help section isn’t enough help to figure it out that same site also gives specific hints on the solution or the answer if you need to give up.
The Birthday Burglary takes a slightly different approach in its presentation of the puzzles. On top of the mostly standalone puzzles, some of the cards have pictures with numbered spots that need to be explored. As well, many of the cards have an object that you collect and use to solve later puzzles. The exploration and objects are both controlled by the same website as before. Simply type “Look at _____” or “Use ______” into –you guessed it– that same webpage.
Because there are only 18 cards, the Holiday Hijinks games are one of the few products I wholeheartedly recommend as a print-and-play. I always tell people to be sure they print it out in colour since that is often going to matter. Once the pages are printed, try not to look too hard while cutting, folding, and taping or glueing them together. At the same time, I will always prefer the physical edition of most games, and these are no exceptions. There isn’t any replay factor here –once you solve it, it’s solved– but it’s nice to be able to pass the physical game off to a friend and spread the fun. I’ve kept my Kringle Caper with the other Christmas games that I display. But I gave The Birthday Burglary to a kid who was volunteering at a show I worked and who has a similarly terrible birthday this month. The smile I got in thanks made my week.
There is plenty of video evidence that I kinda suck at this style of game. But somehow I keep coming back to the Holiday Hijinks and get oddly excited when a new mystery appears. There is just something extra fun about Celebrating with a mystery. Next up for us will be the Groundhog Gambit, and if there isn’t at least one reference to Bill Murray’s cinematic masterpiece, Groundhog Day, I may riot.
But until then, you can celebrate the Holidays with some exciting Hijinks online at grandgamersguild.com/collections/holiday-hijinks and work with him to figure out who dunnit! You can also find Grand Gamers Guild on Facebook at facebook.com/grandgamersguild.
Don’t forget you can read all of our current and past holiday reviews at TheRatHole.ca/Christmas!
The other holiday tradition we have in The Rat Hole is to end these reviews with a bit of holiday cheer. For my birthday, I think it’s fair to be a bit salty but I also still want to be festive. So please enjoy this AMAZING version of You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch by Lindsey Sterling (featuring Sabrina Carpenter). Just…wow.