A strange comet, an extraordinary alchemist, and a mysterious elixir.

Table of Contents

Location: Home

Date Played: Nov 2023

Team size: 1; recommended 1-4 players

Duration: 9-12 hours

Price: ~USD$102 on their website

Premise

The Emerald Flame is one of the most highly rated premium escape room games by Postcurious with an 8.4 rating on BGG. It is segmented into 3 sections with each section taking approximately 1-3 hours. I played this game solo and it took me approximately 2.5 - 3 hours for each section with a dash of hints every now and then.

The game is more difficult than their other games and as such, I would not recommend it to beginners but it is definitely doable, moreso if there are many players.

Story

Commissioned by an organization shrouded in mystery, players take the role of a historical expert embarking on a quest to piece together the recipe for a fabled elixir by investigating maps, drawings, alchemical diagrams, and mysterious artifacts. 

I do not have a strong impression of its story, largely due to playing the game across multiple sessions, leaving me to oftentimes forget the ongoing story or what happened in previous sections.

Still, its story is definitely not its strong point as it's mostly there to serve as context to the large amount of puzzles throughout the game.

Components

One of the strengths of this game is the quality of its components. They have some of the most gorgeous artworks I've seen in any escape room games and are extremely aesthetically pleasing. There are various props and items as well in each section that are well made and adds to the immersion of the game.

Do note that some of the items require you to fold, cut or even "used" in order to solve a puzzle. Thankfully, a refill kit comes alongside the game so that you may pass it on to someone else as if it's as good as new.

Puzzles/Thoughts

➕Beautiful and fantastic components. There's a reason why the game is priced so high.

➕Lots of puzzles. There is a large amount of puzzling to be had within this game, with many of them being varied in all sorts of ways.

➕Good signposting. They're obvious enough that you won't mistake it as fluff but subtle enough that it does not straight up give you the answer.

➕Decent hint & solutions sytem. Multiple hints are given for each puzzle. My only criticism would be the method of revealing the hints are rather outdated.

➖Cursive handwritting. While it adds to the immersion, it does make it more difficult to read what the letters are saying.

✖️A bit too difficult for me. Some of the puzzles went over my head, requiring me to head to the hints section a tad too often. I would recommend playing with at least 2 players to avoid this issue.

Verdict

Emerald Flame is a really well made game. While it leans heavily into the puzzly side compared to its story and theme, it does have some beautiful and thought provoking puzzles.

Rating: 4/5

★★★★✩

You can buy their game here