Category: Previews (Page 1 of 19)

Clue Chasing with Magic’s Ravnica-Themed Puzzle Hunt

Murders at Karlov Manor (Wizards of the Coast)

Next February, Wizards of the Coast’s trading card game Magic: the Gathering is releasing a murder mystery expansion named Murders at Karlov Manor, themed after the classic board game Clue. But the clues don’t stop there: in a recent preview of the set, Blake Rasmussen noted that there will be a series of puzzles beginning at the game’s prerelease on February 2nd and culminating in a meta-puzzle that will, once solved, “unlock information about the future of Magic.”

A Brief Primer on Magic: the Gathering’s Story
Before getting into what sounds suspiciously like Magic’s foray into the world of puzzle hunts, a little backstory on how lore functions in Magic: the Gathering might provide some helpful context. Because while Magic is first and foremost a competitive trading card game, the franchise has hidden an overarching story through its expansions. While Magic fans are likely most familiar with experiencing the story through “flavor text” added in the marginalia of the game’s cards, those stories are supplemented and expanded through a series of short stories, comic books, and novels. So what starts as the slow process of piecing together the story of two estranged artificer brothers engaged in a protracted war through narrative snippets and artifacts are expanded upon in novels and short stories that help fill in the gaps.

For the past three years, that story has focused on the war between Planeswalkers and Phyrexians. Within Magic’s lore, Planeswalkers are entities who possess a “spark” that allows them to cross between planes, hopping between the deeply thematic universes and worlds that make up Magic’s Multiverse with relative ease. A race of biomechanical creatures known as Phyrexians don’t naturally possess the ability to cross planes, but stumbled across a number of artificial methods to cross universes in pursuit of their goal of assimilating or destroying all inferior life across the Multiverse.

At first, it started simple. A single Phyrexian infiltrating a plane and spreading chaos and dissent, setting the stage for future invasion. But then, Phyrexians started assimilating Planeswalkers to their side, through a process known as Compleation.

The three year story arc culminated in a massive confrontation that saw Phyrexians and their involuntarily conscripted Planeswalker allies invading practically every known plane. And while the Phyrexians were defeated, in the process something happened that stripped many Planeswalkers of their powers. Currently, Magic’s Multiverse is rebuilding from an inter-planar war, while simultaneously adjusting to life with considerably fewer Planeswalkers capable of crossing those planes. And the most recent expansions have focused on that fallout.

Particularly flavorful cards that provide a taste of what’s to come as the story unfolds

A Magical Murder Mystery
Which brings us to Ravnica: a world with an industrial city the size of its home planet, dominated by competing guilds. Kaya Cassir is a Planeswalker who previously served as leader of the Orzhov Syndicate, although she was replaced by Teysa Karlov when she went to fight against the Phyrexians, returning as one of the few to retain her ability to shift between planes.

Author Seanan McGuire released the first chapter of Murders at Karlov Manor‘s story, setting the stage for murder as Teysa Karlov throws a grand fête for her rival power-brokers in the planet-city. Told from Kaya’s perspective, readers are introduced to a colorful cast of characters before getting left hanging on a cliffhanger, as Kaya chases down a scream from across the manor. Has someone been murdered?

A handful of cards (and their flavor text) have already been spoiled, and it appears that in addition to an actual murder, an attempt has been made on Boros legion guildmaster Aurelia’s life, and the story’s detectives are on a deadline to solve the mystery. Rasmussen noted that this set is particularly heavy on “Story Spotlight” cards that feature key moments of the expansion’s narrative, so fans looking to piece together the narrative on their own will have a lot to work off.

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Morrison Game Factory Delivers Gripping Story, Right Off the Assembly Line

While combing through the ruins of an abandoned game factory, an urban explorer stumbled across a box sitting on the factory’s conveyor belt. Curious, they tried to piece together why the box was sitting there, but couldn’t puzzle out what was going on…so, they forwarded the box over to you, the player. Can you figure out what happened at the Morrison Game Factory, and complete the task hidden within?

The Morrison Game Factory is PostCurious’ newest puzzletale, with a crowdfunding campaign that went live on Kickstarter earlier today. ARGNet has reviewed a number of PostCurious games in the past, featuring stories ranging from alchemical experiments, a tarot-driven journey through the woods, and an ethereal journey through a dream world. And while the visual aesthetics and themes of each game change, PostCurious games revel in delivering an intensely tactile experience, both as a puzzle-solving experience, but also as a vector for storytelling. When playing the tarot-based Light in the Mist, players uncover what happened to their missing friend by laying out tarot spreads. When Adrift directs players to engage in oneirology, players pore over artistic renderings of dreams to find meaning in chaos. And after playing a review copy of the game, I can enthusiastically say The Morrison Game Factory continues to deliver on that promise.

The Morrison Game Factory components

Morrison Game Factory Delivers Modern Puzzling with a Classic Aesthetic
That commitment to delivering an intensely satisfying tactile experience follows through with The Morrison Game Factory. Gameplay revolves around board game components and ephemera pulled from a nostalgic board gaming past that hearkens back to heated game nights of Parcheesi with the family. And that translates mechanically in the puzzling: placing tiles, rolling dice, and rifling through a deck of cards all factor into the experience. But you might also find yourself flipping through handwritten maintenance logs, the company’s product catalog, or…other elements, that unfold over the course of the game.

The fact that The Morrison Game Factory continues to deliver such a satisfyingly tactile puzzling experience is notable because this is the first PostCurious game with a different lead designer at the helm. While company founder Rita Orlov was the lead designer on past PostCurious games, Lauren Bello was at the helm on The Morrison Game Factory: and while it is clearly a PostCurious game, the unique spin Bello takes on that theme is also evident.

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Generation Loss Brings Analog Horror to Livestreaming

Two weeks ago, Showfall Media released a media keynote sharing the news about their exciting new horror comedy project, The Social Experiments. The live experience gives viewers at home control over aspects of the broadcast. The keynote was marred by some unexpected glitches and ominous messages about how “it got everyone…everyone but me”, but a subsequent press release from the team at Showfall Media confirmed that those rogue frequencies are completely untrue, and can be ignored. So there’s absolutely nothing to worry about when the show premieres tomorrow, May 24th at 6pm EST, on the RanbooLive Twitch channel.

It’s worth noting that Showfall Media is a fictional company and The Social Experiments is the show-within-a-show for a new analog horror series called Generation Loss (GenLoss, for short). However, this Wednesday’s livestream is real, with the Wednesday premiere followed by additional streams on the 26th and 28th to extend the story. The series is created by Ranboo, a Twitch streamer who already has experience with semi-scripted livestreaming through his involvement as a character within the Dream SMP Minecraft server.

A scene from the Generation Loss teaser game

Early Glimpses at Generation Loss
While the team has kept fairly tight-lipped about exactly what Generation Loss will be, there have been a number of teasers hinting at things to come. In May 2022, the series released its first teaser trailer – a 30 second video with flashing messages that inspired a 16 minute Game Theory episode theorizing about what the project might bring. In the video, MatPat notes that “generation loss” is likely a reference to the gradual degradation of quality as analog media gets copied over time.

Recent teaser content posted to the Generation Loss Twitter account supports that theming, with a video of “The Hero” switching from 16-bit avatar to photorealism, just as the audio switches from an ominous 16-bit tune to a more orchestral version. Players can even take direct control of that avatar through a game on the Generation Loss website, where players can guide the Hero to talk with three characters, before encountering a glowing orb that further degrades the 16-bit world.

Two scenes from Connected, a video that highlights a Missing Person poster

One video in particular implies that the show is dangerous: a series of five posters warn players to ignore The Social Experiments – “It has all changed. It has changed everything. It will change everything. I will stop it.” These warnings are soon covered over with Missing Person posters. Calling the number leads to a voicemail from Showfall’s Missing Person hotline that says “we appreciate your call, but you are not able to help us”.

Ranboo staring at the Times Square banner for Generation Loss that ran over the weekend

Over the weekend, Generation Loss even took out a banner on Times Square featuring the message “SAVE HIM” superimposed over the Hero’s face – Showfall Media’s press release begging their fans to pay no mind to “rogue frequencies” from an individual who wants to destroy their horror-comedy experience was in response to the outdoor advertisements as much as it was addressing the hijacked keynote.

So, the setup for Wednesday’s premiere: Showfall Media is outwardly promoting a lighthearted horror comedy series called The Social Experiments. But something has gone wrong enough that even watching the show on RanbooLive at 6pm EST on March 24th is dangerous.

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Arkham Asylum Files Brings “Why So Serious” Gameplay Home for the Holidays

Two months ago, magician and puzzle enthusiast Chris Ramsay received a chained and padlocked filing cabinet in the mail, along with a letter from Batman’s most infamous villain, the Joker. After solving his way through the puzzle box, Ramsay uncovered a coaster featuring to the website InfiniteRabbitHoles.com. At the time, the site featured a countdown clock and sign-up form, teasing visitors with the allure of a project that would show “Gotham City like you’ve never seen”.

That project was eventually revealed to be BATMAN: The Arkham Asylum Files, a series of three narrative puzzle boxes designed to bring Gotham City to life, created by many of the team at 42 Entertainment who worked on Why So Serious, the multi-year alternate reality game leading up to the release of The Dark Knight. Their goal: to take the wonder and surprise of Why So Serious‘ expansive campaign, and create a standalone game that could be more intimately experienced at home, among family and friends. The crowdfunding campaign is running through July 22nd, with the first box promised for delivery as soon as Christmas of this year.

Chris Ramsay, before opening up the Joker’s box he received

The Rabbit Hole Before Infinite Rabbit Holes: A Puzzle Box Shaped Homage to Why So Serious
Chris Ramsay’s video solving the Joker’s puzzle box was a highly tactile experience: after unlocking the five locks keeping the filing cabinet chained up, Ramsay was able to get his hands on an additional layer of puzzles keeping him from unlocking one final box concealing his prize: a birthday cake from the Joker, resting on a coaster with the “Infinite Rabbit Holes” URL.

Ramsay’s unboxing video is a compelling video in its own right, but doubled as heartfelt homage to Why So Serious for viewers familiar with the alternate reality game, with multiple puzzles referencing key moments in the prior game. A few of the more obvious puzzle-shaped shoutouts include:

Left: Why So Serious‘ Halloween 2007 challenge. Right: Infinite Rabbit Holes‘ ransom letter puzzle
  • The Joker’s Ransom NoteInfinite Rabbit Holes‘ filing cabinet unboxing started with Ramsay reading out a ransom note assembled from magazine clippings: the shapes of some of these clippings were key to solving the box’s puzzle. Why So Serious‘ Halloween 2007 challenge asked players to reconstruct their own ransom note, by taking photographs of 49 locations across the United States and sending them to the Joker. A letter from the logos of each of those locations was then added to the WhySoSerious website.
Left: SDCC 2007 attendees donning clown facepaint for the event’s conclusion. Right: Chris Ramsay masking up for other reasons.
  • Batman’s Mask – After opening the filing cabinet, Ramsay reveals a Batman mask with red-tinted lenses as reward for completing the first phase of the puzzle, as well as a key tool to solve a later puzzle. For Why So Serious‘ San Diego Comic-Con scavenger hunt, players were tasked with a series of missions (including getting dolled up in clown makeup themselves), and were rewarded for their efforts with a clown mask of their own.
Left: Why So Serious‘ ringing cake. Right: Infinite Rabbit Holes‘ equally sonorous cake.
  • Return of the Cake – One of Why So Serious‘ most memorable moments involved cake deliveries for the holidays: in December 2007, players were sent to 22 bakeries across the United States, with the instructions to ask for a pick-up for “Robin Banks”. The first player to each location received a cake, iced with instructions to call a specific number. Once dialed, the cake started ringing and the lucky recipients had to dig inside the cake to recover their new burner phone. Ramsay’s cake-themed finale might have a different message iced on top, but the experience itself is the clearest homage of the bunch, and the full video is worth watching for that moment alone.

At the time this video was uploaded, these connections seemed like the puzzle box’s creators were just ardent fans of Why So Serious, who wanted to pay homage to a fixture in immersive Batman history. However, there was one additional hint that more was going on. A few weeks prior to Ramsay’s unboxing video, Dave Cobb tweeted out a link to a curious advertisement for Infinite Rabbit Holes, printed in programs for the Thea Awards (an award show for the Themed Entertainment industry). The advertisement noted that Animal Repair Shop was involved with Infinite Rabbit Holes: a company helmed by quite a few familiar names from 42 Entertainment.

And with that, the homage transformed into a promise: key figures behind the Why So Serious alternate reality game would be returning to the Batman franchise in some capacity, more than 15 years later.

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Finding Hell’s Master, Future Puzzles in Stranger Things’ New Trailer

Author’s Note: if you’re looking for up-to-date answers to the weekly challenges, this Google Doc is providing updates on the solutions as new Lite Brite-based puzzles launch.

Stranger Things is returning for its fourth season on May 27th, bringing back one of Netflix’s largest and longest running success stories – according to Netflix, fans have logged over a billion hours watching the series. So it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that Netflix is having a little fun with the leadup to launch through what they’ve cheekily dubbed an “interactive curiosity voyage” centered around the website I Am Hell’ s Master, launching in earnest on April 29th.

Finding Hell’s Master: Cracking Stranger Things‘ Hidden Trailer Puzzle
Last week, Netflix released the official trailer for Stranger Things 4, and fans quickly noticed that amidst a flurry of extra-dimensional lightning strikes, one particular frame at the 1:59 marker showed a particularly interesting image featuring colorful bursts of energy, labeled with four additional timestamps.

Stranger Things‘ single frame trailhead, urging players on with time codes for 0:33, 0:52, 1:46, and 2:30

Taken individually, the images found at each of the timestamps was fairly sedate: an image of Billy Hargrove’s grave, a Hellfire Club baseball tshirt, a government building in Lenora Hills, and a Dungeon Master’s screen.

The four timestamps, mapped to their location on the initial trailhead – 1:46 is a little sensitive, and the 12th frame is what you’re looking for

However, when those two images are superimposed, a message is revealed – I AM HELL’S MASTER is legible, if you read the characters in timestamp order. Fans put together the pieces relatively quickly, and patted themselves on the back for a job unearthing extra-dimensional easter eggs, well done.

That changed yesterday, when Netflix reposted a TikTok video from @woozzs breaking down the solve to their Instagram, with a teasing message:

the world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes…

close but not close enough 🙃

I AM HELL’S MASTER, decoded

After another round of investigations, fans put together the missing pieces and treated the solution as a URL, leading to the IAmHellsMaster.com website.

While finding the perfect frame from each timestamp might have lead to slight headaches, the construction of this puzzle was exceptionally satisfying, given Stranger Things‘ themes of overlapping layers of reality that most people blissfully ignore.

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The Light in the Mist Reveals Secrets One Tarot Card at a Time

The Light in the Mist tarot puzzle tale, unboxed

Your friend Sam is missing. She had recently started taking walks through the misty woods beyond a cabin on the outskirts of the forest, to clear her head. But recently, she’s been different. Even more withdrawn and distant, yes…but also, something more. You discover her backpack and her deck of tarot cards at the edge of the woods, and approach the cabin for help. Locals call it the Witch House, but you suspect you’ll need the old woman’s help. Because some people claim the woods are haunted, and there’s a dark force lurking within the mists…

The Light in the Mist is a narrative puzzle experience created by PostCurious’ Rita Orlov and Jack Fallows that uses a tarot deck to guide readers through the story, one tarot card at a time. Every card of the Major Arcana presents players with a puzzle challenge, with clues scattered across the game’s Minor Arcana cards. Every solution unlocks snippets of Sam’s memories. These vignettes allow players to gradually piece together the secrets that led to Sam’s disappearance, and assemble the pieces needed to hopefully get her back.

The game’s Kickstarter campaign (which runs until Tuesday, October 19th) fully funded in two hours, so if you’re already won over, you can pre-order the game now for as little as $32, plus shipping. If you’re still not sure if you’re ready to plunge into the misty woods, read on to learn more about what hides beyond the mist.

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