Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Disclosure: Meeple Mountain was provided a pre-production copy of the game. It is this copy of the game that this review is based upon. As such, this review is not necessarily representative of the final product. All photographs, components, and rules described herein are subject to change.
The Stormlamp Rituals is billed as an “Illustrated Puzzle Narrative.” At this point, you might be asking, “So what does that mean?” It’s a hardcover book containing eighteen chapters, and each chapter consists of a series of clues to follow and puzzles you must solve in order to complete the main character’s adventure by the end of the book.
This isn’t an easy thing to review because many things that I could tell you would spoil the puzzles and story for you. So let me just say that, generally, this is a story about a girl named Anna. She is a young witch trying to “uncover the dark secrets of her lineage.” (That’s a quote from the back cover of the book.) To complete her journey, she must solve puzzles and overcome obstacles in order to navigate a magical world called Twicelore. Her goal (well, your goal, really) is to complete the Incantation of Protection. When complete, the Incantation provides Anna with immense power.
The Incantation is built from Anna’s experiences in Twicelore. Each chapter contains puzzles that, completed successfully, yield a word or phrase for you to write on the Incantation page. Each step/puzzle within each chapter must be completed in order, as each gives you clues or information needed to progress and complete the chapter. The chapters themselves don’t necessarily have to be completed in order, but the story builds more like a novel if you tackle them in order.
In addition to the chapters, you will occasionally be directed to open the satchel (it’s really an envelope) in the back of the book and remove some additional maps or puzzles to aid you on your quest. Many of these pages require you to interact with them physically, sometimes by cutting or folding, or using them as an overlay to reveal additional information on a page.
But What Do I Think Of It?
So that’s what The Stormlamp Rituals is. What do I think of it? That became a complicated question to answer.
Let me start by saying I love puzzles, and I like to think I’m pretty good at them. I like escape room-type games, and puzzles like Murdle, Sudoku, and cryptograms are catnip for me. I’m also a fan of narrative-driven board games like Lands of Galzyr, Tales of the Arabian/Athurian Nights, and Legacy of Dragonholt. And I like mystery novels, often the more convoluted the better. I’m not getting any younger, so anything that gives my brain a workout is welcome.
The Stormlamp Rituals is not like any of these things. My brain struggled to make sense of it at first. It throws you in at the deep end and expects you to swim without much guidance. There’s a brief page at the beginning that gives a general overview of the format, but for the most part you are expected to start reading and solving on your own. You have to wrestle with the puzzles without any real introduction to the potential puzzle types or strategies required.
In the first couple of chapters, I spent more time with the hints than I did with the text. Thank heavens for the hints! They are at the end of each chapter, and there are a lot of them, enough to work you through every part of each chapter. They’re hidden within a red text filter you decode with the provided decoder strip, so it’s hard to accidentally spoil anything for yourself. I appreciate this because my favorite Murdle books make it all too easy to accidentally see the hints and solutions. Camouflage is a nice touch.
In the beginning, I often struggled to figure out exactly what the puzzles were asking me to do, or what information might be important. It was frustrating, and not in a good way. I just couldn’t see where I was going, what I was doing, or the why of any of it. But I persevered. After a couple of chapters I started to get into the rhythm of the book and relied less on the hints. (I still didn’t have a single chapter where I didn’t use at least some hints, so it’s definitely challenging.)
It got easier to determine what I needed to do and how the puzzles were likely to work. All the puzzles are different, so there’s a bit of a learning curve every time you encounter a new one, but repetition made me more aware of how the logic in the book works. I really think you have to just sort of throw yourself at it and deal with the frustration until it makes sense. Whether you enjoy that sort of thing will be for you to decide.
PostCurious’s website indicates that The Stormlamp Rituals scores a 2 out of 5 on their difficulty scale, so I felt like it should be easier to grasp than it was. Maybe this is a “me problem.” It’s entirely possible that I’m not as sharp as I think I am. In the end, I enjoyed the experience and the story that resulted, so it was worth it overall. Just know that you may struggle to get going. (Or not. You might be sharper than me, or your brain might work differently from mine.)
The Stormlamp Rituals is listed as being for 1-2 players, but it really feels like it’s better as a solo affair. You have to huddle close to read the text (or be willing to read aloud) and since the book is about the size of a standard novel, it’s difficult for two to see and work on the puzzles without a lot of passing the book back and forth. It can be done, but it’s not easy.
Overall, The Stormlamp Rituals is a solid diversion from doomscrolling and our “online all the time” culture. There is nothing about this that requires the internet. Everything is entirely self-contained in the book. There is a link to a playlist to further immerse you in the feel of the story. The bummer is that in order to listen to it in its entirety, you need to have a paid account at either Tidal or SoundCloud. It is completely optional, so not something you need to sign up for in order to solve the puzzles.
Is It Worth It?
The production as a whole is (or will be, I think) very nice. This is a hardcover book, and while the copy I received was hand-bound and the pages were a bit loose, PostCurious tells me that the final version will be a standard-bound hardback. The artwork is lovely and contributes to the overall vibe of the story.
I had some issues with the legibility of the fonts, and the hint text in particular was difficult to read even with the decoder. Again, however, PostCurious assures me that they are aware of the issues in this prototype version and that they will be corrected in the final print run.
PostCurious estimates that you’ll need about ten hours to get through the book and that feels about right. I didn’t time myself, but I finished it in a week, working about 1-2 hours per night. I spent longer on it the first couple of nights, trying to force my brain to work as required.
Whether a production like this is worth it to you isn’t something I can answer. The hardcover copy I received lists $29.99 as the retail price. At the time of this writing, the Kickstarter wasn’t live, so I don’t know what it will cost if you purchase through that. However, unlike a board game, this will be something you are likely to visit only once. Once the puzzles are done, there’s no fun in going back to them (and some of the materials are single use anyway, as they are cut or folded). You might decide to go back and reread the story or look at the artwork, but I doubt it. It cannot be passed on as a puzzle book, so once you’re done it’s essentially fodder for the trash can.
Now, there are plenty of legacy and escape room board games that fall into this category, as do most puzzle books. There’s a market for disposable entertainment, and I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. People will have differing opinions on the matter, and that’s fine. I just want to make it clear what you’re buying. The Stormlamp Rituals is a beautiful, luxurious-feeling production, but whether or not it gives you the kind of value you’re seeking is a judgment for you to make.
This was my first PostCurious experience, and overall I was satisfied and intrigued enough to come back for more someday. I wish it had been less frustrating at the beginning, but as I said, that might be just me. Overall, it ended up being a worthwhile few days with an engaging offline activity that stretched my aging brain and told an entertaining story.
