Time for another mystery! This one is not quite mini, not quite fleshed out for worldbuilding - but it had many little puzzles, so let's chit chat about it :)
Clues on the Rails is another game by a creator on Etsy; BrainMazeGames. In this game, your investigator is called to meet with an old friend at the train station the next day, only for him to stand you up - or so it seems, were it not for the stranger who bumps into you and slips a note into your pocket!
I found the format on this one delightful; it encouraged a very escape room typical 60 minute time limit, and with that in mind, the flow of it was very alike an escape room. It felt breakneck quick, like my character was sprinting through the train, snatching up notes, and sprinting off to the next car after glancing at the puzzle. Each page is printed one-sided, and the instructions guide you to peek at the car numbers (printed diagonally so you can really just get a good little peek before smoothing it back down) and then to write the number on the back.
You then have a puzzle on each page, usually nothing huge but a good little teaser, which you'll use the answer from to find which car number to head to next (flipping over that page). The story is told exclusively through notes left for you from your friend as you sort of off screen investigate the train; the puzzles are themed to each car, yes, but it was very compact. The pacing felt blistering!
I was quite surprised when I did stall (I miscounted some things, counted the wrong things... woops) that 45 minutes had already passed! It's worth mentioning I also kind of had to cheese/skip one puzzle in the middle; my printer only does black and white, you see, and that puzzle required color. I had a feeling glancing at the map that it would, so I made my guess about which car and it turned out to be right. Fortunately I didn't have too many cars left by then, so I didn't have to gingerly turn over a lot of pages.
I'll also mention that this entire game was a single pdf, which was very efficient. The creator took a very simple path to including the hints inside the pdf; they're on the final page of the pdf, yes, printed out, but the text is italicized in a mirrored font, so for me at least, it kept me from spoiling myself while checking a hint to make sure my thinking was on path. The instructions advise using a mirror and blocking out stuff you don't want to see with a paper, which might be easier to parse for sure, but I think stumbling through the backwards reading helped keep me humble (and made sure I wouldn't have to worry about accidental puzzle spoilers. My backwards reading isn't *that* good ahahaha.
Ahh, yeah! I really only hit a couple small snags in this one, but they were fun to find and figure out. Quick, enjoyable, a very pleasant romp :)
I really liked the way they've formatted this one, I won't lie. The pages for each car, the efficient presentation. They've set up a google form page to use for final password verification, which was a delight to see! That's an approachable option! It sort of spoils things; once you have the first letter, you definitely know the answer, but it *is* an option for verification systems. Really slick and streamlined. Not super ornate or in depth; the story is entirely told and not shown or intuited, but it *felt* very alike to an escape room.
I'll have to check out another of theirs some time!
