Will you manage to solve the case in this choose-you-own-adventure murder mystery package full of evidence, two tomes a plenty of London smog?
Background
“Ghost in the Machine”, besides being a title that was very deliberately chosen for an episode of the television series X-Files, is a philosophical term used as a critical description and name for the philosophical idea that the mind exists or can exist alongside and separate from the corporeal body. It is also a popular theme in fantasy and science fiction. Think of a mad scientist uploading his thought to the cloud for eternal life, a magician way that binds his soul to an inanimate object on where that previously inanimate object begins to take on a life of its own or an actual ghost that goes inside a computer like the aforementioned X-Files episode.
Ghost in the Machine is also the subtitle of this volume in the Mysterious Package Company’s Post Mortem murder mystery series. This series combines escape rooms, murder mysteries and choose-your-own-adventure stories into a playful experience. This company also releases the Curious Correspondence packages: escape rooms that can go through the letterbox. We previously tapped a review about Curious Correspondence.
Post Mortem
Post Mortem London Gothic: The Ghost in the Machine is, as the name suggests, set in London. The setting (a deadly cotton factory in the middle of the industrial revolution) is notably inspired by Victorian Gothic novels such as The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula, Jack the Ripper stories and, of course, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective books.
In this game experience, players are given a thick file full of evidence and statements (police reports, autopsies and various pieces of other physical evidence), props and two booklets. The booklets are so-called “Penny Novels” also called “Penny Dreadfuls”, because they often dealt with lurid subjects. Using this file, you follow the trail of clues, interrogate thoughts of suspects and try to solve riddles and tie up loose ends. You can play this murder mystery game alone or together. Players choose which tracks to investigate and which paths to take. The Penny Novels, which take their name from cheap 19th-century reading books with stories full of horror and fantasy, describe the story. Very thematic!
Do you like Escape Rooms and choose-your-own-adventure games? If your answer to this question is yes, then Post Mortem is probably right up your alley. The game material is gorgeous and allows players to immerse themselves completely in the story and setting. Post Mortem, incidentally, takes a bit longer than the average home escape room. This is literally an evening-long activity and you may even spend several evenings with the game and the mystery. So get your candles ready to unravel!
