The Cadavera Case
- ⭐️ 7/10
- 🌡 Medium
- ⏳ 60 Minutes
- 👥 2 – 7 Person
We were alerted to this lovely room by Serial Escapers who had played it in French, and having recently been translated into English we were keen to play Cadavera Case, which is a whodunnit adventure inspired by the board game Clue (Cluedo).
Somehow we knew we were in for an interesting when the briefing email included the line “Make sure you are in a calm and comfortable environment for the duration of the game”, don’t think I’ve ever been advised to find a calm environement before. However, a calm environment was just what we needed as we took on the challenge of getting online and into the game. The game uses a bespoke system combining the zoom window and the inventory and is designed to work on Chrome, which caused problems for most of the team. One team member gave up completely and watched football instead, another finally got in working by turning off all the ad-blockers on Chrome and I tried four different browsers over two devices and finally got it to work on Microsoft Edge!
So, one team member down we were introduced to the room and the inventory system, the room was lavishly furnished and perfectly captured the Victorian country house feeling, and the inventory mirrored the theme nicely with lots of sepia toned pictures and Victorian artefacts.
The room is not linear and there is the ability to work on multiple puzzles at the same time, which allows all team members to get involved. The game progresses well, with both potential murder weapons and suspects being eliminated and the puzzles make great use of the inventory, which integrates them together nicely.
The GM was entertaining and conversed well, but he was very careful not to lead with the camera or hint too much and we finished the game in just under the hour.
During the game we had a couple of instances where one player was thrown out of the system, but they quickly returned. We also had issues with missing pictures in the latter stages of the inventory, with broken link icons replacing the vital clues.
All in all its a lovely game, with great room production and a good variety of puzzle types and difficulties, but the tech did let it down somewhat. Having said that I would happily play another of their rooms if they ever become available.