Sidequest: 7th Sea Review

It’s been a minute since I covered a puzzle or mystery game here, and I miss it. I’m back with another game from the folks from Board&Dice and Lockme, who created the Escape Tales games (reviews here). The Sidequest series of games are narrative puzzles in boxes, and the one I’m taking for a spin here is Sidequest: 7th Sea. If you’re looking for the short version of “Is it any good?”, then I can confirm that yes, it is. Stick around and let me explain why.

Arpy gee?

7th Sea is apparently an established RPG system. I say apparently because it’s not one I’m familiar with. The description from the 7th Sea website says:

7th Sea is a tabletop roleplaying game of swashbuckling and intrigue, exploration and adventure, taking place on the continent of Théah, a land of magic and mystery.

https://www.chaosium.com/7th-sea/

So while I’ve got no context for the world and the lore of 7th Sea, I can still appreciate the characters and story in the game, and I’ve got to say it’s integrated pretty well into the game.

The game itself is along the lines of games like the Exit and Unlock series. When you open the box you’ll find some small punchboards, a deck of cards, and some sheets. The game is very clear in making sure that you don’t open or read or look at anything before you’re meant to, for thar be spoilers ahoy for the unwary sailor.

Puzzling times

The game itself is a series of puzzles. You’ll collect items (cards) along the way which you may need in later puzzles, so while the game doesn’t take up a huge amount of space, it’s worth making sure you can lay out everything so that it’s all visible. It’s your standard mix of observational, logical, geometric, and lateral thinking puzzles, and it’s at a really nice level. Not so easy as to be boring, while not so difficult that you’ll never finish it without a walkthrough.

I’ll do my best to keep things spoiler-free, but suffice to say there are some really cool things the game makes you do with the box and sheets which means you’ll have to work in all three dimensions to solve some puzzles. This ‘puzzle in a box’ corner of the game market is saturated at the moment, and making a game stand out for any particular reason is a challenge. Sidequest: 7th Sea does a really good job of keeping it fresh feeling by asking me to do things I’ve never had to do before in one of these games.

The main drawbacks I found are more to do with a combination of graphic design and my own personal lighting. The game has a dark feeling that pervades through the narrative and the printing on everything. It’s dark, spooky, and eerie, which means that some of the things you’ll be employing your keen powers of observation on can be pretty hard to pick out. If you wear glasses, you’ll need to be wearing them, and I’d also recommend playing with plenty of light. I tried it out as a cosy little game on the living room coffee table one evening and soon had to turn the main lights on.

Final thoughts

I love a good puzzle game, and Sidequest: 7th Sea is a good puzzle game. I don’t know how much more I’d have gotten out of it if I was familiar with the game’s lore before I started, but I feel certain there are nods to other characters and things from the 7th Sea universe which went right over my head. The puzzles are good fun, and you get that dopamine kick in the brain when one clicks and you figure out how to solve it.

There’s no save system, but like the Exit games, there doesn’t need to be one. It’ll take you a couple of hours to finish the game, and it’s a really enjoyable couple of hours. You could play it on your own (as I did), and I think you’ll definitely get value out of having at least one other pair of eyes looking over things. It makes a great couples game to break the monotony of another night in front of the TV. There’s no reason you’d ever play it through a second time because the story and puzzles are a straight shot, but unlike the Exit games nothing gets altered or destroyed. You can easily put everything back in order and give it to someone else to play.

The most jarring thing for me is the hardest to talk about without dropping some serious spoilers. The game’s finale has a great build-up and the overall flow of the game then suddenly breaks to draw out the conclusion. The puzzles here were much harder and more obscure than the rest of the game, but there are still hints, and you’ll be able to draw on the things you’ve already done, let’s leave it at that. Depending on how well you do in that finale, I can see that it might leave a slightly bitter taste in the mouth for some people.

That gripe aside, Sidequest: 7th Sea is a great option for escape room fans looking to get their next hit from somewhere other than Exit or Undo games. I had a lot of fun with it, and I hope they manage to keep up the franchise tie-ins in the future. I have the Nemesis version here too, which I’ll be covering soon. Great stuff, and for less than £15 in most places, an easy recommendation for me to make.

Review copy kindly provided by Board&Dice. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

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