Doctor Esker's Notebook, a Puzzle Card Game in The Style of Escape Rooms

The game consists of a deck of cards divided into nine puzzles. Each puzzle is contained on anywhere from three to fourteen cards. The object of the game is to use the cards in each puzzle to extract a number--which is between two and four digits. When you have your answer you take the solution cards with those digits and place them in the correct order face up. If your solution is correct, the cards will direct you to the next puzzle. The solution cards are somewhat encoded so even if you end up with a wrong answer, you are revealing a solution to another puzzle.This game fits nicely into the play at home "escape room" type games niche, although there is no storyline with this game. The puzzles are varied and range from straight forward to medium difficulty. There weren't any puzzles that felt too difficult or too abstract. There is a website that you can use to obtain hints to the puzzles. There are nine hints per puzzle and are ordered from small, to medium, to large in terms of how much information they provide.If you've played and enjoyed other at home escape games such as Exit, Unlock, or Deckscape, you'll probably enjoy this game as well.

I bought this as a gift for my young adult son and he chose to share the playing experience with me. Both of us have played other "escape room in a box" style of games, most in the Unlock! series. We used this game as a filler for our visit during the course of an afternoon. It worked well, because there are different sections to "unlock" and we were able to play for awhile, pause at the end of a set of puzzles, take care of other stuff, and then come back and pick it up again. We didn't set a timer or keep track of our time in any way, but I would say it took us at least a couple of hours total to solve everything.The box contained a good variety of puzzles. Some puzzles were quite clever, but not frustratingly so. We had an electrical engineer, a 3rd year med school student, and a teacher working together and there seemed to be puzzles that each of us were able to do well with based on our abilities. We did access some of the hints, which were available through an online app, more so because we wanted to move the game along so we could get it done in the time we had. I'm sure that if we had given ourselves a little more time to manipulate the cards and think through the puzzles a little longer, that we could have eventually solved more of them without the use of hints. There are multiple hints available for each set of puzzles, which progressively increase with the amount of help they provide, so if all you need is a gentle nudge in the right direction, you don't have just one hint giving the answer away.I would say that this game is best played with one to three players. Any more than that (we had one younger person try to join in for awhile, before losing interest) and it becomes a challenge for all players to be able to view and manipulate the cards. The deck itself is small enough to tuck into a pocket or purse and many of the puzzles use just a handful of cards at a time to solve, so other than the final puzzle, which used more cards, (maybe 12-16??? I forget now) this game has a very small footprint and could easily be taken along and played on almost any flat surface.Despite being a one-time use game, there is a lot of bang for your buck in this little package. The nice thing is that you don't need to damage any of the cards, so once you have solved the mystery, the game can be recycled again and again by sharing it with others to enjoy. Everyone who played agreed that we would definitely purchase other titles that this developer produces.

I thought this little deck of cards had everything going for it: tiny size, low price, reusable, transportable, challenging. Everything, except that it isn’t very fun.Doctor Esker is also heavily dependent on the internet for instructions, hints, etc. — that’s bad and good news. Bad News: don’t plan to take this on a trip where there isn’t any telephone service; Good News: if you hate to be separated from your cellphone, be reassured that you and your friend can stick together throughout the entire Doctor Esker experience.CONSIDERATIONS:Much more like a puzzle book, than a game. Doctor Esker has no plot, no story, no attractive images, no charm. It just sits there.The puzzles are heavily culture bound — you need to be familiar with US phrases.There are plenty of anagrams — unfortunately the anagram center in my frontal-temporal area was damaged in a bicycle accident.Most of the puzzles are very linear, so right-brained people can take a long break.RECOMMENDATIONS:If your home is full of puzzle books, this may be for you. But I found it annoying and recommend that you try something else. EXIT games are about the same price.If you want to read more of my reviews or see other stuff, click my name.I hope this review has been really helpful and that whatever you do is enjoyable.

As a puzzle game enthusiast, I found the puzzles in 'Doctor Esker's Notebook' to be challenging requiring a lot of thought, but once I solved them it was an 'AH HA' moment which I found to be quite clever. The resolution system is also quite creative, just be aware that there is a "Zero" resolution card which caused me much consternation during one puzzle not knowing that number was in the stack. The hint system is great and very helpful whether you need a gentle or firm nudge in the right direction. The only issue I had with the game was that some of the clues were quite esoteric.I would highly recommend this game to any medium to advanced puzzle game aficionado. This is a good game for an individual or a small group of 4 or less.