What Are We Playing? [August 2025]

Periodically on this blog we highlight a handful of tabletop and digital games to spread the word about interesting experiences and support other creators. Here's our August edition, which includes a mix of puzzle games and video games.

Image via Steam

Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping by Happy Broccoli Games

In Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping, the second game of the Duck Detective series, you play a recently divorced duck who has to follow clues in order to get to the bottom of a mystery at a luxury campsite. I enjoyed the entertaining mix of deduction, sardonic humor, and animal characters.

The way the game presented information felt at times a bit more confusing than intuitive. This didn’t stop me from making my way through the game and having a good time, it just would have been more satisfying to arrive at conclusions on my own without as much stumbling.

If you enjoy fill-in-the-blank style detective games and a mix of puns with your puzzling, this series is worth checking out!

Difficulty: 2/5

Time: 2-3 hours

Image by Mystery Unfolds

Mystery Unfolds Puzzle Cards

We recently played more of the cards from Mystery Unfolds, this time tackling Escape the Video Store, Blood Sacrifice of a Salesman, and The Pirate Code!

Escape the Video Store took us about 30 to play and was contained a multi-layered puzzle. We likely would not have gotten the last step without a hint, but the sequence of discovery was quite fun. This is a great card for movie buffs.

Blood Sacrifice of a Salesman was a fun little puzzle that took us about 20 minutes to solve. We managed to work this one out with no hints, though putting on an Australian accent was helpful in the solving process (the designer is currently working on a less region-specific version).

The Pirate Code was probably our favorite of the Mystery Unfolds cards along with Escape the Swedish Furniture Store. This puzzle was shorter than the others, only taking about 10-15 minutes to solve, but it was clever and fun to figure out.

Overall, we enjoyed the puzzles and charming hand-drawn illustrations on all of the cards from Mystery Unfolds.

Difficulty: 1/5 - 3/5 depending on the card

Time: 10-30 minutes per card

Image via Steam

The Roottrees are Dead by Evil Trout Inc

The Roottrees Are Dead is a video game set in 1998 where you search the (in-game) internet for clues about the secretive Roottree Family. I thought this was a really enjoyable game to dive into and, while I’m sure it’s great solo, I quite liked solving it with a friend remotely. The storyline was a little generic, but the deductions and aha moments throughout made up for that.

While I understand the reasoning behind the search mechanic in the game, we did find it to be frustratingly specific - for example, there was an instance in which searching “Motor” would bring up nothing but searching “Motors” brought up the information you were looking for. Additionally, a lot of searches appeared to be dead ends but actually had paths of information that were just difficult to find. This became particularly hard at the end when we had few avenues to pursue and could not figure out what we had missed, despite having searched the same things multiple times. Thankfully the game’s hints were able to get us there in the end, and I appreciated that there was a built-in system for this. We also loved getting confirmations when we had correct inputs along the way. If you liked The Return of the Obra Dinn or Case of the Golden Idol, this one is worth checking out.

Difficulty: 3/5

Time: ~8 hours

The Sherlock Files: Marvelous Mysteries by Martí Lucas and Josep Izquierdo

The Sherlock Files: Marvelous Mysteries is a tabletop mystery game that comes with three standalone cases. Players individually determine which elements of the case are relevant and then work together to create a theory based on the evidence they’ve shared. We thought this was a cool mechanic, though your enjoyment of the game may vary depending on the group you play with. Each case took between 45 and 60 minutes, making it easy to commit to sitting down and playing one.

One slight downfall to the simplicity of the game was that sometimes case elements that seemed relevant did not make it into the evidence deck. We also occasionally struggled with the grammar of the cards, having to decide ourselves how to interpret the wording in order to determine its place in the case. It was hard to tell if this was just an oversight in the translation, or if these ambiguities were intentional. Additionally, we wished the scoring system had not punished us for sharing cards the game deemed irrelevant but instead had rewarded us for reaching the right conclusions using fewer cards.

While there are some things that could be improved, we overall enjoyed this game. It's a nice light mystery to play with friends!

Difficulty: 2/5

Time: ~45m-1h per case

Scarlet Envelope XII: The Scarlet Manuscript

Scarlet Envelope XII (The Scarlet Manuscript) is the final challenge of a puzzle series where you work to find the door of an Athenaeum and uncover the mysteries of a secret society. The components were lovely, and we were especially impressed by the design of the game’s main document.

There were so many great ideas in this game, but, while we were able to start most of the puzzles, we had to rely on the hints to get through the game. We felt that there could have been better signposting throughout, and there were a handful of elements that felt like red herrings. Fortunately the hints were very helpful and even contained images for clarity. Overall, this game was a beautifully rendered culmination of the Scarlet Envelope series.

Difficulty: 4/5

Time: 2-3 hours

What have you been playing lately?