Maker: Space Cowboys
Title: Unlock!
Game: Restart
Year: 2024 (for the box set)
Price: $36.99
Language: English
Internet access req’d?: No
Cipher types: Steganography
Players: 1-6
Difficulty: 1 of 3
Rating: 4.5
(Box artwork and story (c) Space Cowboys)
Restart is the first of three games in the Extraordinary Adventures box set. As such, it’s marked as a difficulty of 1 out of 3. Note that you need the app from the Apple or Google play stores running on a mobile device. Otherwise, there’s no other need to access internet during the game.
(Starting props – the deck and the app on the tablet)
Story: You’re playing the mother of the hero from Insert Coin. You and your husband have just come home and expect that your son has gone up into the attic. You climb up after him as your husband heads to the kitchen to make dinner. In the attic, you don’t see the boy, but there is a lot of gaming equipment you’d forgotten about, including an old desktop PC and a pirated copy of an 8-bit RPG called Crearia. Apparently the main character was called Shield Maiden, and you used to be a big fan (including having a Shield Maiden poster on the wall). You start Crearia, but your old character file has been corrupted and you have to create a new one. When you enter the game, you discover that the countryside has gotten polluted somehow. Your quest is to now save the world of Crearia.
(Start card – Not much story here)
Well, Crearia is an 8-bit game, so all you get is 8-bit graphics and sound. The BGM was exciting, anyway. There’s not really a whole lot to say about the story; you play The Sword Maiden, and you have to fend off a couple monsters on your way to the castle. You’re aided a little by an old wizard, but no one is throwing magic spells around at all. Once at the castle, you discover the King huddled in a corner, afraid of what has happened to his consort. Once you’ve straightened everything out, you get a special end game and a cameo from Insert Coin.
(Play through one stats screen)
The game has a 60-minute limit. I solved the main puzzle at about 65-70 minutes, with 3 hints and 2 machine penalties. There were a few card penalties that I should probably have scored, but I let them go as I was trying to figure out the trickier riddles. As mentioned above, Unlock! claims this is an easy game, but a few of the riddles slowed me down a bit because the answers require leaps in logic. Mostly they’re brainteasers, but you also have to deal with hidden objects (small numbers) and some steganography (disguised numbers).
Now, I said I finished the main puzzle at 65-70 minutes. There’s an end game that emulates an old arcade classic, and that took me another 15 or so minutes to best, with a total play time of 85 minute. I didn’t really enjoy the emulator – you have to tap left-right-up-down buttons on the screen for movement, and they weren’t very responsive. Otherwise, Restart is good. It makes use of your device’s camera and microphone, but not any of its other features.
(Play through two stats screen)
The second time through took me 22 minutes up to the end game, with a final total time of 32 minutes. No hints or penalties, but I did end up looking at my notes twice to verify my answers before committing to them. Note that there are two dummy cards and nine trap cards, which means that of the 60-card deck, only 49 are actually part of the game play.
Is Restart fun? Yes, mostly
Is there any replay value? Maybe once or twice
Can you gift the finished game to someone else? Yes
Does it have ciphers? Just some steganography
(Photo close-up – “All the better to…”)
At $37 for the box, it’s getting expensive for a collection of one-shot games, but at least you’re getting three games that can be regifted. You may want to replay at least once to get a better score the second time through. Recommended if you liked the original King’s Quest. I do have to add that Restart is kind of in the same genre as Unlock!’s Doo-Arann’s Dungeon Short Adventure, but definitely not in the same universe (unless I’m wrong).
===== Caution – Spoilers =====
Once in the attic, you have to figure out how to get into the game. This is relatively easy, as long as you realize your character is a warrior, and your player name comes from an autographed copy of the poster. You encounter a wolf that likes to play fetch, and a wizard that wants you to get a flower like the one on the CD-ROM artwork. The hint to finding the pond with the flower is a bit cryptic (“spin around” actually means you need to take the Circle card).
The code for getting into your old base is a knock-knock pattern. You need to use your mobile device’s camera both on the CD-ROM card to start the game, and on the card showing the castle to do the teleport. The reason things are funky in Crearia right now is that someone built a factory that’s pumping toxic waste into the rivers. That, and the woman the King loves has been turned into a Dryad and refuses to talk to anyone anymore.
(Card examples)
When you get into the castle, you’ll have an envelope, and a “wedding ring” created by the wizard. Put the ring in the envelope, add melted wax from a candle, and then seal it with the king’s ring (putting the ring card face down on the envelope and wax card will give you steganography for the next part). Give the envelope to the dryad, and the game glitches. “Pull” the CD-ROM from the PC, and blow on your device to remove the dust. A fingerprint will appear on the CD-ROM – rub it to remove it. This will bring you to the end game, where Wolfix from Insert Coin brags about having taken over Crearia. Then, your son steps in and defeats Wolfix in a deadly game of Pac-man. Use the mushrooms for speed-ups, and intercept Wolfix to get to the end screen.
I didn’t really like the Pac-Man part because the controls weren’t responsive, and even knowing what to do, it took me over 15 minutes to catch up to Wolfix. Otherwise, it’s a fun, mostly easy game.
The Black Chamber 