Base price: $49.
1 – 4 players.
Play time: ~2 hours.
BGG Link
Buy directlyish!
Logged plays: 1
Full disclosure: A review copy of Adrift was provided by Postcurious.
I had been waiting to go back to the SF Bay Area for an age because I had a pile of escape room games that I’ve been truly jonesing to play with my puzzle bestie. Naturally, packing them all was a whole thing, but we survived, thrived, and accomplished the tasks at hand, and now here I am, writing about them for you. A review of a Postcurious title is, I fear, sometimes a bit uninteresting, just because I’ve found them to be across the board excellent, but I love writing about them and the way they challenge me and make me feel, so, here you go anyways. Next one up is Adrift, so let’s check it out!
In Adrift, you have to take on the challenge of dream interpretation. Someone’s come to you with four women, four puzzles, and a mystery that spans the lengths of time and the depths of the ocean. The sky, the earth, the water, and the forest beckon; what will you find when you answer their calls?
Overall: 9.25 / 10
It’s always a pleasure to check out a Postcurious game, and Adrift is no exception! Adrift leans on the satisfaction and beauty of getting an entire puzzle solved, to some degree, and I think putting their thumb on the artsy scale, this time, was a particularly good move. It provides a nice contrast, thematically, to The Morrison Game Factory that I was really enjoying. It does end up leading the narrative in a bit of an esoteric direction, but honestly, that’s kind of to be expected for a game about dreams and interpreting them. There’s nothing less straightforward.
The game itself is actually pretty short, which is nice! There are four major puzzles, each corresponding to a different envelope and bag. They’re not really in any particular order, but that lets you actually split them up in a cool way! Four players could each solve one in one session and then rotate for subsequent ones, so everyone gets to solve every puzzle! Each one is tactile and delightful, though we were very flummoxed by one that had a plastic dodecahedron that you had to briefly assemble to continue with the puzzle. We were extremely worried about getting said dodecahedron back into the box, but it turns out if you just squeeze it along the seam it pops open, which is great. I shouldn’t have ever doubted. One possible issue you may run into is that you get an answer from each of the puzzles that combines into one overall answer, and the order of that answer matters, so you might struggle a bit with getting the individual parts into the correct order. It happens. One of the only times I’ve had an issue with the hint system, which is otherwise impeccable and robust and really genuinely helpful.
I always appreciate the diversity of the puzzle types in these games, though I think this was the first time I noticed that there was no math or mathy puzzles in the entire box, which was kind of interesting. You usually have some since they’re easy ways to make a puzzle, but they can be frustrating for folks that aren’t as into math. Here, there weren’t any, and that was kind of great? Just a nice overall experience. Postcurious remains a fantastic production company for puzzle / escape room games. They aren’t shooting for the mass market (and the price point can reflect that compared to, say, $15 games) but the games are always worth playing. I think Rita is one of the stronger puzzle game designers in the business, right now, and I can’t wait to see what she does next either on her own or partnered (as Postcurious continues to drop absolutely sublime titles). Adrift is another example of the talent and diversity of puzzle construction that exists here, and if you’re looking for a solid, reusable puzzle game, you’d like an experience that’s narratively compelling and also intellectually challenging, or you’ve just correctly arrived at the same conclusion that I have (that all their Puzzletales are great), I’d definitely recommend Adrift! It’s another solid title for Postcurious.
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