SNAP Review – The Independence Incident

It’s nearly the fourth of July, so naturally you head to the American History museum. But things aren’t quite as they seem. Can you solve the mystery?

Game

This is a SNAP review for The Independence Incident. The Independence Incident is an 18 Card Mini Escape Room created by Jonathan Chaffer and published by Grand Gamers Guild. It took us, a gaming family, about 45 minutes to complete.

The Independence Incident is the next game in the Holiday Hijinks series, and is similar to The Kringle Caper, which was the Christmas themed game that came out last holiday season. We previously reviewed that at TheFamilyGamers.com. We’ll leave you to find that.

Art

The art in The Independence Incident is thematically similar to The Kringle Caper, no surprise, with Jonathan Chaffer and Josh Cappel doing the art and graphic design once more. As with The Kringle Caper, the team did a great job using every square centimeter of the cards to pack them full of information on all sides.

<Andrew> I actually liked some of the graphics used in The Independence Incident better, I felt they pulled me into the story a little more.

<Anitra> I agree.

Mechanics

Like Jonathan said when he was on The Family Gamers Podcast, there’s so little material in the package (18 cards and a sleeve) that the scaffolding of the game needs to come from an app. Grand Gamers Guild has a website that works like an app that you can log into from your mobile device (or non-mobile device if you prefer). There is a QR code on the inside flap that you can use to get there quickly.

Log in, then flip over card #1.

Trust us, you’re going to need a pen and paper; you might want a pen and paper for each person when you’re playing this.

You also will probably need hints from the website, or (when you encounter various puzzles) you may want some reference material on hand. I’m not going to share what that is – again, I’ll let you find that out for yourself.

There is a lot of reference materials on the website as well; of course, they’re going to give you much more information than you actually need to play the game.

Expectations

We really enjoyed The Kringle Caper, the first entry in the Holiday Hijinks series. Check out the link to that.

<Andrew> I was really excited for this one. It’s right around July 4th – you’ve got your Independence Day colors on – and I have a lot more interest in American History than I do in Christmas stories. I was ready for random US History trivia, especially with our home school helper Asher, who has been learning some American history.

This also encouraged us to watch a movie that maybe helps you take a look at Charlotte, and see if the secret lies with her…

<Anitra> I expected similar puzzles to what we had seen in The Kringle Caper. I expected there to be some clever card use, just like we had seen before.

Surprises

<Andrew> Well, I was surprised to find that I found this one a little easier. If you look at the back, it says right here: Difficulty 3 out of 3.

<Anitra> You found it easier? I thought it was a little bit harder!

<Andrew> Maybe it was the theme. I said before, I really like the theme, and it just worked better for me.

<Andrew> I also felt like there was a noticeable quality difference between the two of them. To me, The Independence Incident had more interesting puzzles. The knowledge you needed to bring to the puzzles was more mechanical, like systems that you needed to understand, instead of just trivia knowledge (which is what you needed in The Kringle Caper). But maybe, again with the theme, the fact that it was real history and not Christmas stories, helped me along.

<Anitra> I felt like there should have been more trivia! Sometimes I looked too deeply for hidden meanings in what we were given. And there were several puzzles that our kids didn’t understand at all until we figured them out and explained them.

Recommended?

We definitely recommend The Independence Incident. For $10 for this package (or $5 for the print-and-play) you get about an hour of entertainment for your family.

I think we should give it 4.5 out of 5 fireworks.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of The Independence Incident from Grand Gamers Guild for this review.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?