Indigo Bing & the Missing Mind Disc (Aquila) // Review

Indigo Bing & the Missing Mind Disc is a postal escape room game from the creators of the award-winning children’s magazine, Aquila. Despite the magazine regularly featuring puzzle content, this is their first fully-fledged tabletop escape room game. In it, you’ll assist space pirate Indigo Bing in preventing the mysterious Mind Disc from falling into the wrong hands!

Players: 1+ // Age: 8-848 (as advertised!) // Playtime: 2-4 hours // Resettable: No

What you need: A pen/pencil. An internet-connected device (minimal screen use).

Disclaimer: Aquila Magazine kindly sent me a copy of this game in exchange for an honest review. This in no way influences the content of my review.

First impressions

I’m always delighted to come across new family-friendly puzzle games, especially from unfamiliar publishers. Quite how I’d never heard of Aquila Magazine is beyond me, as it is exactly the sort of publication I would have devoured as a child. Each issue contains colourful artwork, puzzles, interesting facts, fun stories and more! Anyway, more on the magazine later…

Indigo Bing & the Missing Mind Disc, as the name might suggest, is a quirky game. It is packaged in an A4 envelope with an introduction to the game printed on the front, along with various stamps and visual flourishes. The intro also reveals the primary mission: to find the Mind Disc, discover a hidden code and free Indigo from her prison. Turn the envelope over and you’ll find a small label that reads “Fragile (potentially magical) items inside. Handle with care.“

Presentation

This game is very pretty and delightfully whimsical. It is full of colourful, primarily paper-based components that feature a range of illustration styles and paper types. The Picaroon newspaper is printed on newsprint, which is always a plus for me. A typed letter addressed to Aquila sports authentic doodles and scribbles. There is even a set of funky stickers.

Other items in the pack include a balloon, the mysterious psychedelic Mind Disc and an Aquila-branded cotton tote bag. I had hoped that the bag would feature in one of the puzzles, but sadly it did not. It is, at least, a reusable item which I appreciate from a sustainability point of view.

Gameplay

Your ultimate goal is to free Indigo Bing from a cryochamber she has locked herself in. Why she is in there, you will have to play the game to find out, but she needs your help to get out again. To aid her, you’ll need to solve eight puzzles scattered through the envelope’s contents. This will reveal the code required to open her icy prison and save the day.

The puzzles are non-linear, so they can be shared out between players and solved in any order. Some puzzle types you can expect to encounter include a word search, a cipher and a maze. I thought a puzzle involving some stickers was rather clever, and the online puzzle had a nice little ‘ah-ha’ moment.

I did experience a couple of minor issues during my playthrough. A website address included in the newspaper didn’t work. It isn’t clear if it once did and had just expired, or if it never worked. I suspect it is perhaps the latter, as I was able to solve all of the puzzles without it. I generally believe that if you include a website address in a game, it should go somewhere; otherwise, leave it out. The other minor issue was that I struggled to blow up a balloon… I suspect that this is perhaps a me-specific issue…

Gameplay mostly takes place offline, with the limited internet use restricted to one puzzle and looking up hints. Some of the components are not reusable or easily replaceable, therefore, this is a one-use experience.

Hints & Difficulty

I found this game fairly easy, but imagine it could be challenging for the intended audience (children) and some adults. It took me less than an hour to complete, but it is advertised as taking 2-4 hours on average. This is likely a more accurate reflection of the time taken for younger/less experienced puzzlers.

Hints are available online if you get stuck. These are very basic, consisting of one hint per puzzle rather than a tiered approach. There is no option for viewing a solution if you are stuck, which may be problematic for some. The hints are very helpful at pointing players in the right direction, so hopefully they will be sufficient for most players.

The Magazine

Aquila kindly sent over a couple of back issues of their magazine, which I’ll be giving to my nieces to try out. Reading through, I was impressed with the overall quality and range of content. There is a mix of puzzle quests, stories and interesting facts covering lots of topics. While each issue has an overarching theme, the content features a mix of work from various writers, artists and illustrators. This includes information about historical figures, scientific experiments, a task of the month and lots of puzzles!

The Witches & Wizards issue features 32 pages of content! Some highlights include an article explaining the origins of witchcraft, a recipe for cauldron cupcakes and a piece about finding your inner magic. The latter delves into meditation and finding calm in a noisy world. Towards the end of the issue, there is a mini puzzle game: Escape the Poison Garden. It features six puzzles to complete, spread across two pages.

If you have a curious child in mind as you read this (aged 8-14), I’d highly recommend picking up a copy of Aquila to see if it is something they may like!

Verdict