Anna from Scarlet Envelope joins me (along with Lisa who is busily working in the background) to talk about their new Christmas Postcards with Puzzles Kickstarter campaign. We also discuss their hugely popular escape rooms in an envelope, LGBTQ+ representation and collaborating for the charity puzzle project The Book of Dreams. Enjoy!
Can you tell me a bit about yourself?
My name is Anna Lysova, and my fiancée Lisa Levina is behind the scenes for this interview. We are currently enjoying the warm and colourful Fall in Montreal, Canada. We create puzzle games under the name Scarlet Envelope full-time, out of a spare bedroom that has been turned into an office (don’t feel bad for us, it’s very cute and spacious here). In our spare time, I paint flower pots and read, and Lisa…buys us more plants.
What are your earliest memories of playing puzzles?
Nancy Drew video games when I was about 13! I was too chicken to play myself (have you guys seen how often Nancy DIES if you solve a puzzle wrong?), so I usually cheered on my friends playing, and offered puzzle solutions. I guess that’s when my passion for video game play-throughs started as well!
What is Scarlet Envelope and how did it come about?
Scarlet Envelope is two small queer women and one big dream! Seriously though, we’re in the business of creating and self-publishing tabletop puzzle games. We started out with a very daring Kickstarter campaign in 2020, promising to produce 13 escape room games in envelopes. Now, four years later, we are releasing the long-awaited Grand Finale of the Envelope series. We also published a series of mini-games in Christmas puzzle cards in the meantime.
How big a learning curve has setting up a business been?
The curve has been a rollercoaster. Or rather a swing. One day you’re funding a Kickstarter and feel on top of the world, the next – you’re scrabbling for funding, checking all kinds of small business grants you could apply for. Building a business and doing puzzle design are two wildly different things, really. Both are challenging and are fit for “generalists”, not “specialists.” Simply put, you gotta be an explorer, a learner, a “jack of all trades” if you wish.
You’ve mentioned being queer business owners, how important is it to you to be open about this and how does this manifest within your games?
Being an openly LGBTQ+ business has been a goal from day one. It’s who we are, so making it a part of our brand came very naturally. Many queer players approach us with ease and with gratitude for making our community seen. It means a lot to me. I’m not scared to lose homophobic customers – if our queerness bothers someone, we don’t want their business anyway.
You asked how this manifests in our games. You’ll see a bunch of queer characters in our narratives, sometimes where you least expect it. I always try my best to make characters diverse, to help people with different backgrounds and skin color feel represented. We have all kinds of people playing, so it feels natural to do so.
What do you each bring to the table in terms of your skillsets?
My background is in marketing, and Lisa’s is in graphic design and engineering. I like to think that I’m a strong manager. Lisa is a very strong problem solver and is never afraid to get her hands dirty.
Did you know we manufacture most of our game components ourselves? Mostly thanks to Lisa figuring out how to use the printing machine, where to source cool papers, and how to cut them (spoiler – with an industrial cutter that we now own).
In terms of art, not craft, I’m the storyteller behind our narratives, and I also write scripts. Lisa draws, and even though we usually hire artists for the main art tasks, she gets to illustrate some pieces for SE – for example, the Scarlet Manuscript from Game 12.
What are we bad at? We’d be in big trouble if we switched tasks and she had to write a story while I had to call an accountant.
Your games span different genres and play styles. How do you pick your themes and can you talk about the development process for your games?
Look at the themes of our games and you’ll be peeking into my brain. Careful, there are sci-fi crimes there, mixed with beautiful Cabaret dancers, Medieval dragons, strangled waitresses, and Alexander the Great. It’s the best part of my job – I get to create what I want, and what I want is a lot of things at the same time.
The development process for our games? I come up with an idea after a yoga session, maybe, when serotonin makes my brain creative again. I pitch the idea to Lisa in the car, and Lisa goes “Huh. Yeah, we could do that.” I then write a 40-page Google Document with extensive research on the subject. Lisa works on the main puzzles and somehow gives the games a physical and digital form. We both go back and forth with puzzles and storylines. Lisa oversees the manufacturing and I polish the game and run playtests. And, ta-daa!
How difficult has it been working within the constraints of a single envelope for each of your games?
A super fun challenge at the beginning, and a source of frustration at the end. We’re at a point where we want to do more!
Nearly all of the games planned for the Scarlet Envelope subscription series are out in the wild. Have you started work on the final games in the series?
Way ahead of you, we finished them both! From Game Zero to Game Twelve, all are ready, finally. Game Twelve is moving to the assembly stage next week, where we check all the components and prep the envelopes. It’s not being released on our website due to the nature of it – you have to first play the rest of the games in the series and find 11 hidden password letters, to get access to the Grand Finale.
If someone could only buy one of your games, which would you recommend and why?
Anna: Game VII: Tale of a Golden Dragon
“Solve escape room-style enigmas and become a hero of a Medieval fairytale! Crush puzzles together with the Dragon Trainer, the Wizard, and the Witch to figure out how to stop the legendary Golden Dragon.”
It’s the one that’s gotten the most awards so far, and I get the reason why. It’s quirky, lighthearted, magical, and well-balanced. The components are complex and lovely as well
Lisa: Game XI: Time Trap Island
“Welcome to Time Trap Island, where reality is twisted and the very fabric of the universe is messed up. Formerly the base of a secretive Red Letter Corp., the Island is now a playground of dangerous anomalies. What kind of Interdimensional Science Project went wrong here? And what do you have to do to ESCAPE?”
It’s the most polished. However, it’s best if you play some of our other games before this one to appreciate all the references.
You’ve just launched your Kickstarter campaign for Christmas
Postcards with Puzzles, which are a follow-up to the successful Christmas Puzzle Card campaign you ran last year. What can puzzlers expect from these new creations?
I adore our Christmas Puzzle Cards and how our brilliant illustrator, Tanya, brings my ideas to life. I really feel like we’ve created something special—a perfect gateway to hardcore puzzling!
Each card offers a solid mix of visual, logic, and word puzzles, with beautiful hand-drawn illustrations that make them extra-giftable. They’re also fully functional as postcards—just stamp, write a message on the back, and feel great about gifting something original that won’t end up in the trash!
This year, we’ve expanded the difficulty range. Last year’s release catered fully to enthusiasts, which brought mixed feedback from “puzzle muggles.” Now, we’ve included options that are fit for both newbies and pros. And if you’re new to Scarlet Envelope, you can grab both last year’s and this year’s releases on Kickstarter—at a great price.
One more exciting addition: Build-A-Card with Us! During the campaign, all backers will vote on key elements of the final card in the set. Our illustrator will bring this collective vision to life by the end of the campaign. Crazy, eh? Join the fun!
You collaborated with 10 other companies from across
the globe to create The Book of Dreams, an anthology puzzle book created to raise money for charity. Can you talk a little about what that project involved and why you were keen to be involved?
The work on this project began when the Russia-Ukraine war started. Both Lisa and I are of Russian origin, and many of our friends in Canada are Ukrainian, so the news came as a huge shock. The first six months were the hardest—following the news, and realizing the scale of it. I struggled with daily tasks under so much stress, and The Book of Dreams became a creative outlet, a way to finally do something. We could never have raised this much money for charity on our own, and the spirit of collaboration really helped me through that time.
Note from Matt: The Book of Dreams ran as a crowdfunding campaign in 2022 and the book has just been completed in Oct 2024 (after some big challenges). Unfortunately, at this stage, it isn’t available to purchase outside of the campaign. But if that changes, I will let you know!
Are there any other puzzle creators that you’d love to team up with for future projects?
In a not-at-all fan-girling way, Rita Orlov.
I’m intrigued to know what a Scarlet Envelope IRL
escape room might look like. Is this something you have ever talked about?
Naturally, it would be all about time and space travel—secret societies, red velvet cloaks, and ancient manuscripts hiding forgotten scientific discoveries disguised as magic. Never talked about it, but it’s an easy one to imagine.
What are some of your all-time favourite games?
- IRL Escape room – The Forgotten Cathedral by Escaparium (Laval, QC)
- VR Escape Rooms – I Expect You to Die, both 1 and 2, by Schell Games
- Narrative puzzle game: Post-Mortem series by Mysterious Package Company
- Video game: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt by CD Projekt Red
- We also loved everything we played by PostCurious and Society of Curiosities
Final words
If our time-travelling secret society journey sounds fun to you, we welcome you to join our monthly subscription. Use the code IMREADY for 25% off the first game.
Thank you!
Thanks to Anna and Lisa for giving us a peek behind the Scarlet curtain of their business. I’m keen to see what they have up their sleeves for the next chapters of Scarlet Envelope – whatever they may be…
For now, you can support Anna and Lisa’s Christmas Postcard campaign by clicking the link below. It ends in less than a week, on Thursday 14th November, so don’t delay!
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