Three puzzle enthusiasts

We start with a place, rather than a puzzle: a clockmaker’s workshop with an impossible will, an empty gym at night, an art deco casino or a night train among snowy mountains. First, we look for somewhere that makes you want to open the drawers.

Then come the characters, because a place cannot tell its story alone. We give them habits, loyalties and secrets that shape what you discover. In The Golden Shuttle, Maya’s role as captain and Léo’s observations give you different ways into the tournament’s records; in The Midnight Train, different witness accounts reveal different parts of what happened.

The puzzles come next and grow out of the setting. We do not put a number grid in a library just to fill a room. The adventure’s structure comes before its first line of dialogue and determines which discoveries the place needs to hold.

We chose this direction before writing our first story: curiosity, not jump scares.

A horror game builds tension around a threat. A mystery builds it around curiosity: something happened here, and you want to know what. Our rooms may be empty and their corridors dark, but the focus is on observation and discovery rather than being chased or shocked.

That choice shapes the settings and sound. A dim spiral staircase can feel threatening or intriguing; we aim for the second. Sound supports the atmosphere and the player’s discoveries.

This is a choice of atmosphere, not a reduction in puzzle difficulty. Our games are written for adults, as our page on family escape games explains. If you want a horror experience, these adventures are unlikely to be what you are looking for.