The Cypher Files: An Escape Room… in a Book!

Got this for a friend who loves escape rooms, puzzles, and board games. He had not heard of it but started it as soon as he got home and traced about it when we saw him less than a week later. There are even virtual elements! I'll be getting a copy for myself soon.

I have played many escape room games and done a few actual escape rooms, but this was the first escape book I’ve tried. I know that this is the third book by this author, but I chose to try this one first since the reviews said it was easier than the first two books. It was pretty easy. There were only a handful of puzzles that I didn’t know how to solve immediately. There were always plenty of clues and I was able to finish the book in 3 days without using any hints. In fact, some of the puzzles had almost too many clues as in they were unnecessarily leading. Even still, I very much enjoyed this book.The book held the puzzles, but there is also an accompanying website to make some puzzles more interactive. That and the fact that there was an actual theme and consistent storyline made this a complete, well rounded and satisfying experience. The overall production value was fantastic.I think that experienced problem solvers will likely find the puzzles to be too easy, but this is an excellent book for novices. There’s a wide variety of problem types and a hints section in case one gets stuck. The one thing I didn’t realize when buying the book though is that some of the puzzles require outside resources (googling) to find information. Not a problem really, I just don’t remember seeing that explicitly stated, so I figured I’d do that here.Overall, I’m happy with the purchase and have since bought Journal 29 (the first in the series) to get more challenging problems. I managed to finish the book without damaging any pages so I’ll likely pass it on as a gift :)

I enjoyed this book. I only gave it 4 stars because the story line seemed a little forced. That being said, it kept me wanting to solve the next puzzle. The website was well thought out with a smooth interface that I was able to use on my smartphone as well as a desktop without any problems. I worked on this only on weekends and only for a couple of hours on Saturdays and Sundays. I think it took me about 3 weekends to complete. I also turned this into a sort of art project and made a journal, of sorts, to keep track of my progress. There were only a few puzzles that I needed to search out extra hints to get me going down the right path. Best advice if you decide to get get this book, which I can honestly recommend if you enjoy logic puzzles, is to not over think the puzzles and end up down various rabbit holes.

If you loved Journal 29 and are hoping for a similar experience, do not get your hopes up. This is so easy it’s verging on depressing. We are so perplexed and disappointed!!Granted we just started and have only done the first 12 puzzles, but we did them in about five minutes. Seriously, it seems designed for elementary school kids. Journal 29 was so very very creative and fun and good. You had to think and some days we would even walk away from a puzzle for a few days and return and have to think again. Sure there were some puzzles that were a bit easy. But all of them were creative and most required an AHA! Moment. None of that here. It’s as if the author just phoned it in. We actually thought this book would be even harder than journal 29 and were prepared to be tortured. Ah well.To explain: I bought this for my son. With journal 29 and its sequel we would do them as a sweet evening ritual before bed. A fun little activity with my young teen. We would look at them together and do one or two puzzles a night. This one is so easy it barely warrants a glance to solve them. He’s so optimistic that it will get harder that he is begging me not to write a review yet. But given that it is so disappointing and we are 1/3 of the way through the book I thought it worth warning others who are looking for a repeat of the first books. If it changes dramatically I’ll come update.I sure hope hope hope this wonderful author does more books and can make them more challenging. But this book clearly could be ripped through in one evening with little difficulty if the first 12 puzzles are any indication of the rest of the book.

I've done several Escape Room style puzzle books now and this one is one of my favorites. The puzzles are moderately challenging but still interesting enough for even the most experienced puzzle game enthusiast. The hint system is kind of weak though. The hints in the book didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know and the online hint system didn't advance the harder puzzle any more. I'd highly recommend this book to the puzzle gamers who are average to advanced. Not for beginners.

This is my favorite book from this author. The puzzles are much easier than his previous book, Journal 29 Revelation, that was too-difficult and abstract. I like the level of challenge in this book as well as the way the story is told. Very fun.

I love escape rooms, puzzles, etc. But it is upsetting to buy one of these books and the sites you need to go to don’t come up on the computer or the code you put in to solve a puzzle won’t accept it. Just “Try again” even if others on the forums tell you what the answer is which is the same answer I’d been using. It sucks. Some of the puzzles are really good but these other problems spoil the whole purpose of buying this book. I can understand googling for information but trying to get to cypher.center/ shadows and the others is just aggravating.

Great puzzle book that was challenging and fun.

This is the third book I have enjoyed from the author Dimitris Chassapakis, the first 2 being the 2 Journal 29 books. I will compare a little bit between this book and those but also hopefully give enough information about just this book to help potential buyers make up their minds!This book is not a regular novel or straightforward story, each page has some sort of riddle or puzzle to solve to progress to the next page. You will need a phone to input your answers and then get a bit more of the story and a special code word. These code words are then used in later puzzles to help come to their solutions so it is essential to have the internet available while using this book. I used my phone but it would also be possible to use a computer. Using the phone added an element of immersion though as the input and response feels like text messaging.In the story itself you are cast as a secret agent trying to solve a mystery. I won't give away too much of the plot as that is part of the fun to unravel what is happening as it goes along. I found the story line much easier to get into than Journal 29 was and it felt a lot more cohesive. Some of the puzzles seemed kind of shoe-horned in to fit the theme but they were all fun to solve and worked well enough.In comparison to Journal 29, I initially felt a little disappointed as the book felt a lot thinner and therefore not as many puzzles to solve, it turns out though that a lot of the content of the story is within the messages you send and receive from your "spy team". I found this was really well implemented, I really felt like it was an unfolding adventure and was excited to keep going. In journal 29 I occasionally skipped pages if I got stuck and came back to them later as there didn't seem to be any real story (though this was remedied a bit in the sequel) but in the Cypher files I never felt like skipping ahead as I wanted to solve the story in order. I also never really got stuck though either - perhaps because of having had the practice of the previous books but most of the puzzles felt pretty straightforward to solve. They were all fun though. The main time I had a problem was a few of the puzzles have a website to go to and my phone didn't have motion controls allowed on the internet browser so I couldn't "look" up and down in the room. It was obvious I did need to look that way though and I guessed perhaps my phone wasn't working properly so I figured it out in the end by changing my phone settings without having to resort to the hints!Speaking of hints - each puzzle has a hint in the back and also there is a website with more hints. There was one puzzle that I wasn't progressing with and I checked the hint and instantly had enough to go on to solve the rest myself so they seem pretty well written and just the right amount of helpful. i've just had a look at the website hints and they are a lot more of a solution or more in-depth hint so would be helpful if you get really stumped by any of the puzzles!Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It didn't take me anywhere near as long to solve as Journal 29 but it felt like much more of an exciting story and I think overall I liked it a bit more despite there not being as many puzzles. I would really recommend this book for other fans of Journal 29 but also for fans of escape rooms, EXIT! games or any similar puzzle books.

It took less than 3 hours to complete, solo and without hints, and I took the time to read all of the story elements both in the book and on the accompanying website, none of which are necessary to solve the puzzles.A bit easy overall, I think, since if you've much experience at all with escape rooms or this sort of puzzle then you'll have seen the majority of the puzzles before in one way or another, including in the author's own books. That said, there are a couple of genuinely creative puzzles too, which I won't spoil here but led to some good 'aha' moments.There are 28 puzzles in the book which makes it pretty good value for an escape room, although somewhat disappointing for a puzzle book. But, that said, if you haven't tried this sort of thing before then this is a good place to begin. So 4* if you're new to this (but not 5* due to overly precise answer strings in places), or the 3* I've given it if you already know what you're getting.The book must be used alongside an internet-connected device, and really it expects you to use a smartphone.

I bought this for my other half for Christmas, in part because I read some reviews that said it was quick to finish (3 hours solo, I think was the quote) and she's extremely busy so giving her something that would take hundreds of hours would be more of a curse than a present.She's definitely enjoying the book, and I have to say the puzzles are varied, interesting and as described - like the sorts of things you get in an escape room. But it is not anywhere near as quick as the previous reviewer had claimed. It's now almost a month since Christmas, and I can definitely say that she's spent much more than three hours, and has a fair way still to go.We've completed dozens of escape rooms together, played a bunch of "EXIT" escape-room-in-a-box games, we've never timed out and have rarely needed (or wanted) additional clues to solve stuff. So, if you're buying this thinking it's an easy afternoon to complete, you may be surprised. Like all puzzles, when you see the solution it looks easy, but it's by no means guaranteed you will see it instantly.

I bought this book for a friend's birthday. He was pleased with the gift but have recently found out from him that to submit your answer via the internet to move on there is a charge each time you do this. I was mortified to think l had given him a present that was going to cost him money. It is really bad that this is not mentioned anywhere in the description of this book only being told that you need access to the internet - no mention of charges!! The idea of the book is great but spoilt by the extra charges.

I almost didnt buy this... I really enjoyed 'Journal 29' but then 'Journal 29 revelation' really put me off with its ridiculously overly convoluted puzzles. This one however is a good back to basics puzzle book, just right for me, but probably too easy for some. The only negative I'd give it is the fact it says you can use a smart phone, whereas I found that the VR segments worked on neither my 'smart'phone or my ipad so I had to resort to my desktop computer to continue, not a dealbreaker for me but for those with older tech this may make the book unplayable. Other than that I had a thoroughly good time.