Madok's Lost Treasure

Society of Curiosities

Age: Recommended 14+

Players: 1-4

Playing time: 2-3 hours

Difficulty: Medium

Awards: Best Overall Table-Top Game Of The Year - Bullseye Award (2020)

This was the last tabletop game we played before my solo Melbourne trip. Created by the Society of Curiosities, Madok’s Lost Treasure is classified as a “mystery-in-a-box” game, a self-contained adventure that contains everything you need as long as you have an internet connection. You can purchase it outright or sign up to their subscription service, where a new game is mailed to you every quarter. It’s a pretty cool business model and definitely would have been a hit during the pandemic.

As the name suggests, this game is a “real-life” treasure hunt of sorts, the catalyst being the mysterious package you receive in the mail containing maps, cryptic notes, and other physical objects. The aim is to investigate the materials and utilise the online resources at your disposal to locate the treasure.

Madok’s Lost Treasure is marketed as providing 2+ hours of gameplay, which is roughly accurate. There weren’t actually that many materials in the box (it is quite small, after all), so a lot of the gameplay comes from online reading and interactivity. I’m becoming less of a fan of this style of play, though I must admit the faux websites and the text chat bot were done very well and offered a decent amount of authenticity, even though we always knew in the back of our minds that it was all fake.

I would say the puzzles were of medium-level difficulty. We had to find hidden clues in the text, decipher codes, make connections, and follow instructions to create maps and identify locations. There was indeed a sense of adventure and exploration, but the remote nature of the gameplay put a hard cap on the level of excitement.

You could probably get through the entire game without hints if you don’t mind taking your time and analysing everything closely, or you could make use of the hint system to make it a faster paced experience.

On the whole, this was a fun and light-hearted experience with a theme that’s not as heavy or emotional as some of the other premium tabletop games. A good game for kids and families.

Rank: B+