The Cypher Files

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 :)

Great puzzle book that was challenging and fun.

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.

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.

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.

As many have said, if you've done the previous books (Journal 29 and Revelation) then you'll find these puzzles to be quite easy to solve. The thing I struggled the most with in the previous books was not knowing what to do with the puzzle, but in this book - it was almost too spelled out. However, the accompanying material and overall production has gone WAY up. The puzzles were fun and didn't have the "glitches" that some of the previous books had (is that a clue or just bad printing? This doesn't really line up... but if I squint at it maybe..., etc.) and the clue website was really engaging. I had a lot of fun doing this book, but it could have been a tad harder. Call me Goldilocks I guess - I'm still looking for one that is "just right."

It's one of my favorite puzzlebooks. The riddles are very good and intermediate level! Smooth reading and solving, very nice for vacations! It took me 5 days to solve it, and it was a wonderful experience!!

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.

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.

Sono contenta per l'acquisto

Great adventure in a book. Lots of nice puzzles as well as analog in the book as digital. Some easy, some really dificult and challenging.

Es muy entretenido. y divertido. Las respuestas las pones online y te dicen si estan bien o no. Lo compre para mi hija de 11 años que le gustan muchas los acertijos e investigar, no es fácil

It is a nice gift for teens. It consists of puzzles.