WBG Score: 8/10
Player Count: 1-4
You’ll like this if you like: Feeling smart about yourself!
Published by: Joe Mills (I), Tristan Rogers, Dan Wiseman
Designed by: The Detective Society
This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. This will be a SPOILER FREE review
We recently reviewed the prequal to this game, Countdown to Chaos. You can check that out here. Our thoughts were that it was a brilliant execution of this style of game, but perhaps a little pricey for what you get. But, if you enjoy these experiences, then definitely one of the better options and well worth the money. Well, that game was but a small appetizer for the main course. The chaos that game set up is now well and truly upon us. But does it deliver a more substantial, value-for-money experience? Let's get it to the table and find out.
How To Set Up Murder On The Moon
Get a piece of paper and pen to take notes, and make sure you have a device that can get online to hand. A phone, tablet or laptop will all work just fine. Open the first envelope marked "Case 1"and take out all the components. Find the letter with the QR code and read this. You are now ready to start.
How To Play Murder On The Moon
The objective of the game is to unravel a mystery as you progress through the three cases. They are all linked to the same mystery, and tell a story over the course of the game. You can play over three separate settings, or one big marathon experience. Each one takes around 1-3 hours, depending on your play style.
The initial letter provides everything you need to begin and directs you to an online portal where you can "interact" with a character from the story. On this platform, you can also request assistance and obtain clues if you find yourself stuck, which is useful if you encounter difficulties. The clues don't simply give you an answer, but prod you in the right direction. But you can keep asking for more and more help on the same thing if you need it, so you won't ever get fully stuck.
During each case you'll encounter approximately five main segments, combining online and physical clues, that you must assemble, decipher, and work out to discover the final answer. You'll input answers into the online portal, which will guide you to the next part of the puzzle. This looks like this. This is right at the beginning, so don't worry, no spoilers here.
Work your way through the three case files to reach the games natural conclusion. That's it, off you go! And good luck Detective!
Is It Fun? Murder On The Moon Escape Room Game Review
Games like this need to be broken down into three parts in a review, in my opinion: the story, the puzzles, and value for money. This game has a great story. It is well-paced, interesting, and full of twists and turns. Some are more obvious than others, but still, it grips you as you play. You will want to continue simply to find out what happens. Tick.
The puzzles are mostly good. I found one to be simply annoying. One was ridiculously hard and seemed to require an insane amount of math skills (unless I missed something obvious—highly likely!), and one required some knowledge outside the game linked to American sports, which irked me. It was strangely niche (to American sport knowledge), took me out of the game, and felt really odd to me that it was included in this way. It's very much solvable, just annoying. But the rest are challenging, varied, and fun to work out. Three out of around 15 isn't bad, I suppose. 90% tick.
The price, well, that's up to you. This costs £69.99 (current price as of March 2025) and to me, that seems a little steep. The prequel, which is essentially one third of this game, costs £11.99. So, why this couldn't be closer to three times that, mid-thirties, I do not know. That would seem fair to me. It is a one-shot, and the components are not that elaborate. You don't ruin anything, so you can easily set this up to gift to a friend, which is what I will do. But for a one-off purchase, I think this is a little steep in price myself.
That said, if you enjoy these kind of games, this is one of the best. It does not have the production quality and wow factor as the games from The Mystery Agency but I would say this is the next best thing on the market to that. The Exit games are great, but are obviously limited to a one-off shorter game. This has more of a narrative over three games, but you could, of course, buy three Exits for less than half the price of this. I keep going on about cost, but I do think it is a factor with one-off games like this. Although, that said, most Exit games are one and done with things being destroyed, torn, bent, written on, or simply unusable again. At least this can be given to a friend, or, I suppose, sold on the second-hand market if you wish.
But that said, there is a lot of cost in building this game beyond what you get in the box. There are websites, online portals, a lot of AI and chatbots, and some pretty cool digital puzzles along the way. None of this has a physical presence and is in and out of the game in a short period, so you may forget about it. And perhaps, it makes me speak unfairly about the cost above. The digital production is incredible and would have had a significant cost.
There is also a fair bit of acting work here. It may be AI, but it seems genuine, although it is hard to tell nowadays, isn't it? Coupled with the chatbot you use for most of the game to "talk" to your contact on the Moon, there are all sorts of websites and online portals you will use to gather clues and work out this puzzle. This game puts a lot into making this all feel a part of the game and within the experience of the world it creates, and it does that very well indeed.
And the payoff? Well, I will leave that to you to decide if you play. But for me, all I will say, with no spoilers, is that I was left feeling very satisfied and content about my time with this game, both in terms of the puzzles and the story. But of course, I did not pay for this game; it is a review copy, which is why my mind keeps going back to price.
So, if you are a fan of puzzle games, then I would very much recommend you check this out. The price point is only an issue, I feel, if you feel that way yourself. This game gave my son and me a great experience over three consecutive days that we both thoroughly enjoyed. That said, I'm unsure if this game would work as well with higher player counts. The game suggests you can play one to four, which I am sure is technically true. But I think with two, you have the perfect sweet spot. Any more, and there will be times where the third or fourth person would be watching more than doing anything. This can still happen on occasion with two players, but it's less common.
I think this is a big consideration when looking at this game. For fans of puzzle games, for people who see value in this or would like to gift it to friends after—go for it. This will tick all your boxes. Certainly play Countdown to Chaos first; it fits within the story and acts as both a great prequel to this game and a yardstick in terms of if you will get value for money from this game. Countdown to Chaos is a lot cheaper; it's just one case instead of three, and I would thoroughly recommend it. It will end on a cliff-hanger, so it will be a bit annoying if you don't decide to carry on with the full Murder on the Moon experience, but it will at least give you the chance to test-drive this game for a much more affordable price. Give that a go, see how you get on. And then if you do give this a go, please do let me know how you get on with the power system puzzle in case three! (As seen in the above screen grab). That had me stumped for a while. I understood the math and process, but did not understand the strategy to solve it and eventually just started hitting buttons at random until I got lucky!
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