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Post by craigrj on Feb 17, 2018 6:06:49 GMT -5
I just received it today, and I have no idea if it's still available, but at least presentation-wise, I am immensely impressed with the newest premium experience from Hunt A Killer, Hawthorn Junction. I won't go into much detail in case you want go in totally blind (the promo page doesn't describe what it is, so I'll follow their lead), but know that for a hundred bucks, the package has literally dozens of items in it and is incredibly convincing in terms of what it's trying to emulate. The mystery you're trying to solve is also vague at first glance, so you really have to do some detective work in order to draw connections between items. Just from presentation alone, I think it's worth it; hopefully the mystery solving lives up to its first impression. I liked it but felt it a bit light for the money - the storyline is very obvious and to divine the killer you don’t need to solve any puzzles at all, just compare handwriting
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Post by dmikester on Feb 17, 2018 22:39:11 GMT -5
I just received it today, and I have no idea if it's still available, but at least presentation-wise, I am immensely impressed with the newest premium experience from Hunt A Killer, Hawthorn Junction. I won't go into much detail in case you want go in totally blind (the promo page doesn't describe what it is, so I'll follow their lead), but know that for a hundred bucks, the package has literally dozens of items in it and is incredibly convincing in terms of what it's trying to emulate. The mystery you're trying to solve is also vague at first glance, so you really have to do some detective work in order to draw connections between items. Just from presentation alone, I think it's worth it; hopefully the mystery solving lives up to its first impression. I liked it but felt it a bit light for the money - the storyline is very obvious and to divine the killer you don’t need to solve any puzzles at all, just compare handwriting Just finished it and somewhat agree, though I did enjoy the puzzles and found them pretty creative. However, you're right, to identify the specific killer, you don't actually need to solve the puzzles, and figuring out alibis and eliminating suspects is very easy. It's also clear early on what's going on in terms of the murder scheme, but you do have to solve the puzzles to get the full picture. I also enjoyed the fairly subtle secret section of a certain webpage, and there's a great tie-in to 1973 that I very much appreciated. I think it's priced about right; you probably had to pay more than I did for shipping, which would probably make me think it was overpriced too. I do think the overall quality of the items is very high, and I'd still recommend it, though not as highly as 1973.
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Post by craigrj on Feb 18, 2018 20:06:17 GMT -5
1973 is on my radar, what would you say is particular grand or unique about it? I’ve been offered a used copy of 1934 for a bargain price so will give that a punt I think
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Post by dmikester on Feb 18, 2018 23:01:00 GMT -5
1973 is on my radar, what would you say is particular grand or unique about it? I’ve been offered a used copy of 1934 for a bargain price so will give that a punt I think Well, first off, to be as vague as possible, a used copy of 1934 will not give you the full experience. It would be sort of like getting a used copy of Forgotten Tomb with every instruction followed (again, being vague here, but you should know what I'm referring to). Still, I loved the unboxing of 1934 and the experience of discovering everything in it, and without going into any detail, the final story conclusion is SUPER dark and depressing. 1973 is just a really packed experience, with a huge amount of multimedia, including a complete (albeit short) album of music on vinyl, a great T-shirt, a lengthy commemorative booklet, and a number of detailed websites (you've already seen one of them if you researched everything on the Blue Lizzy website). There are also some solid puzzles and some great surprises throughout. Now somewhat like Hawthorn Junction, the central mystery isn't that deep, and figuring out who the killer is isn't too tough (though I'd say tougher than Hawthorn), so you should know that going in. But I had a great time with it, and the experience has stuck with me a lot longer than other similar ones. Still, it's pretty expensive, and I remember I got it at a big discount for some reason when I pre-ordered it, so your mileage may vary a bit cost-wise.
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Post by craigrj on Feb 19, 2018 4:57:45 GMT -5
OK thanks for that - yeah shipping adds another $40 and so it's a real...well, maybe one.
As for 1934, I think it's not available any more anyway, and at £50 all-in i think I might have to put up with the fact that ... some stuff has been done?
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Post by adelindanne on Feb 24, 2018 18:12:22 GMT -5
Okay you asked for it... It is Nilson. He just wouldn't drink the koolaid! Thanks much! One more big spoiler question below: Does it get revealed later on or something that it's Nilson, or did I miss a reference somewhere? And therefore I guess the killer there is JWJ, though he seems much younger than I thought he would be. Feel free to PM me if you'd prefer. OK so i know this was a while back.. I had put HAK aside for a while to catch up on other things.. Finally finished box 1.8 today. (Loved it!) One little problem tho... my pen file stops at 2:03 but it seems like there should be more. Is there? Also - dmikester @ around 0:55 JWJ says "jacob.. read" Thanks!
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Post by craigrj on Mar 7, 2018 12:29:49 GMT -5
So, here's the deal. I paid £50 to some very nice man in the UK for HaK:1934 (pretty much untouched) and the first five season one HaK boxes.
Whether 1934 would've been worth full retail price at the time it was available, well, debatable, especially with shipping to the UK, but for fifty notes it was brilliant. So much to mess with, some physical things to mess around with, and a story to decipher (if not particularly complex, still a story there), nice. The five boxes? What a disappointment. If I'd paid the monthly fee plus postage for this I would've been totally gutted - seems to be the bare minimum in each box, with most stuff actually online.
I know people like online components in their mystery boxes, that's fine and good, but for me if I wanted a mostly online puzzle game then I'd play one - and pay a whole lot less, if anything in some cases. I want to spread papers around - take copies and write over them, use post-it notes and a note book and just general mess around with *stuff*.
But it's ok, it just shows me that perhaps the monthly HaK is not for me, but maybe their premium experiences are...and so to 1968.
It seemed to get a bit of a kicking from some people here, but I started watching the talkbomb unboxing and solving of it, and had to stop because I was getting drawn into it and thinking - I wanna do that.
SO.
Before I actually order the box from the HaK people directly, would anyone be interested in selling theirs and shipping to the UK? Anyone want shot of it? Chuck me a PM if so....
....or tell me here why I'm making a mistake and I'll actually hate it and should save my cash entirely!
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Post by dmikester on Mar 7, 2018 12:37:56 GMT -5
So, here's the deal. I paid £50 to some very nice man in the UK for HaK:1934 (pretty much untouched) and the first five season one HaK boxes. Whether 1934 would've been worth full retail price at the time it was available, well, debatable, especially with shipping to the UK, but for fifty notes it was brilliant. So much to mess with, some physical things to mess around with, and a story to decipher (if not particularly complex, still a story there), nice. The five boxes? What a disappointment. If I'd paid the monthly fee plus postage for this I would've been totally gutted - seems to be the bare minimum in each box, with most stuff actually online. I know people like online components in their mystery boxes, that's fine and good, but for me if I wanted a mostly online puzzle game then I'd play one - and pay a whole lot less, if anything in some cases. I want to spread papers around - take copies and write over them, use post-it notes and a note book and just general mess around with *stuff*. But it's ok, it just shows me that perhaps the monthly HaK is not for me, but maybe their premium experiences are...and so to 1968. It seemed to get a bit of a kicking from some people here, but I started watching the talkbomb unboxing and solving of it, and had to stop because I was getting drawn into it and thinking - I wanna do that. SO. Before I actually order the box from the HaK people directly, would anyone be interested in selling theirs and shipping to the UK? Anyone want shot of it? Chuck me a PM if so.... ....or tell me here why I'm making a mistake and I'll actually hate it and should save my cash entirely! Well, just my two cents, but I think 1968 is by far their weakest premium experience. It has some very nice physical components to it, like the photo album, and is totally offline as I recall, but attempting to be vague here, there are elements of the connections between characters that I don't think make a whole lot of sense, and the puzzles I found very tedious. It almost feels like busy work in a way that their others don't. The "killer" was also, at least to me, extremely obvious almost immediately, as there just weren't many suspects, and there was one "obvious" suspect who was clearly a red herring. I know wortelboer here also had a situation that I didn't have where one of the physical components was overdone and made her house stink for hours, so buyer beware with that! It is cheap compared to most of their stuff, but it's at a similar price to Hawthorn Junction and nowhere near as good puzzle-wise.
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Post by kas814 on Mar 7, 2018 13:52:47 GMT -5
Thanks much! One more big spoiler question below: Does it get revealed later on or something that it's Nilson, or did I miss a reference somewhere? And therefore I guess the killer there is JWJ, though he seems much younger than I thought he would be. Feel free to PM me if you'd prefer. OK so i know this was a while back.. I had put HAK aside for a while to catch up on other things.. Finally finished box 1.8 today. (Loved it!) One little problem tho... my pen file stops at 2:03 but it seems like there should be more. Is there? Also - dmikester @ around 0:55 JWJ says "jacob.. read" Were you able to get the rest of the video? I can send you a link if you need. Thanks!
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Post by adelindanne on Mar 9, 2018 6:02:35 GMT -5
OK so i know this was a while back.. I had put HAK aside for a while to catch up on other things.. Finally finished box 1.8 today. (Loved it!) One little problem tho... my pen file stops at 2:03 but it seems like there should be more. Is there? Also - dmikester @ around 0:55 JWJ says "jacob.. read" Were you able to get the rest of the video? I can send you a link if you need. Thanks! Actually no... I tried on 2 different pc's. Am I missing a puzzle to finish? (I didn't think so but maybe?) Thanks!
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Post by craigrj on Mar 18, 2018 12:28:52 GMT -5
I vaguely recall someone was interested in the HaK premium experiences in a place HaK wouldn't ship - one of our Deutscheland-based contingent perhaps? If so, can whomever it was please drop me a PM?
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Post by puzzler44 on Mar 21, 2018 9:13:30 GMT -5
Word of warning! HaK switched to new customer service system a couple months ago and it makes for a very painful cancellation process. You can longer cancel online. You must call a certain number that you can only get after emailing, and then they give you certain hours (in mountain time??) that you can call to cancel. Once you call they put you on hold for a long time and then they try to make you feel stupid for cancelling and the whole process is just torturous. Honestly one of the worst customer service experiences I've had in a very long time.
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Post by dmikester on Apr 10, 2018 10:57:54 GMT -5
So I ended up deciding to cancel my main subscription to Hunt A Killer. The ending of Season 2 (Transformation) was weak and nowhere near as interesting or as well done as the ending of the first season. The season also sort of devolved from each box having interesting artifacts to basically being pieces of paper, so even though the puzzles got tougher, the value of the boxes went way down. I'm still a very big fan of their premium work, but the main subscription not so much. I will say though that calling to cancel, while annoying, was painless and my rep couldn't have been nicer. Seems like they've improved that aspect of the process.
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Post by neutronstar on Apr 10, 2018 12:18:25 GMT -5
So I ended up deciding to cancel my main subscription to Hunt A Killer. The ending of Season 2 (Transformation) was weak and nowhere near as interesting or as well done as the ending of the first season. The season also sort of devolved from each box having interesting artifacts to basically being pieces of paper, so even though the puzzles got tougher, the value of the boxes went way down. I'm still a very big fan of their premium work, but the main subscription not so much. I will say though that calling to cancel, while annoying, was painless and my rep couldn't have been nicer. Seems like they've improved that aspect of the process. Seriously thinking of cancelling my subscription. I just received Box 8, thus ending the story for Awakening. But since I paid for 12 months, I am not sure if I will be able to stop the first 4 Boxes of the next story. But since I found my interest waning with each box, I don't want to continue with only part of a story.
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Post by dmikester on Apr 10, 2018 12:46:20 GMT -5
So I ended up deciding to cancel my main subscription to Hunt A Killer. The ending of Season 2 (Transformation) was weak and nowhere near as interesting or as well done as the ending of the first season. The season also sort of devolved from each box having interesting artifacts to basically being pieces of paper, so even though the puzzles got tougher, the value of the boxes went way down. I'm still a very big fan of their premium work, but the main subscription not so much. I will say though that calling to cancel, while annoying, was painless and my rep couldn't have been nicer. Seems like they've improved that aspect of the process. Seriously thinking of cancelling my subscription. I just received Box 8, thus ending the story for Awakening. But since I paid for 12 months, I am not sure if I will be able to stop the first 4 Boxes of the next story. But since I found my interest waning with each box, I don't want to continue with only part of a story. Well, since they're not selling Transformation anymore, I wonder if you'll get bumped over to Season 3 (not sure what the name of that one is). Maybe Season 3 is better. Season 2 was very disappointing for me since it started off really strong but started getting dull around Episode 4 and never recovered. There were some interesting online elements to it, but in general things didn't pay off much at all and as I said before it was basically all pieces of paper (the last box had, get ready, TWO black envelopes with paper documents in them instead of one).
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