First and foremost let us start with a big thank you for having played our game! We love making them, and we hope that you, our dear Enigma Fellowship member, can feel this in our stories and puzzles alike.
The fact that you are here hopefully means that you liked our fifth game of Season one, Dinner Party, and want to read more about how it came to be. And as usual, we would love to share the rollercoaster story of “the making of” this game with you.
However, there are strong spoilers ahead, and we would hate to lessen what this game can offer to our players with spoilers. So if you have not yet played the game completely, please go and do so. We’ll wait, no worries.
So? Have you solved the game?
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Done playing?
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All righty then!
Be warned, what follows is full of spoilers – read at your own risk 😉
What comes to your mind when we excitedly say: Dinner Party! Is it the Apple TV show Mythic Quest? Yes? Well then you got it right!!!
We really enjoyed that show, and as the second season ended, we thought we’d pay homage to it, with a game titled after one of the most often quoted moments in our household. If you like light comedy, and have access to Apple TV, we highly recommend you give the show a watch. But be warned: there are only two seasons (for now?…). The character who says “Dinner Party” in the show, Poppy Li played by the Australian actress Charlotte Nicdao (see what we did there?), gave the name to the bubbly court appointed supervisor who walks with you through this game. But truth be told, many times when we say Poppy, we think of one of our dear friends from far across the pond. Dear Poppy, we hope you enjoyed this game! 🙂
So, we knew the name of the game, but what will be the contents? We always knew it will have to happen at an old castle, but when we started thinking about it, the first thought was: a family reunion, where grandpa disappears and you have to puzzle through clues to figure out that he was hiding in the panic room all along. He orchestrated the whole thing, because he became a HUGE fan of escape rooms, but could not get any of his relatives to go with him to them.
Buuuuut, why would the Enigma Fellowship be there? The same question appeared to have no answer for many other versions of the story, until we came up with this one: a legal battle, cryptic invitations – enough of a reason for involving an independent entity, like Enigma Fellowship, for making heads and tails of everything.
We are thankful that at least our neck of the woods is coming back to a (new?) normal due to the high number of vaccinated people. We hope that wherever you are reading this, things are getting better and will continue on that trajectory. It was this improvement that allowed us both, now fully vaccinated, to go for our first vacation after a full year. But to reduce contact with people, we decided to drive. Destination: Italy!
Did you know that Anuj is hands down the best travel planner? We have many relatives and friends to vouch for this. This year, for our vacation, which coincided with Orsi’s birthday, he really outdid himself: The Enigma Fellowship got to spend a couple of nights in a true Tuscan castle! The Castello di Ferrano is an amazing place to stay at if you get a chance, not just because of the landscape and the building itself, but the charming family who owns and runs it! They made us feel like we were true family there and the only thing that we might regret is that we didn’t have more days off to spend there. Our time at the Castello kindled long talks about the story for Dinner Party, and helped crystalize all the details of the story. Little trivia: the pictures for Castello di Dolcci in the Sonnburg Post use a real picture of the Castello di Ferrano as a base, that we edited a bit to make it look more abandoned and fitting for the story.
However, the building used on the envelope for the Castello Di Dolcci is one of the most famous buildings of Florence: Palazzo Vecchio (the Old Palace). If you ever visit Florence, this is a walkable distance from the Duomo, and it has a plethora of sculptures around it – one of which is a (real-size replica of) Michelangelo’s David. The real statue of David is also in Florence, but you have to head to a museum for that.
While the vacation was an amazing recharge for both Anuj and Orsi, it also came with a drawback. We lost a week of puzzle production. It turns out, things run much slower in the summer time, since we were not the only ones on vacation. The prints we ordered, as well many of the raw materials came later than expected, which of course affected our assembly and delivery times. We tried to joke about it in the beginning of the game, with “theorizing” that your current assignment “feels like it took longer”, because maybe “Mr. Gurges went on a vacation”. Interesting fact: one of the items which took longer than expected to arrive were the small napkins that Mauro Fabricci wrote the wager on. Another fun fact: Orsi loves writing with ink-pens and she hand wrote all those napkins. During this time she learnt how inconsistent her letters are, and she re-learned how to write the small “o”, so that all the players would have a chance at reading what’s on the napkins. It is funny how that small sheet has this letter 7 times!!!
All the names in the game are made up, however, we did try to choose names which belong to the region around Florence. During our research we found out, that it is a common thing to have family names ending with “cci”, so that is what we did for both the main families of this game.
If you have played our previous games as well you might have noticed that in this game we have many custom cut pieces (for the first time!!!). Well, we have used a Cricut machine to help with the production. As helpful as that machine is, using the right tools for it (blades, sticky mats, etc.) can make or break game production. We had to go through significant amount of testing until we got everything running smoothly. It was a frustrating, but absolutely rewarding adventure, especially when we saw the cute little Chianti bottles. Orsi felt very proud of herself, until every two hours or so she messed up something with the cuts. But all in all, she now considers herself a “Blurble Level Cricut Master Chopper and Designer” (yup: that is the EXACT title she uses for herself).
Sticky pads used to cut out the little holes on the invitation cards 
Where many of the little holes ended up. We still find them in other parts of the house
Do you indulge in an occasional sip of alcohol? Orsi likes wines (as you might have seen on the Behind the Mastermind interview), while Anuj likes to keep his head clear, so that he can remember and tell the stories of all the crazy things Orsi says and does while under the influence. One of the wines Orsi adores comes from Tuscany, and it made its way even into this game: the Chianti. We are not real connoisseurs of wine, so we only got to learn about it at one of the restaurants in Florence on our first visit. A lovely, fruity, tart, and YES, ever so slightly fizzy wine (not even remotely close to a sparking wine). We loved learning about its history, which too made it into the game. We knew we wanted to make a puzzle with it, but there is a limit to what all you can do in a paper based game. Shaping the history lesson into a math puzzle seemed like a good idea. We try to put a math puzzle in each of our games, for those who enjoy them. But we love all our puzzlers, so we also solve the math in a hint for those who don’t feel like calculating so much. Which group are you part of?
Just a little blooper for you: most of this puzzle was designed by Orsi. We both played through it (with prototypes) and did the math MULTIPLE times, to make sure it works. Then we sent the bottles to print, then cut them with our dear Cricut, and properly play-tested it. It was then that we figured out, that while we did put the overall amount of wine produced of that particular bottle on the label, we did not say what that amount was. With everything printed, we had to be sneaky about it. That is how Poppy “notices” these labels in the game’s audio narration. It made no sense to get new prints and waste the ones we already had. Sometime environmentally friendly means adding sign-postings for the puzzles wherever it’s still possible.
Since we are talking about this puzzle, let us share another trivia with you. Did you notice the piece of bread on the dinner table? Well, that was a little easter egg hidden in plain sight by Anuj. The bread in Tuscany is produced (drumroll) without salt! There are many theories why this is the case, but the most colorful (and least likely to be the real cause) is the rivalry between Florence and Pisa. The story goes, that Pisa cut off the only way salt was transported to Florence, which caused the locals to retaliate by making bread without salt. Whatever the reason is, even today the bread is made without it. Which makes it ideal to be savored with some olive oil and salt, or it can easily be incorporated in many recipes like Panzanella (bread salad) in the summer or Ribollita (soup) in the colder seasons. Give them a try if you get a chance!
What did you think of the key puzzles? Did you notice the funny shapes of the round ends of the keys? Well, the original idea was TOTALLY different, and ultimately, at one of the puzzle tests it was 100% rewritten to make the game more playable. We always feel somewhat sad when we need to deviate from a puzzle idea which felt awesome in our minds, but ultimately we need to make sure that the players can actually solve, and hopefully even enjoy the game. But, we’ll let you in on a small design secret: using only the yellow, brown, green and purple keys (so NOT the red, and NOT the blue) you can lay them over each other in whatever order you like, and if you then hand the stack to someone they will be able to tell the order without moving the keys. Those funny shapes were the result of a long night designing keys that always leave enough of a peephole for what is underneath to come through, but also have enough surface to be seen where they are. The red and blue key were made “just like that”, to make the CIAO connection a bit harder to figure out, but ultimately came handy in the second puzzle with the keys. We think that the red one looks like a Spiderman / Deadpool face, the blue one almost looks like a Death Star from Star Wars, and if you use your imagination you might even see an Enterprise-like ship (Star Trek) in the brown key. Can you see the resemblance?
Just stacks of the invitations threaded through 
Assembly line for the invitations. Everything is strictly organized!
We thought we were pretty sneaky packing things *inside* the invitations. How hard did you find to figure out that you had to look into them? We hope you liked our hiding space. But this mechanic brought a non-paper element into our games, which we really try to avoid. Of course, we made a puzzle with them as well, so that they would serve a purpose, other than ‘pretty’. But, we also came up with some ways to recycle the ribbons! Just some of the few ideas we had are: cat-toy, decoration for hair braids, ribbons for gift-wrapping, or make friendship bracelets with them. If you decide to shorten the ribbons, we suggest you hold the new endings above a flame for a second or two to seal off the edges. That way the thread won’t start running ever. But make sure you keep it above, and not in the flames of the fire, otherwise the ribbon will look charred (Orsi learned that the hard way…). And PLEASE, do not burn yourself! What other ideas do you have for the ribbons? Should we make a raffle of cat-toys made with our leftover ribbons?…
The puzzle within the library was also the result of our stay at the Castello di Ferrano. We were lucky enough to get a tour of the full castle, and we saw the living room with tall ceiling, lots of coats of arms, and a shelf full of books which looked as old as the castle itself (the small picture on the right in the Sonnburg Post was actually taken in that room). It was magical, and we hope we managed to make you feel special as well with the mood we set in the Inside the Library puzzle. But as a disclosure: if there *is* a secret chamber in the Castello di Ferrano we have not (yet) been told about it.
Prototype of the crossword puzzle 
One step closed to the final version
One of the many things we learned while producing this game is that burning paper doesn’t really make the paper looked burned. And also: paper does not stop burning when you blow the flame out on it (the ember keeps consuming the paper a few seconds more). Orsi was especially sad, when she saw that the flames completely consumed the paper, and didn’t just leave a “charred look”. But still, to us it makes sense to do this extra step to show that the upper half of the deed was hidden in the castle while Erico’s father set it on fire to get insurance money for it (did you figure out that subtle detail?…). Our living room where we do the burning of paper looks absolutely horrific with fine dust everywhere, and the table we work on (as well as the floor) always need to get a wet cleaning once we are done with all the pyrotechnic work.
UPDATE to the paper burning notes: Sometimes necessity brings out the best results. When you are burning tens of pages (>100), you notice that each page takes up simply too much time to burn, and bundle multiple (3-5) pages together to burn them. AMAZING results! Orsi was happy to see that most of the sheets actually got the ‘brown scorched’ look along the burn sites that she was so dearly missing. So: if you want to make your paper look *really burnt* optically, bundle multiple of them together. However, it will really stink like a fire that cannot start up in your house, so maybe do it on your balcony / in the garden if you can…
If you have played our other games (or you are the one person who contacted us about a premium gift-wrap packing for one) then you must know by now, that we love wax seals in our games. We enjoy making them so much, that we try to add them to any game where it makes sense. In case you didn’t know, the shape of the seal used in this game is called the Florentine Lily, and it has been the symbol of Florence for a very VERY long time. And the seal? It came from Florence itself, from a little shop close to the Palazzo Vechio. From the same place we bought notebooks as well, which also got integrated in the game. These are the small sheets with the intricate, gold embellished design, hidden in one of the invitations. They are actually the pages of notebooks, and we have to tear each page out in order to be able to print the puzzle on them – so some of the pages might still have small remains of the glue on the top. Depending on which game you got, the design on the sheet will either be green (Orsi’s favorite) or blue (Anuj’s choice).
Orsi loves making wax seals! 
The little notebooks we bought from Florence
What did you think of our multi-layer puzzles? We feel like single level puzzles are usually not challenging enough and sometimes can be process heavy (e.g.: decrypting long messages), so we like to make at least some of the puzzles in each game multi level. Meaning you solve a puzzle, which lets you solve another puzzle. And this can go on, until you finally reach the result that is the answer to opening your next envelope. We personally loved how the invitations gave you the time and place of the dinner party (a three-step puzzle), how the 4 Chianti bottles gave you the code to open the library door (four-step puzzle) or how you had to use the ribbons to get the code that opened the Refuge (four-step puzzle). Did YOU enjoy these puzzles? Should we include more multi-layers in our future games, or should we just focus on the simple, single-step ones which are easy to solve?
We promised we’d make our games stand alone, and we think we did our best with this one, in spite of leaving the epilogue of this game on a cliffhanger (another first for us). We thought that those who only want to solve the puzzles would in any case not click the epilogue button, while those who are invested in the stories as well would probably buy the next game in any case. But don’t worry: we will make the 6th game spoiler free, and we’ll also make sure that you can play it out of order, and without the need to know any of the previous games.
In case you are still reading on, we’d like to reward you with a couple of pictures of the props we made for this game, but ultimately didn’t make it into the end product. Orsi had a most relaxing afternoon painting 4 pictures, which were supposed to be scattered in the castle. At the end of the game you were supposed to figure out that they form another bigger picture, which was the map of the Castle’s full property.
The 4 paintings 
Literally the greater picture 
The first version of the foldable castle. This could fit in your palm 
Our favorite version of the foldable castle 
The inside of the foldable castle, with 3 puzzle prototypes on it 
Real-life inspiration for one of the doors of the prototype 
Design for the family Coat of Arms 
First attempt at cutting the holes on the invitations 
The first version of the small paper with cuts was not small, and had a shield on it
Since we knew we wanted the game to take place in a castle since long ago, we had an ingenious idea for getting rid of the envelopes, and making the game be it’s own gates – if that makes sense. We made a cute little design, that we just LOVED to play with. We think that the moment you enjoy and are vested in the story, the puzzles come flowing, and the story almost writes itself. Notice how we technically have the bases for 3 of our puzzles on the larger foldable castle prototype? The wine bottles, the flags hanging from the windows, and the 4 white sheets from the invitations which you could assemble in a specific pattern. As we said: prototypes, but hey: you need to start with something. Btw: the door on the right of the foldable castle was 100% based on a beautiful door we found in Brescia (also in Italy).
How do you like our idea for the foldable castle? Would you like to play a game with one of these? Should we consider making a Christmas Special with something similar?
Would you like the see what the full assembly line looks like for this game? In spite of the significant help we get from the Cricut machine, this is probably still the most tedious and most attention requiring game we have made so far… So if you are grumbling to yourself while repacking this game, know that we do the same, just many, many more times 😉
Well, this is it: you reached the end of the “behind the scenes”. Congratulations!!! And a huge thank you once again, for playing our games! We hope you enjoyed it, and we hope that you will come back to see what happens in our next game: Scattered Thoughts – our last game for Season one.
We love to hear back from our players, so if you have any thoughts that you want to share with us, please do not hesitate! 🙂
Until next time, stay safe and healthy! And may truth be revealed to you through knowledge and perseverance.
