Welcome to the start of Cooperative Adventure Month!  This month, we’ll talk about cooperative board games with a sense of adventure and discovery!  We begin this month with a game literally labelled with “An Adventure In A Box“: Starlings Box One!  Take a look below!

Starlings was a cooperative game on Kickstarter back in January 2023. It was advertised as The Starlings: A Graphic Novel Escape Room. I backed this, but it got lost in the mail! It probably should have arrived at my house in November 2023 (see kickstarter update #10): at that point it would have been about 3 months late. Anyways, I contacted the publisher: they were very understanding and sent me the box above!

Interestingly, there’s no player count, suggested, or time/length anywhere on the box or even inside. Just so you know, this is a light-hearted Escape Room aimed at a younger crowd with its “cute vibe”. The cover should be a good indication of whether or not you will like this game. In the end, I think Starlings is probably best for families, but if you don’t mind a lot of silliness, this light Escape Room game might be right up your alley.

Unboxing

This is mostly a box full of very bulky envelopes and a few leaflets.

The instruction leaflet sets the tone for this: this will be very silly! If you find yourself enjoying the the text of the intro leaflet (and the silliness and puns therein), I think you will love this game! Otherwise, you might want to bail now … it only gets sillier …

The coolest part of this game is the Graphic Novel!! It tells the story as you go through!

It’s definitely a kid’s comic book inside. See above. The art is nice and the word balloons quite readable. 

Since this is an Escape Room, you may get stuck on some puzzles, so there is a hint book. We only used it once (as we always seem to get stuck on (slight SPOILER) folding puzzles).

The bulk of the game is black envelopes with little symbols. When you get to a new chapter in the Graphic Novel, it will tell you to open one of these envelopes: the envelopes contain Escape Room puzzles!

This is a pretty neat looking game.

Gameplay

So, it’s hard to talk too much about this game without revealing too many spoilers. We will show some pictures of the game which might reveal something if you look too close, so don’t look too close!

The Graphic Novel controls the flow of the game (but see below).  The story comes out very linearly: there is no branching or “Choose Your Own Adventure” here.  You just read the Graphic Novel, get to the end of a chapter, open a envelope, solve the puzzle.  Repeat until you get to the end of the game!

There’s about 10 envelopes in here, and each envelope has a typical Escape Room puzzle … sort of. Most of the puzzles are simpler so a younger audience can enjoy them. We still had fun doing these puzzles even though we are all older. It’s an Escape Room! For a younger Audience! 

The main selling point is the Graphic Novel … at first. (We’re being enigmatic on purpose).

Legacy or Campaign Game?

Is this a Legacy or Campaign game?

Overall, it took about 2.5 hours to go through the whole game, so you can play it all in one sitting if you like (as long as you are using the video, see below). You can also just stop the game, and just restart from where you left of at a later date: it’s probably best to stop at chapter boundaries.

From a replayability perspective, you can put Starlings back together to a pristine state after you;ve played it all the way through, but you just have to be a little careful (as you play) to note which pieces came from which envelopes: there are no instructions on how how to reassemble this! So, it’s “kind of” a legacy game if you don’t take good notes! This is a resettable campaign as long as you take good notes: be aware before you play!!

Video Comics

Video Comics was a television series that aired on Nickelodeon from 1979 to 1981. The show would feature stories from various comic books, mainly DC Comics, narrated and with voices. – Nickelodeon Fandom Wiki

I used to watch this show (Video Comics) as a kid: they would show comic books, panel by panel, with voice narration.  I was introduced to Adam Strange, Green Lantern, Swamp Thing, and a whole raft of DC comics.  See what it was like above: watch a sample episode!

I loved this show!  But I haven’t seen anything like this since 1981 … until now.

Starlings Video

It’s very very very important (when you play) that you follow the link on the upper right side of the “ATTENTION” page! It takes you to a very long YouTube video … which is basically just Video Comics of the Starlings Graphic Novel!

All the text and panels that appear in the Starlings Graphic Novel are presented here in this very long video!

Just like Video Comics, this YouTube video takes you panel by panel through the graphic novel … with voice acting! The voice acting was actually pretty good! We all commented how well done this video was!

The game is “meant” for you to follow along with the Graphic Novel, but we absolutely loved and preferred following along with the the YouTube video instead!  We think the game would been twice as long had we just read the Graphic Novel as a group!  Even worse, we’d all have to crowd around the Graphic Novel as we read. No, this game is meant to be enjoyed using the Video Comics of the Starlings Graphic Novel!

By far the best way to enjoy this game is by watching the video and pausing it when you get to parts where you “do the puzzle!” 

We would watch the video, pause it to open an envelope, solve the puzzles, then unpause it to move on! We were lucky enough to watch the video on a big screen: we recommend that for you!

Solo Game

Intent on learning the rules, I sat down with the Starlings game, opened the box, read the first chapter of the Graphic Novel, … then stopped before the first puzzle. Theres no need to try this solo before showing your friends: Starlings is very straight-forward and you and your friends can just jump in. In fact, I think the game is much much more fun as a shared experience.

I think you can play this solo, and in fact it might be more fun to play solo if you don’t want the video!   If you are interested in consuming the Graphic Novel as a physical book in your hands, then solo is probably the best way to play!  With multiple people, it would be harder to share the experience of reading/consuming the physical Graphic Novel, as you all have to sit physically together behind the book! Unless that’s what you want: it’s more chummy to snuggle around the book and read it together … but I think you have to be close as a family or friends to do that.

Although you can play Starlings solo (which might be best for consuming the physical Graphic Novel), this game really is much more fun as a group.

Spoilers?

Here’s some pictures of us playing: they don’t necessarily reveal anything unless you look to closely, but they show the game a little bit.

Conclusion

This silly, made-for-younger-audiences, Escape Room game was one of the funnest nights we’ve had in a while! We were enchanted watching the Video Comics of the Starlings Graphic Novel! We laughed at the silly jokes and puns! We had fun with the puzzles when they came out (none were too hard)! Sara commented this was almost an activity since we were watching the Video and only had 10 puzzles.

Calling Starlings “just an activity” does it an injustice: the phrase on the cover captures the spirit of the game more than anything! This is An Adventure in A Box! Assuming you like the youngish silly vibe, we think you will absolutely love this journeying through this adventure. This is the funnest time we’ve had in a while!

If we had received Starlings in 2023, it should have made our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2023! It was so much fun. This is probably a 9/10 for everyone involved!

The cover says Box One: I hope they do more!

Appendix

Below is a video we took for one of the puzzles.  It gives away a lot about that puzzle, but it also shows how much fun we were having! So, only watch this if you are on the fence and want to see more about the game!