Game: Escape From Mystwood Mansion
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Windows (Steam and Epic Store))
Developer | Publisher: Lost Sock Studio
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $16.99 | UK £14.29 | EU € 16,49
Release Date: March 19th, 2025
Review code used, with many thanks to Lost Sock Studio.
Escape From Mystwood Mansion is the debut game for Swedish indie developers Lost Sock Studio. It promises mystery and puzzles in an escape room format.
Will I be able to Escape From Mystwood Mansion or will I be trapped… forever!
Delivery for Mystwood Mansion!
You take on the role of a delivery driver with a package for Mystwood Mansion. Approaching the main doors, the only option is to knock. You get your first glimpse inside the mansion as the doors mysteriously open, but no one is inside to receive the parcel.
You see a note on the table just inside the entrance, and it seems addressed to you. As you read it, you realise that you are trapped inside the mansion and that the only way to Escape From Mystwood Mansion is to decipher the codes and solve the puzzles.
The note encourages you to rotate it and read the code on the reverse, which will unlock the briefcase on the side table to your right. Inside the briefcase is a key and blueprint to a hidden button, but where is that hidden button?
And so, your quest to Escape From Mystwood Mansion begins.
Puzzling Your Way to Escape From Mystwood Mansion
You should not assume that all the puzzles will be as easy as the solution being written on the back! The entrance hall puzzles give you an introduction to the kind of processes you will need going forward: look everywhere, find the key or code, inspect and rotate objects, and some puzzles will require multiple actions to solve them.
Throughout the mansion, you might have to match shapes/symbols to position items correctly, use the braille alphabet or Morse code to translate a word, and use a bit of math to work out volumes. As a puzzle game, I do not wish to give too much away; however, you will find all the information you need, as long as you look thoroughly!
If you do get stuck, then Escape From Mystwood Mansion has a built-in hint system. The clues are not locked behind a cool-off period, and there is no penalty for reading them. Even if you don’t want to read the clue, just looking to see what the puzzle symbol is will give you a hint as to where to start in a room. The hints are dynamic, so once you’ve solved the puzzle, the hints vanish, leaving just the unsolved puzzle clues.
Tread Carefully in Mystwood Mansion
There are 5 main puzzle rooms, and if you can find the three secrets, then there is a bonus room to enjoy. Each area of the mansion is a separate entity; you cannot return to a previous area to collect anything. Escape From Mystwood Mansion autosaves when you enter a new area. If you quit before completing an area, you will need to redo all the puzzles you solved when you continue. However, if you can remember any of the codes, you can enter them straight away.
The entrance hall doesn’t take too long to complete, less than 30 minutes. However, the other rooms took just over an hour each. Maybe I was a bit slower than most, and perhaps I should have checked the hints sooner!
Although Escape From Mystwood Mansion is only a game, I feel it’s worth noting a couple of aspects which could be a trigger. There are surveillance cameras in all the rooms of Mystwood Mansion, which follow you around. You are being watched, but nothing sinister will happen from this. In the wine cellar, there is a very realistic black-and-white print of a spider, which needs to be moved and (unfortunately) can’t be placed upside down! Also, in the cellar, there is a message of desperation about being trapped and unable to escape.
Gameplay
Escape From Mystwood Mansion is a first-person adventure; however, there are several sensitivity settings around camera and cursor movement to make the experience pleasant. Most of the time, especially with the lock dials, there is no need to line up the numbers/letters exactly, the game will move to the closest one. Generally there was plenty of leeway on selecting items, it was just a couple of occasions, where you need to be more precise and reducing the cursor speed certainly helps with that.
The controls are straightforward and generally given on-screen, with the cursor changing as you move over items that can be interacted with. The only control I struggled with initially was altering the numbers/letters on the locks. Some of them work by selecting the appropriate highlighted dial; the highlight disappears, allowing the dial to be moved with the left stick. In others, the highlight remains, and the dial is moved by pressing the interact button.
Escape From Mystwood Mansion plays very smoothly in both docked and handheld modes. The text is generally large enough to read on the handheld screen, but there is no touchscreen functionality. The music is delightful – a light pleasant tune. Although I thought the graphics were brilliant, several rooms are quite dark in colouring and as with most games, any glare on the screen can make it difficult to spot clues and items.
There is only one save slot, which is automatically overwritten when selecting a level or starting a new game. There is no time of day in Escape From Mystwood Mansion, and there are about 4 to 6 hours of gameplay – it really depends on the use of hints and general puzzle-solving ability! Once you know how to solve the problems, you can speed-run the whole game in about 40 minutes.
Conclusion
Escape From Mystwood Mansion is an extremely satisfying and well-rounded puzzle adventure. There is a good mix of puzzles and codes to decipher, varying in difficulty, but with the built-in hint system, nothing is frustrating.
For anyone who enjoys escape room scenarios, then Escape From Mystwood Mansion will surely be a winner.
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up 
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