Unlock! – The Tonipal’s Treasure

The Tonipal’s Treasure is the third game in Unlock!’s mystery adventures box, and the sixth Unlock! game we’ve played overall. We have played the whole of the mystery adventures box in the last week. Unlock! games are predominantly card based with a companion app you need to enter codes into.

The treasure of Captain Smith, the greatest Caribbean pirate, is on Tonipal Island! You were on his trail when the Governor of the island had you arrested and thrown in a damp prison. Meanwhile, Johnson, the famous treasure hunter, is also on his way to Tonipal, determined to find the hoard before you. You have no choice but to escape, eliminate the competition and dig up the treasure!

It’s treasure hunt time, and you have to get there before the guy who has been asked to come across legitimately by the Governor of Tonipal, oh and to make it all better you are currently stuck in prison. So you need to break out of prison, deal with the more legitimate treasure hunter and find the treasure first, no big deal right 🤷🏻‍♀️

Game has a lot of areas which can be active at times, a bit like Nautilus (link) there can be a lot going on! This game felt like there were more puzzles to solve than other previous games in the series, and after all who doesn’t like a treasure hunt. You can also count on a pirates best friend making an appearance. Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum anyone 🏴‍☠️🍹? The game features all the things you would expect of a pirate themed game; treasure maps, prison dogs, a cutlass, an eye patch and locked chests.

The game starts off with an hour in the clock, and part way through we got more time added, now as I didn’t pay enough attention, I can not confirm how much time was added (I think it may have been about twenty minutes?)

This game made much greater use of the app than many of the previous Unlock! Games we’ve played. There were more machines to use, and some audio clues to some of the puzzles. There was a point where you had to choose your own adventure puzzle in the middle of the game. Some of the other puzzles had some good twists to them as well. There was even a point where you could not get penalised for not finishing a puzzle correctly which felt very generous of Unlock!

this game a bit more clever but at the same time slightly easier than Nautilus, it could be that we just hit it right with the harder puzzles, or that we learnt from the previous day how to deal with a lot of information at once. I think this game could be a great one to play for families, you could dress up as pirates, make yourself some nice rum cocktails for as you play and make an evening of it. I think you could play with up to 4 people, I wouldn’t want to play with more than 4 or there probably would not be enough for everyone to do (the caveat here is you can probably play with more than 4 if you are including kids in your player count.) Unlock! suggest up to 6 players for their games, which I think would impact on players individual enjoyment of the game. During lockdowns, these games have been a great way to keep ourselves entertained, and we love being able to lend them out to friends to help keep them sane as well!

We escaped in 67:57 minutes, which includes a 2 minute penalty for an incorrect code and we took 1 hint, which the app scored us at another 4/5 stars. I think the game is very comparable to The Nautilus’ Trap which is also in the same box. Give it a go and pass it on.

Overall 3/5

Difficulty 3/5

Atmosphere 2.5/5

Variety 3.5/5