About The 23:47 Dispatch
London, October 1896. A dead-letter envelope holds a newspaper clipping, a pawn ticket and a photograph of a stopped watch, and hidden inside them is the combination to a locked dispatch box. The 23:47 Dispatch is a side case of The Fog Lane Murder, the free browser demo from CouchEscape, and it shows how a printable escape room works in the time it takes to make a cup of tea.
It is deliberately short: three clue cards, one four-figure combination, 10 to 15 minutes for most players. One person can solve it alone, and two makes it faster because you can split the cards. If you are hosting more people, print a set each and race; the combination is the same. The PDF is free, but the page asks for an email address to unlock the download link. There are no hints in the file.
How to play in one minute
- Enter your email on the page, download the PDF and print it on one sheet of A4.
- Cut out the three clue cards along the dashed lines.
- Solve them in order: a shift cipher, a penny-and-shilling sum and the stopped watch.
- Combine the four figures into the combination; the sheet tells you when you are right.
- To go further, the full Fog Lane Murder continues free in the browser for two players, about 30 minutes.
What’s in the PDF
- One A4 sheet with the three clue cards.
- Black and white printing is fine; nothing depends on colour.
- You need scissors for the cards and a pen for the sum.
In the PDF
- newspaper clipping card
- pawn ticket card
- coroner's photograph card
