Hunt A Killer:

Is It Worth It?

If you’ve been reading my stuff for any amount of time you know I tend to voice my opinion on just about anything….whether I love it or hate it.

So with that in mind, I’m starting up a new series I’m going to call: Is It Worth It?

Reviews can be a helpful resource when looking for the next thing or experience you want to buy but sometimes they feel too one sided because not all things we hate are all bad and not everything we love is without fault. I want to help answer the questions you might not realize you had about a product and go a little more in-depth into the pros and cons and let you make the call with as much info as possible.

Now on to our inaugural Is It Worth It review!

With Halloween around the corner and the gift giving season following so close behind I’ve got the perfect first Is It Worth It product.

If you’re into true crime or classic whodunnits you may have been targeted with Hunt A Killer ads and thought, hey…I’d love to solve a crime but my god is it expensive. Is it worth it?

For those unfamiliar, Hunt A Killer (HAK) is an episodic murder mystery game that gets delivered to your door each month for the length of the case (typically 5 -6  deliveries worth.) Each box is filled with a clues, letters, puzzles, and even, sometimes, related swag that are meant to help you solve the case. There’s also online videos and websites dedicated to each box set to help you feel fully immersed in the mystery. If you wrap up the current month’s box and want to dive right into the next part, you just have to let Hunt A Killer know and they’ll send your next episode out early.

HAK also has a storefront that sells box sets of past cases where you are able to get the whole case in one delivery and that’s what I did when I bought Jonathan a set for Christmas last year. The case I got was called “The Mine” which is one of HAK’s paranormal mysteries and, unbeknownst to me when I bought it, the most difficult one currently in their collection, a 5 out of 5 on the difficulty scale.

Initial thoughts? This is pretty fucking cool! In “The Mine” there were difficult deciphering puzzles to solve, a lot of interaction using a black light to find the codes you need, and a cool little experiment/ritual to do. We really loved “The Mine” box set and I thought it was worth the price tag of $140 at the time (it has since gone down to a slightly more reasonable $99.)

Due to the high cost of the box sets, we waited a few months before deciding to look for another mystery to solve but this time we went with the second season of their Blair Witch themed boxes (cause you know I love that movie) and I actually ended up going through Amazon for this one cause it cut the cost and the shipping by a decent amount…don’t kill me, ya girl has a budget. The difficulty on this box was a 4 out of 5 and included some elements that we liked most the first time around like having to backtrack through previous boxes clues and having difficult codes to crack.

But for our second time using Hunt A Killer, this Blair Witch season 2 box just felt too easy after working to solve the mystery of “The Mine.” The puzzles weren’t as hard to figure out and the Blair Witch lore was lacking. I did like listening to the voice recordings we had to find online and reading the blog and website of the podcast hosts you’ve been contacted by to help solve the case. There was also a map we had to physically fiddle around with to help us move on to the next part of the case that took some time and was interesting to figure out but overall, the Blair Witch season 2 box set and mystery were incredibly lackluster in my opinion.

So is HAK worth it?

The quality of the boxes can be pretty outstanding with some of the fun swag you get like keychains, statues, notebooks, etc. and as for time, we averaged 2-3 hours per box while working on “The Mine” and about 2 hours per box for Blair Witch season 2. But does that make the expensive price tag worth it? Eh.

I would suggest looking for a good sale price on older box sets through Hunt A Killer’s storefront or even on Amazon if you are interested in checking HAK out. But dropping anywhere from $130+ for one box set or up to $360 for an annual HAK membership isn’t worth it in my opinion, unless a group of you are going to go in on it together.

It’s also likely that my opinion on Hunt A Killer was tainted by accidentally going straight for the most difficult case in their collection. Once you’ve done something at the most challenging rating, anything less so is just not as fun or worth the money. If you like a challenge, the lesser than 5 rated box sets might not be enough for you. Though we didn’t do a 2 or 3 out of 5 difficulty box, I can only imagine it might be too easy for adults who regularly do puzzles or read mysteries since the level 4 difficulty was definitely easier for us after the challenge of the level 5 box set.

But if you’re obsessed with true crime documentaries, read mystery novels on the reg, and have always wanted to see if you have the skills to be an ace detective, then yeah, I think Hunt A Killer could be a really fun, exciting, and rewarding experience for you! Overall, my husband and I had a great time working together to figure out clues and it was satisfying when you finally figured out a difficult puzzle but sales are definitely your friend when it comes to the Hunt A Killer experience and making sure you pick a mystery that will be enough of a challenge for the group you’ll be working with is essential to your enjoyment and feeling like it’s worth it.

Have you ever purchased a Hunt A Killer subscription or box set before? Have you thought about checking one out? Share your thoughts and opinions on if you think it’s worth it in the comments below!