“Contained within these volumes is a secret many great people have devoted their entire lives to unearthing, and always in vain. It is a secret I would have taken with me to the grave, except that it is, in more ways than one, our family’s legacy, and thus rightfully belongs with you…”
Inspired by the life of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, Mother of Frankenstein is divided across three games or “volumes” of the story, offering 1-6 players between 10 and 15 hours of puzzles to solve, 2D and 3D jigsaws to construct, gorgeous documents to parse, and mysterious artifacts to examine, all wrapped up in a shocking reconception of the true story behind Shelley’s famous monster.
MoF was designed by New York Times bestselling novelist Tommy Wallach and Terry Pettigrew-Rolapp, the duo behind Hatch Escapes and LA Magazine’s #1 escape room in Los Angeles, “Lab Rat”. It is being produced by Prodigal, lead producers of Grammy-winning and fifteen-time Tony nominated Jagged Little Pill and TV Series Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. The game was conceived by Wallach, Pettigrew-Rolapp, and Arvind Ethan David of Prodigal.
First launched on Kickstarter September 2020, the game raised nearly $250,000 and will deliver to backers before the retail release in 2022.
The game tells the story via “The Shelley Volumes,” three collections of puzzles by Mary Shelley to her son, Percy Shelley, as a means of conveying to him a great secret.
In Volume Two, Mary and Percy proceed to Castle Frankenstein, where Mary learns the unholy art of reanimation. In Volume Three, players will build an enormous 3D model of Castle Frankenstein and use it to solve the last batch of puzzles and reveal Mary’s dark secret.