1940s wartime Britain

Homefront Heroes

Crack the entrance puzzles, learn the password, and decide which side of the wartime black market you're on.

Players: Solo or small group
Solve time: About 90 minutes — 3 hours
Setting: 1940s wartime Britain
Ages: 14+

£12 VAT included

£1.90 UK shipping, free over £75
Hand-packed in Grimsby
14-day returns

The box

Wartime Britain. Rationing has bitten, the lights are out, and a clandestine network is moving stolen goods through the back streets of every town with a station. To get inside the operation you'll need to crack their entrance puzzles and recite the password — and once you're in, the choice is yours. Bring the ringleaders down, or take a quiet slice of the profits.

Every card in the box is a stand-alone puzzle that feeds into the master answer. Pass them around the table, work in parallel, and meet in the middle with the password assembled. Solo players can take the slow road through — experienced puzzlers usually solve it in around 90 minutes, newcomers typically need a couple of long evenings.

Homefront Heroes puzzle mystery box cover

Inside the box

What's in the box

Every box is hand-packed in Grimsby. Here's what you'll find when you lift the lid.

A deck of interlocking puzzle cards

Hand them around the table or work through them solo.
An entrance password to assemble

Solve every card and the password reveals itself.
Sealed solutions

Held back until you're ready to check your work.

A fan of wartime puzzle cards — Churchill barracks orders, ration coupons, a classified file and coded messages — beside the string-tied Homefront Heroes envelope

Before you buy

Common questions

I'm new to Cosykiller — where should I start?

Start with An Inheritance of Murder. It's our gentlest case, built for puzzle-minded beginners — Braille, letter-to-symbol substitutions and one-time cipher pads. The Secret of Site Q is the step up: a longer, cross-referencing investigation that's challenging but solvable. Shadows in the Gallery is our most advanced case, layering Playfair, knock code and Caesar ciphers across a post-war art theft — do it once you've worked one of the others.

How old do you need to be to play?

Cosykiller is written mainly for adults, but families can participate together. Every case is rated 14+ for themes of murder, and Shadows in the Gallery touches on wartime violence and post-war trauma, so we'd steer younger players towards An Inheritance of Murder first.

What's inside a Cosykiller box?

It varies by case, but every box contains a cover letter from Fairhall & Brett Inheritance Recovery — the fictional investigators who brief you on the case — followed by the documents like photographs, ciphers, maps, letters, military archives, telegrams, postcards, and other personal effects collected during the investigation. Some cases include dried botanicals, spices, theatre programmes and small physical objects. Each case is a complete story, with the final solution provided at the end. Nothing to download or sign into.

How long does it take to solve a case?

2-4 hours for our single box solves, and between 6-11 hours for some of our longer games. Length of time also depends on the number of players, and how much you like to re-read and how quick you are at spotting and solving ciphers. Most people spread a case over two or three evenings. You can pause whenever you like — put the lid back on, come back next weekend. Nothing expires.

Can I play solo, or do I need a group?

Both work well. Every case is designed to be solvable on your own — no mechanic depends on a second reader. That said, two to four players is where a case shines, because half the fun is arguing civilly about motive over a drink.

I'm stuck on a code — what do I do?

If you become totally stuck on a code, check out the <a href="https://fairhallandbrett.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">inheritance hunter's website</a> or join the online community where other detectives swap ideas (link included with your order). If you need one on one help then email <a href="mailto:supersleuth@cosykiller.com">supersleuth@cosykiller.com</a> with your case number and the document you're stuck on and we'll help without spoiling things for you.

All questions

Ready?