One final important note is that you will not be able to follow every lead card for a case, and you will not get a perfect score at the end of each case. Most cases require overtime to solve, and this reduces your final score. Study an enormous illustration to answer a series of questions in this Where’s Wally? style game. Carefully looking for clues across the game's map is the key to succeeding at MicroMacro: Crime City. Any amateur sleuth who has played Cluedo – called Clue in the US - knows it just doesn’t cut it when it comes to being a good detective board game. Players want juicy mysteries, to piece together clues on a big whiteboard with pieces of red string and have a flip-up notebook at hand. Best detective board games Detective” relies heavily on the Antares web app, a “detective database” which players will interact with to bring up transcripts of interviews with suspects, search the data of said suspects and also compare fingerprints that are found at the crime scene (it is a string of digits and characters that make up the fingerprints and material data so you can compare them to evidence). All the information is obtained using the number system that is also used with the cards so navigating the game and the app is no problem at all. Different from the original is that players will have one day to solve the crime presented by the case. They do this by choosing a lead card to investigate each round. This will involve spending some time, the game’s main resource. Each lead will take anywhere from 1-3 hours of your day. The card will then give you information in the form of an interview with a suspect or witness, examining a location, or other forms of police work. Occasionally a card will let you “dig deeper” by spending a skill token. This lets you flip over the card for extra information that may or may not be relevant to your investigation.

This aside, we both had a fantastic time playing Detective and having completed most of the cases, we are definitely looking forward to the new ones that are due to be released soon! Detective Conclusion Another interesting thing about Detective is that certain pieces of information are marked with a “wifi symbol,” meaning you can do your own research on them. Google, Wikipedia, Google Maps, etc are all fair game. In one scenario, I spent a good amount of time browsing streets and rivers in Virginia looking for information. The game comes with 5 cases, all linked together in an overall campaign. Deception Murder in Hong Kong allows players to step into the role of investigator by giving them the tools to hunt down a killer hidden amongst a bunch of innocents. Taking place in the city of Hong Kong, each player will take it in turns to try to locate the murder weapon and a key piece of evidence, before tying both to the murder.

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Also, on the Lead cards, you may find evidence such as fingerprints, DNA, or trace material such as soil samples. The Lead card will show which it is along with a signature code. Again, you will log in to the Antares database, go to the Signatures section, and choose the type of evidence you’ve collected. I managed to play this at Tabletop Gaming Live and took on a case which tasked us to find the killer, the motive and also various other details that were perhaps deemed irrelevant while working the case (I loved this element as it kept us on our toes and pushed us to really dig into the case files, like real detectives). What’s in the Box?

This is a work of fiction - the story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased) or products is intended or should be inferred. The central mystery is genuinely fascinating, and gains a real-world intrigue from Detective’s welcome sprinkling of real life into its fiction – at points, you’ll find yourself using Google Maps to identify possible crime scenes, browsing Wikipedia to swot up on World War II divisions that characters belonged to and solving riddles with little more than a search engine and your intuition. The game isn’t punishing if you’re anything less than Poirot – there are enough helpful hints to at least nudge you in the right direction – but working for the answers for real makes solving each case a thoroughly rewarding few hours.There are a few other roles that you can only include if you have enough players, such as the Witness and the Accomplice. The Witness starts the game with the knowledge of who the murderer is. But what they don’t know is how the murder was carried out. This may seem like a huge advantage, but if the killer discovers the witness then they can win the game by pointing them out at the end. The accomplice knows as much as the murderer does and can be a fantastic ally in throwing off the scent from certain pieces of evidence. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong takes the best elements of the murder mystery board game and expands them into a great social deduction game. For the game play mechanics, each lead you want to investigate will cost you time, usually ranging from 1-3 hours. Once the end of the work day hits (8am-4pm), any further actions will cost you overtime, which gives players stress markers. Too much stress and the game ends prematurely. The investigators then head out to the local pub to drown their sorrows in booze I imagine. Finally, open the Casebook to Case 1 and read the introduction. At the end of the introduction story, the game will tell you if any additional setup is needed for this story. Often this includes adding reminder tokens to the board and stress tokens to the pool. Game Play This board game tells rich stories - stories you will participate in. Let's hope that you will be able to deduce the end, before there is another crime... The game will challenge you with five different cases. Seemingly unconnected at first, they will unveil an immersive meta-plot based on facts and fiction alike. When I first heard about Detective, the premise sounded like a breath of fresh air to the classic “who-dunnit” genre. Having to use actual detective skills and the fact the game even suggested that players write EVERYTHING down had my interest peaked! Far too many detective-style games try to lead the player to an outcome or try to guide the story too much and this is an instant turn off for that genre in my opinion. “Detective” on the other hand promised a completely “free” experience, one which would have an outcome very different for each player, depending how good of a detective they are.

As well roles of investigator and killer, there are other identities in this social deduction game too, as the heart of the game lies in the roles everyone is given and how they are played. If you’re randomly assigned the role of the Forensic Scientist, you essentially become the game master for that round. The Forensic Scientist must do their best to lead the other investigators to the correct set of evidence laid out in front of everyone. However, this won’t be easy as that player cannot speak, point or generally cast suspicion upon anyone directly. What’s especially fun about this game is that, unlike others social deduction games where if you’re identified as the antagonist you’re pretty much out of the game, Deception allows the murderer to stay in the game regardless of whether or not the other investigators know their identity. The outcome of the game all falls down to whether or not the investigators have found the murder weapon and key evidence, otherwise the killer goes free. Final Score: 4.5 Stars – A more streamlined version of the original Detective that lets players focus on the fun and moves the rest to the side.And then there is the Antares Database. Some people still scoff at using any kind of technology in their board game (which they really just need to get over and embrace the greatness of it), but the database in Detective is a big part of the charm of the game. I felt like a real detective following leads, matching evidence, reading personal files and interrogation transcripts (which even show the stress level of the person talking). One link will often lead to another, letting you follow a breadcrumb trail of clues. A nice little mechanic that is used is the simple timeline, most events taking up a specified amount of time, the players allowed to work at any time of day, but be warned, work any longer than eight hours and you will start working OVERTIME. Each case, the players are given overtime tokens and each hour of overtime worked means one spent token. Run out of tokens and the detectives run themselves into the ground and you fail the case. Overall, it is safe to say that Detective really tries something different for the crime game genre. It really tests players while also providing an enjoyable experience for all and a real sense of achievement at the end, provided you have actually worked out who was responsible! If you are looking for a game that a is a little different from the norm and will keep you engaged over a period of time then Detective is definitely a game for you try! In Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, you are detectives trying to unravel the mystery. In this section, we’ll go through HOW you do that. Leads Finally, the five cases in Detective are played out over a linked campaign. While you can play with anyone for any of the games you really are going to want the same group as one case leads into the next. The story definitely gets more interesting as it progresses, however I will admit that there is a LOT going on in the story. My only gripe here is that if you take time off from the game, there is not much in the way of a refresher for what happened in the past cases. Players will need to take copious amounts of good notes. You might find plot cards during a case that are added to a future case helping to link all the stories together. Final Thoughts: