The year is 1963. The steady hum of fluorescent lights fills your office at the 43rd precinct, where the morning paper screams of another killing in bold black headlines. Another body has been found, the third this month, and the press is calling it the work of the "Twilight Killer." Each victim meticulously staged, each crime scene a twisted theater of clues, and each one had a motive.

Intent to Kill is a two player game that pits the Detective versus the Murderer in a game of logical deduction. The game board, a grid representing city blocks, serves as the killer's hunting ground. The Detective must identify which of the twenty civilians is the murderer and uncover their motive. The motive is one of six random cards and this motive enforces the conditions the Murderer player must follow to kill their victims.

Conditions such as all the victims have been the same gender, all of them in different social groups, or no more than two different age brackets. Every civilian has several traits associated with them: social group, gender, age bracket, build, and height. By questioning the civilians, you can narrow down the suspect. By observing the victims, including where they died, you might see a pattern of the Murderer’s motive.

That’s the ground floor of Intent of Kill.…

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A few years back after discovering Todd Sanders’ latest work (Pulp Invasion), I was looking into this game designer and discovered that he had designed a game around the old Gumshoe genre.

[caption id="attachment_307620" align="aligncenter" width="600"] I need a card in this game that lets me play as Rigby Reardon.[/caption]

I loved it! I searched around and I located the base game for Pulp Detective, all three expansions, the slip-cover to hold all of the boxes together (like a set of books), and the puzzle-piece playing board for the combined experience.

This game (and Pulp Invasion) came about after Mr. Sanders acquired the rights to a whole bunch of pulp magazine covers and interior illustrations. In other words, this is the real deal! These are not modern artists mimicking the pulp era styles, these are authentic pulp era pieces. And they are beautiful!

Just the facts, ma’am!

In Pulp Detective, you are a gritty private eye (or detective, or socialite avenger, etc.) who is hot on the case of some nefarious crime that has been committed. You have a day (or sometimes less!) to find the clues, solve the crime, and confront the culprit what did it!

The game is about playing your odds and hedging your bets. But…

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“...and the playtime clocks in at about three, maybe four hours.”

I snapped out of my dream-like state as I listened to the overview of Guilty: Houston 2015 (2024, IELLO) while standing with other media members at the IELLO presentation at SPIEL 2023. One look at the box and the format—a one-shot, cooperative card-driven murder mystery game which can be fully reset and aligns with many of the games I have reviewed over the last four years—and I was pre-sold on IELLO’s approach.

But, “three, maybe four hours?”

That timing felt too long. Most of the game series I have covered for Meeple Mountain that fit the one-shot/escape room/mystery games, such as Suspects, Cold Case, Unsolved Case Files, Alibi: 3 Intricate Mysteries, echoes, and so many other properties, play in anywhere from an hour to maybe two hours in duration. Guilty: Houston 2015 was threatening to double that.

I immediately thought about how to sell this to my fellow lead investigator at home—my wife—given that the game would definitely be a Friday night date activity that we couldn’t start until 9 PM, after the kids go to bed.

Ultimately, she stepped up to the plate because she knows that you, dear reader, need to know if Guilty: Houston 2015 is a trip worth…

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Sequels and reboots don't always pan out, but sometimes they are necessary to right the wrongs of the past and move forward in a positive way. The original Mysterium remains one of my top deduction games, but Mysterium Park has, by and large, replaced it thanks to simplified mechanics and a better ending. Let's check out my review.

Mysterium Park Overview

In Mysterium Park, players assume the roles of Psychics who are investigating the tragic disappearance of the former director of a mysterious funfair, while one player takes on the guise of the Ghost of the late director. Over the course of three rounds, the Ghost guides the Psychics to identify the innocent bystanders and potential scenes of the crime while whittling these down to determine the culprit. If the Psychics and Ghost are on the same page, the director will finally have peace.

It's no easy feat, however, as the Ghost can only communicate through the use of Vision cards. These cards are fanciful, filled with abstract imagery and compositions that are reminiscent of a fever dream. They are miraculously expected to give these cards to the Psychics to guide them towards specific cards in the tableau. And, somehow, it works!

This is a cooperative game in…

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“DADDY! You got the next Exit Advent game?”

My daughter got excited when I brought the box up from the game closet to our kitchen island. That’s where last year’s entry, Exit: The Game—Advent Calendar: The Hunt for the Golden Book, lived for about three weeks as we worked through the 24 puzzles in that edition.

Our family thought The Hunt for the Golden Book was the best Exit game we have ever played, and maybe the best escape room / one-shot deduction puzzles we have yet tried. As I noted in my review, it is perfect for solo players or families who want a minor challenge spread across a number of 15-to-30-minute exercises for the brain.

Sure, the story behind The Hunt for the Golden Book was only OK. But all I need is a proper setup before diving into a puzzle, and that game had it. Exit: The Game—Advent Calendar: The Silent Storm (technically a 2022 release, but we got it during the summer of 2023 from our partners at KOSMOS) sets up another holiday mystery complete with interesting ways to solve a series of riddles.

If you have questions about how the Exit Advent games play, feel free to peruse my review of The Hunt for the Golden Book from last year. How did…

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11:57

I cannot stand the social deduction game Werewolf, nor its dominant variant One Night Ultimate Werewolf. In both, players are assigned secret roles as the denizens of the unfortunate village where the events take place. Perhaps you will be the Troublemaker, swapping player roles while others sleep, or the Insomniac, who wakes up in the middle of the night to check their role. You may well be the werewolf, terrorizing the town and ripping innocents to shreds.

The goal of the game depends on your role, but most of the villagers want to figure out who the werewolf is and execute them. The game alternates between Days, when players discuss and accuse and vote to execute, and Nights, when players close their eyes and specific individuals are prompted to perform actions corresponding to their roles. One player is the Narrator, a thankless position that has been replaced in recent years by an app, who times the Days and leads the other players through the script for the Night phase.

Werewolf is extremely popular, and I’m happy for those who enjoy it. Just don’t make me play. There aren’t many games I would pass up…

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Please note that this review features no photographs, as there's nothing to photograph that wouldn't give something away.

Two Great Tastes Now Together

I don’t remember when I did my first escape room. I grew up doing all sorts of puzzles, so the idea of being locked away in a room that you cannot leave until you solve your way out, Saw movies aside, is pretty appealing. I’m competitive and work best under pressure, so the time limit imposed by escape rooms makes them all the more appealing.

I more or less remember the first time I read The Lord of the Rings. It was the summer of 2001, the year I would enter eighth grade. LotR mania had swept up the small middle school I attended, and I was desperate to finish the trilogy before The Fellowship of the Ring came into theaters. I liked the books. I would end up absolutely enamored with the movies.

I definitely remember the first and thus far only time I played Exit: The Lord of the Rings. Given that it was a little over a week ago, I’d be concerned if I didn’t. It’s one of the newest offerings in KOSMOS’s massively successful series of at-home escape room experiences.

Each little box contains a series of puzzles to navigate. Clues are…

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If I may, I’d like to begin by wading into unexpected waters. In mathematics, a combination is the term for a calculation to find the number of ways to choose a certain sized sample from a larger group. If you had three unique objects and you wanted to choose two of them, there are three possible ways to accomplish the goal. If you had ten objects and you wanted to choose four, the possibilities jump to 210. 

If you had 243 unique objects, and you wanted to choose 70, you would find an astronomical figure. A vigintillion, in fact. 1.3 x 10^62 to be exact. That’s a number that lingers somewhere between the utterly incomprehensible octillion and the even more impenetrable googol. I’m not sure who first coined the term astronomical for numbers beyond the scope of human understanding, but they were on to something. It’s hard enough to fathom one million of anything, let alone more—the scope reaches cosmic proportions.  

But I suppose you didn’t come here for math. You came here for murder. 

Awkward Guests was designed by Ron Gonzalo García and developed by the team at Megacorpin Games. Building on the tradition of classic whodunnit games like Clue and Mystery of the Abbey, Awkward Guests utilizes a deck of cards, a map, and a series of…

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I’m a big fan of ThinkFun, Inc. and their brain teaser family of games for all ages. Our family owns Rush Hour, Rush Hour Jr., Roller Coaster Challenge, and Zingo! 1-2-3, plus I’ve played a few other ThinkFun games when my kids have visited their friends’ homes.

Kids of all ages need games that stretch the mind, and even when helping my kids play a round of Rush Hour Jr., I sometimes need an extra minute or two (or five) to solve the current challenge at hand. I have been consistently impressed with their products, so when the opportunity came to preview ThinkFun’s new Cold Case series of games, I jumped at the chance.

The escape room/single-play mystery game field seems crowded to the point of possible oversaturation; the Exit: The Game product line, Unlock! from Space Cowboys, and many others are flooding the market with new ideas even as I push this review to publication. (We haven’t even mentioned that ThinkFun has their own series, Escape the Room, for larger groups too!)

Do the Cold Case games blaze a new trail or deepen a rich marketplace? Read on to learn about my spoiler-free experience with the first two games in the series.

[caption id="attachment_230543" align="alignnone" width="1920"]…

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Decktective: Nightmare in the Mirror is a small-box co-op mystery game that’s playable in under 2 hours. While it can only be played once, it can be reset for other would-be sleuths to use without any serious issues. The game itself consists of a box, a numbered deck of cards, and a handful of plastic clips. The deck will provide both instructions on how to proceed through the game as well as information about the case at hand. At the end, the players will be collectively scored on their understanding of the mystery, with points awarded for correct solutions. Can your group get all the possible points and crack the case? 

If you’ve already read our review of Decktective: Bloody-Red Roses, you’ll have an idea of what to expect from Nightmare…

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If they say that great things come in small packages, then it must be a good sign that MicroMacro: Crime City ships with an honest to goodness magnifying glass in the box. MicroMacro: Crime City combines the excitement of “finding Waldo” with the thrill of investigating unsolved crimes and bringing the perps to justice. This recent release from Pegasus Spiele and designer Johannes Sich won the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award in 2021. Let’s dive in and find out just why it took home board gaming’s top prize.

Overview

In MicroMacro: Crime City players solve cases by locating clues on an intricately detailed map of a fictional city. But it’s not just buildings you’ll find on this map, no; it’s people too! The illustrators Daniel Goll, Tobias Jochinke, and Johannes Sich have captured an entire city at its best, and worst. The map is so epic in its scale and scope that it’s almost bigger than an 8 year old.

Gameplay

At its heart, MicroMacro: Crime City is a “find it” style puzzle, the most famous of which is the Where’s Waldo franchise. Players receive a packet of cards which pose questions to the investigators (players).…

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Buy UNDO: 600 Seconds on Amazon.

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