WBG Score: 9.5
Player Count:1 - ?
You’ll like this if you like: The Mystery Agency Games, Cantaloop, Unlock Series
Published by: The Mystery Agency Ltd.
Designed by: Henry Lewis
This is the reviewer's copy. See our review policy here
Here at What Board Game we love board games. We talk to publishers and designers about board games, review board games and write articles on board games all because we love talking to everyone out there about board games. So here is my new review... of a book.
How to solve a heist.
Open the book and read the instructions. They’ll tell you to cut out the first six pages of the book. Now once you’ve gotten over the horror of defacing a book AND a game, turn to the first page and get solving. The six pages contain blank information sheets for each of the eight suspects which you can fill in as you go through the game. Similarly, you'll find an incident report which you’ll fill in. Lastly There will be a map of the museum which, yeah you guessed it, you’ll populate as you play through the game.
Each double page spread will have some mix of pictures and story that may or may not aid your investigation but all of them will have a puzzle for you to solve. Solve the puzzle and move to the next page. Some parts will have locked door puzzles in which you’ll need to scan a QR code to take you to the puzzle in which you’ll need to enter the correct code to move on. If you don’t want to scan the QR code then the hints section will have a link to each one.
At this point I’ve played two of The Mystery Agencies games prior to this one. One of which I’ve reviewed here and the other Jim reviewed here. I really like both of these and they stand as some of my favourite puzzle games. I want you to know that so you have some context for when I tell you that this one is my favourite of the three. The big games from this company are brilliant and innovative and do some clever things with some beautifully produced components that I’ve not seen before. While none of those unique components are on display here, I think they've managed to pack just as much innovation and clever puzzles in here to rival its bigger siblings.
This whole book is one big mystery and if you're into your detective shows then this is going to be right up your sleuthing alley. Sleuthing Alley by the way is just off of Baker Street. It plays out exactly like one of those shows. It follows the same rhythms and story beats and ends in a big denouement (that’s not a spoiler) and it’s wonderful. Everything they’ve managed to pack into this book captures something that satisfies that sleuth in me that sits in front of the TV trying to solve the crime before they do.
I’ll tell you when it first clicked for me, no spoilers obvs. I was reading through a page when I spotted something, a piece of evidence that was hidden away, something that could easily have gone unnoticed and was a really subtle nod to something and I thought “oooh that’s good.” In fact, I think I said that out loud, probably to annoyance of the people who were watching TV at the time. I think they were watching Death in Paradise ironically. It just goes to show they aren’t spoon feeding you every piece of evidence. You really do have to turn into a proper detective to solve this thing.
It really goes out of its way to put you onto the shoes of the main protagonist of the story. I think the reason I love this one above the others is that the story and the investigation is more robust. It feels like you’ve been dropped right into the plot of a detective series. This is all helped of course by the fact that this is a 144 page book rather than a limited set of components, it’s got time to breathe and really go a bit more in depth. You can see this in the way it captures the story and the characters. You get to know people's stories and their relationships to each other and how crucial they are in helping you solve this case. The best way I can describe this is it’s an interactive detective show in a book and if any part of that sentence gets you excited then you need to order this book.
The puzzles themselves are great and thankfully not all quick solves. This took me three sessions of probably about two hours each one. I didn’t really time myself so these could have been a bit longer. Regardless, you're definitely going to get a lot of game amongst these pages. I’d go so far as to say that it’s better value than any of the “one and done” puzzle/mystery games I’ve played. The puzzles are clever and a big majority of them had me saying “oh that is brilliant” as I realised how they were playing out. There’s a decent range here as well, from ones that I picked up on fairly quickly to ones that took a bit longer to get, if I could get them at all.
I suppose one question is “what’s stopping me from just skipping out on a puzzle and just going to the next page. Well, physically nothing. It doesn’t have the physical restrictions that the other games have. But what's brilliant is that the puzzles feed off of each other. The answers to a puzzle in one part of the book could work as a clue to solving one later on, which works to stop you just skipping ahead (not sure why anyone would want to do that though) but it also adds that extra touch that helps you connect with the story.
Just one more thing
You get a couple of routes to go down with the hints system and both have their advantages and disadvantages. The ones in the back of the book are all there in the open so my advice is to grab some paper to cover everything you don’t want to see. There’s nothing worse than seeing a clue you don’t want or the solution before you’re ready. Speaking of which. Online, the clues/answers won’t reveal themselves until you’ve clicked on them. But be warned though not to scroll too far. I accidentally did this going into the denouement and something after this revealed the name of the suspect and it spoiled that (what would have been) awesome feeling of bringing everything together and really capping off the whole thing because I knew which suspect it was.
This obviously didn’t detract from the fun I’d already had and it certainly won’t affect how I feel about the book because this was mostly a me problem. But I do think that maybe naming that section something else would go a long way to stop this happening in the future. Just beware of this as you get near the end. I’ll also say that this was the only instance where this sort of thing could happen.
The Denouement
If you love any kind of puzzle/mystery/escape room games then you owe it to yourself to grab a copy of this. It evokes all of those great detective shows but this time gets you in on the action to finally show these TV detectives precisely how it should be done.