Verdict<\/strong>:<\/p>\nMystery Detective is definitely going to be one of those games that hit or miss depending on the players and the situation. The set-up statements are almost always pretty vague so there\u2019s some initial \u201cfishing around\u201d with questions to try and pick up the scent of what might be important. \u201cWhat was the guy\u2019s occupation?\u201d \u201cHow long was she dead?\u201d \u201cWhat were they doing when they died?\u201d and so on. It is not a case where the prompt will logically lead to another question leading to another question, etc\u2026 There is no winner per se, just going along for the ride and the satisfaction of figuring everything out in the end.<\/p>\n
The mysteries are as fun as I remember from my youth, and having played the \u201cgame\u201d back then I was recognizing about a quarter of the situations in the Volume 1 deck. This wasn\u2019t too big of a deal as I would either be the clue-giver or just bow out for that round.<\/p>\n
I found two things that were a significant concern. The first is the subject matter. Almost every situation is quite grim and often morbid – this is not a game for the faint of heart. Things are not described with gory details but there are plenty of grisly ends to go around. I was running through the game with my family (including two older teenagers) and while it wasn\u2019t all that bad, we did get a little burnt out of the darkness of the situations.<\/p>\n
My second concern lies in the solutions. We would often be able to (eventually) figure out the majority of the situation, but not all the details. If we already had the \u201cah-ha\u201d moment that there was a car crash because a man was trying to frost a cake while driving in the mountains (a made up example) do we really need to also figure out whether he was the cake baker, party planner, or best man in the wedding? We just played things by ear and counted a situation \u201csolved\u201d when the clue giver thought things were close enough.<\/p>\n
Overall, I like the deductive challenge of the game – trying to find good questions that will lead one to the answer. I could tell our questions improved even after a couple of mysteries or two. As such, the game does a good job of helping one develop some solid deductive reasoning skills. Unfortunately, for me, the morbid nature of every card meant it was only fun for us in small bursts. The second set, based on funny deaths (half real, half made-up) was also a bit unsettling for me as I wasn\u2019t sure whether it was OK to be amused or not. They were \u201cfunnier\u201d on the whole, than Volume 1, but then they seemed to be a bit less puzzle-y. That\u2019s the part I liked the most about the \u201cgame\u201d so I don\u2019t expect to be finishing off the volume 2 deck before passing it on to a group for which it is a better fit.<\/p>\n
Kid Factor<\/strong>
\nThis game is not for kids. Pretty much every case is someone dying, often murdered or dying a somewhat gruesome death. They even give a disclaimer that you may not want to play around the dinner table as some of the stories can get a bit gory. For me, the 14+ age suggestion seems about right. Even the company web store has a four-letter word on the page describing the games.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before there were these funny electronic devices that seem to be everywhere, I remember road trips where we had to make our own entertainment. One \u201c20 questions\u201d-style game that we played focused on solving a mystery. Players would be given a somewhat obtuse prompt of a situation and must then figure out what happened and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24493"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24497,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24493\/revisions\/24497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/PXL_20240419_011834503-300x225.jpg\")
Before there were these funny electronic devices that seem to be everywhere, I remember road trips where we had to make our own entertainment. One \u201c20 questions\u201d-style game that we played focused on solving a mystery. Players would be given a somewhat obtuse prompt of a situation and must then figure out what happened and why by asking a series of yes\/no questions. Mystery Detective collects many of those mystery puzzles, printing a title and subtle picture\/clue on one side with the explanation on the back. It currently comes in two flavors: a collection of 100 \u201cclassic\u201d riddles (many of which I remember from my childhood) and one based on \u201cFunny Deaths\u201d – a mix of made-up and real-life cases where things went terribly wrong.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/PXL_20240419_011853968-217x300.jpg\")
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