A murder mystery game with "Unlock!" mechanics

Table of Contents

Location: Home

Date Played: April 2024

Team size: 2; recommended 1- 6 players

Duration: 3 - 5 hours total | 1 - 1.5 hours/case

Price: ~S$50 on Amazon

Premise


Suspects is a range of investigation games with streamlined rules and plots centered on the psychology of the characters in the style of Agatha Christie’s novels. The first opus will feature the ingenious and fearless Claire Harper in three stories that pay tribute to the great classics of detective literature!

Claire Harper was one of the first women to graduate from Oxford in 1927. Specializing in criminal law, she is also an adventurous traveler. Every mystery is an opportunity for her to test her formidable spirit of deduction and her unfailing determination! In this first episode, follow her in her investigations that will take her from grand manor houses to shady theaters and from Scotland to...Egypt!

Components

Suspects contains three cases as well as a quick tutorial guide on how to play the game. Each case consists of the premise, two documents related to the case and a deck of cards that you'll use to explore the crime scene and interrogate suspects.

The quality of the components are fine, they do the job well and I have no qualms about them whatsoever. It's pretty easy to reset them as well, letting you re-gift it or pass it on to someone else.

Gameplay

The game has relatively simple mechanics. Your objective is to solve the questions given at the start of each case. You'll gain more points if you manage to solve the questions with as few cards as possible.

During the game, you'll be given a premise to each case as well as some documents to assist you in figuring out where to visit, what to inspect and who to talk to. Each possible avenue has a number designated to it, if you would like to do that action, simply flip over the card with the corresponding number. This will count as drawing that clue card and once you have drawn 30 clue cards, you'll have to attempt to solve the questions given at the start of the game. You'll do this two more times when you've drawn the 45th clue card and when you've drawn all the clue cards you deem necessary to solve the case.

The solution will be given in a small packet where you'll read through it as well as a point system to determine how well you did. Take note that there's no hint system in this game so all deduction and reasoning is up to you to figure out.

Puzzles/Thoughts

➕Decent mystery. Save for a select few deductions, most of the mysteries felt reasonable and fair to solve.
 
➕Simple yet effective mechanics. Similar to the Unlock! series, the mechanics felt intuitive and gives a sense of exploration with each new card you flip.

➕Interesting & engaging cases. All 3 cases were compelling and unique. It was quite a joy to uncover the mystery and figure out the culprit.

➖Components are fine, easy to reset. They're nothing special but good enough to get the job done.

✖️ Some deductions required are unfair. There were a few deductions in the game that felt very unfair and near impossible to deduce based on the amount of information given even when all the clue cards are drawn.

Verdict

Overall, I felt that Suspects is a fine addition to the murder mystery tabletop games selection. It has a refreshing mechanic that splits the amount of reading that makes it more digestible and easy to recommend to newcomers to the genre. While some of the answers to the questions felt a bit over the top, we still had a great time with it and would recommend it to everyone.

Rating: 4/5

★★★★✩

You can buy their game here