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. The game also has an integrated, online database that will be used to log evidence, read transcripts, watch surveillance videos, and look up people’s information in a faux police database. It’s also where you’ll answer the questions when you make your final report. Cards have QR codes that can be scanned to interrogate a perp, inspect a piece of evidence or sweep a crime scene for clues. Instead of reading from heavy tomes of text entries or managing hundreds of cards, you’ll be tapping through what looks like a visual novel. Scanning QR codes will allow you to travel from location to location and speak with the suspects there to gather information. You might then scan the QR code of an object to see what that suspect has to say about it. Not all characters are going to have something to say about every piece of evidence though, so you’ll have to be careful about who you approach with your investigations so as not to waste precious time. When scanning the QR codes of crime scenes, you’ll be taken into one of Chronicles of Crime’s more impressive features as you use your phone or tablet like a looking glass into a full 3D panorama of the locale. This enables players to search for relevant objects you can find matching cards to that will allow you to investigate further. But eventually it dawned on me that in Detective, you have to use your intuition and “gut.” Not every lead is worth following and in the end, you’ll have to connect some dots on your own. More than once I angrily wasted time on a lead that wasn’t worth following. But that’s OK because the game smartly ends with a multiple choice questionnaire. You can still use your best judgement, based on the information you do have, to answer the questions even though you don’t have all the concrete evidence you’d want. I thought that this was a fantastic design decision that works well with the limited information of the game. I assume only in TV shows do cases wrap up perfectly neat.

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. 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. So improving on the game, comes in the form of additional components. Throughout the game, you're encouraged to keep your theories and evidence, which generally you'll do with pen and paper to keep up and make your connections. The new edition will provide 30 photos of character portraits, that you can use instead of or alongside this to create a mind map, linking your suspects or people of interest. 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. Solid Alibi throws players in the middle of a bloody conflict between gangs and criminals in the Italian district. Players have to not only solve the crime and discover who killed Robert Parkson, but also witness growing tension in the district and find out who to trust in the spiral of violence and mutual accusations!

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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: Take the job of a real detective in a modern setting! Solve mysterious crimes working as an Antares National Investigation Agency team member. Detective comes with 5 cases in the box, each of which is linked together over the course of a campaign ( note: this is not a legacy game). Learning to play is fairly straightforward. Each player controls a character with a skill token and a special ability. For lower player counts, consultants are used that only provide 2 skill tokens. Each player gets a character with a unique ability and a skill token.

There are even some “ah-ha!” Moments in the database when you are matching evidence. Fingerprints and DNA are handled via an 8-digit code. When input, it lets you know the match strength to other pieces of evidence that you’ve already found. So that soil sample you are analyzing is also found on the shoe of someone you know was up to no good and now you have proof! Moments like these are a ton of fun.Detective: Season One is the perfect jumping-on point to test the waters of this type of game. It is really easy to learn and teach the very straightforward rules. It is a great choice for fans of escape rooms and social deduction games too. Zatu Games Supporting NHS Test and Trace