Episode 244 - Deduction: Social or Nah?

Intro: 0:00

Recent Games: 0:47

Deduction vs. Social Deduction: 16:30

Outro: 29:09

Bloopers: 30:12

Games discussed this episode:

Terrorscape 2: 0:47 (on Gamefound)

Last Night on Earth: 8:31

My City app: 10:52

My City: 11:19

The Resistance: Avalon: 17:24

Tragedy Looper: 17:55

Cryptid: 18:33

Turing Machine: 18:35

One Night Ultimate Werewolf: 20:36

Mafia/Werewolf: 21:10

Battlestar Galactica: 22:14

Castles of Burgundy: 23:24

Bomb Busters: 25:05

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: 27:35

Suspects: 27:37

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This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. Use the code "BLITZ10" to get 10% off your entire cart.

[00:00:06:25 - 00:00:46:04]

Crystal: Hello and welcome to episode 244 of Board Game Blitz, a podcast about all things board games that you can listen to in less time than it takes to figure out whether your friend is the traitor for the third time in a row. I mean, come on, what are the odds? Board Game Blitz is sponsored by Grey Fox Games. This week, we’re talking about the world of deduction! First, we discuss a couple games we’ve played recently, Terrorscape 2 and the app version of My City. Then, we talk about our thoughts on all kinds of games that require powers of deduction. And now, here are your hosts…

Ambie: Ambie

Crystal: and Crystal

[00:00:46:04 - 00:01:29:20]

Ambie: Recently, I got a preview review copy of "Terrorscape 2." This is designed by Jeffrey CCH, published by ICE Makes. This is on Kickstarter right now, as we speak. And as you hear this episode, as long as you hear this, not too late after it comes out. But anyways, "Terrorscape 2" is a standalone sequel to "Terrorscape," which I have not played, but both of the games are very similar in gameplay. They're one versus many game themed around horror movies, like where there is one monster character trying to kill the protagonist of the movie. Are they protagonists? Or I don't know, extras? And I don't know, horror movies. I don't like horror movies.

[00:01:29:20 - 00:01:36:24]

Crystal: Who is the protagonist in a monster movie? Is it the monster?

Ambie: I don't know, I'm not really sure. Anyway. They're trying to kill everybody else, basically.

[00:01:36:24 - 00:01:54:19]

Ambie: Yeah, yeah. So in the game, the one person is the monster. And this is a one versus many. It's kind of like a hidden movement game. There's some hidden movement and moving around, fighting and stuff. But a lot of times in hidden movement, it's the many who are trying to find the one, and the one is hidden. But in this one, it's the one trying to find the many people.

[00:01:55:22 - 00:02:10:04]

Crystal: Ooh, that is interesting.

Ambie: Yeah, and it works really well with the theme actually, because the one character is the monster, and there's three humans running around, and the monster doesn't know where they are, and they're just trying to be quiet, but they make noise. So there's this big board. The box is huge.

[00:02:10:04 - 00:02:17:17]

Crystal: Yeah, for those of you watching on YouTube, Ambie's got it sitting on her lap right now, and she's literally struggling to hold it.

[00:02:17:17 - 00:02:33:00]

Ambie: But it comes with trays, which are kind of nice component trays that have all the components in there, and some miniatures. This is a prototype copy, so it's not final. So I don't know how the components will be in the final version versus this.

[00:02:33:00 - 00:02:37:26]

Crystal: I mean, if that's the prototype, then that looks pretty good already, just from my vantage point.

[00:02:37:26 - 00:05:01:18]

Ambie: I'm not gonna bring the board out, but you can look at pictures online. There's a big house thing that you build. It's three-dimensional, and you build it, and it goes up in between the killer and the other players as a screen. So each character, the killer and the other players, they have their own board that shows the map and then has a place for cards and stuff, and that is all hidden from the other character, the other team. And so you have the same map, and you have two miniatures of the killer, so each person will know where the killer is. I actually just played this one versus one against Toby, so I might just say person instead of team sometimes, but it can be one versus many. It's always three characters played, so if you have three people, then they each play one character, or if you have one person, you play all three characters. So you have this board, and then it's asymmetrical. So on the killer's turn, they have this hand of cards that they can play to do different things. Toby was the killer, so I'm not as familiar with the killer, but you play cards and you can do things like move, or they search, so if they're on the same space as one of the people or multiple of the people, then they attack them. So basically, they're going around and trying to find them. And then on the people's turn, each of the characters, they each get an action, which is either move or they can search if they're on a space that has, there's spaces with different icons, and they have different decks where you're trying to search through to find keys. There's different ways that the humans can win, and you're trying to get one of these ways before dying, basically. So you're trying to find five keys and escape, go out like the main exit, or you have to repair the radio and call the helicopter and then wait five turns, and the helicopter will come pick you up, or you can repair the car and get fuel, and then I'll be on the car space and drive away, or you can have a final showdown with the killer, so you have to observe what the killer's weakness is, and then band together and try to attack the killer, and so you surprise the killer instead of the killer attacking you. So yeah, when I played, it was super close, actually. I had a bunch of keys, I couldn't find the last key, so then I started repairing the radio, and then I got that, and then I was on the last turn, and I died.

Crystal: Oh no!

Ambie: The alien gets more powerful, or alien or monster or whatever. I think it was an alien in this one. It gets more powerful as the turns go on, because it has a deck of cards, and it's kind of like drawing cards and playing them, and then when the deck runs out, it reshuffles, but also levels up, and when it levels up, it gets more strength, which means when it's fighting you, you have to roll dice and get higher than their strength in order to survive and not get hurt, like with weapon modifiers and stuff, and I kept rolling ones and zeros, so that was bad.

[00:05:01:18 - 00:05:02:16]

Crystal: Classic Ambie.

[00:05:03:23 - 00:05:17:28]

Ambie: But then also when they level up, they can do more things, like in this one, when it was level five, it damages you when it attacks you, and then also attacks, so it damages you before the official attack, and two damage is a death, so that was really scary.

[00:05:18:29 - 00:06:01:12]

Ambie: Yeah, but I thought the theme actually worked really well. At one point in the game, I moved past the killer on my turn. Oh, another thing is you make noise tokens. That's how the killer actually deduces what's going on, because certain things you do make noise. Sometimes when you're searching, if you draw a card in the deck and it has a noise token, then you have to make a noise where you were, and basically you do your turns in secret, and then you tell the killer, "Okay, there's noise tokens in these spots," and so they know, "Okay, noise was made here," but then, so I moved past, but then I had a special ability that lets me make noise somewhere else, so then I made noise somewhere else, and so he went somewhere else, and I was like, "Yes." It felt kind of like in the movies where the person's hiding in a bush, and the killer walks right by, and you're like, covering your mouth, trying not to breathe too loud.

[00:06:01:12 - 00:06:08:10]

Crystal: I could picture you, yeah, in the bedroom, setting an alarm clock to go off, and then running away, and now the alarm clock.

[00:06:08:10 - 00:06:10:08]

Ambie: Yeah, that was one of the items.

Crystal: Oh, really? That's amazing.

[00:06:10:08 - 00:06:17:19]

Ambie: Yeah, there's an item in the alarm clock that makes noise after two turns, you can discard it in a place, and it makes noise after two turns.

[00:06:17:19 - 00:06:25:19]

Crystal: I literally did not know that that was in the game, so that's really cool.

Ambie: Yeah.

Crystal: You're making me wanna play this. I wanna play it now.

[00:06:25:19 - 00:07:49:09]

Ambie: Yeah, so I enjoyed it. It is, the setup was a lot for what I'm used to. I haven't played a long game in a while, but the game itself was, it took us about an hour, but that was a learning game, so it says 30 to 45 minutes for the game, two to four players. With more players, I'm not sure if it would be more or less time. It's still the same amount of turns and stuff, because with fewer players, that's one person controlling more people, but then there might be more discussion or whispered, hushing discussion between people. I do wanna try it at more players, and I do wanna try it as the killer. But yeah, my main gripe with the game is components. It's very neat looking, but the shield thing, it's annoying, because I'm gonna have to reassemble it each time I take it out. And it has assembly instructions in the rule book, but it takes some time to assemble this whole big house thing. And then there's a 3D Dice Tower too that goes in. It's functional, because the shared information is going on top of this house thing, and so you can see over the wall, on top of the wall is the shared information, like the number of keys you have, or the health of the people and stuff. And then the Dice Tower is on the side of it, but it's just a lot of assembly for me. But I haven't played a big game, because I have kids. A lot of the games I've played are smaller games, but I think maybe for a big thematic game, that's probably more on par with the setup.

Crystal: How many monsters does the prototype come in?

Ambie: So the prototype just came with one monster, but I think the Kickstarter has three monsters.

[00:07:49:09 - 00:08:27:23]

Crystal: Okay, so here's the thing for me, and horror. I love horror stories. I like the stories that are in horror movies, but modern horror movies, I almost always cannot watch, because I don't handle jump scares well, and I don't handle gore well. And those two things are--

Ambie: Yeah, I don't like those.

Crystal: Yeah, those are in a lot of horror movies, and I'm not even faulting those things screen, and then I get it. So an experience like this sounds so appealing to me, because you get all of the story without any of the jump scares or the gore. So, oh man, now I might actually go to Kickstarter and take a look at this one.

[00:08:27:23 - 00:08:38:13]

Ambie: But yeah, it was kind of like a little reminiscent of games like Last Night on Earth or something, because you're searching around, finding cards and stuff, and it's thematic, but the one versus many was interesting.

[00:08:38:13 - 00:08:46:04]

Crystal: I haven't played Last Night on Earth in probably 17 or 18 years, literally. It's been a long time.

[00:08:46:04 - 00:09:09:04]

Ambie: I know. But yeah, that's probably the last game that I've played that was themed similarly, I think, because a lot of the games I play aren't like this. But yeah, it was fun. If I do play it with more players, then I'll probably talk about it on my monthly recap video, because the Kickstarter, I think, ends, I think it goes for a month, so I won't be able to talk about it on the podcast again, probably, but maybe I'll talk about it more on there.

[00:09:09:04 - 00:09:14:04]

Crystal: So yeah, everybody should be subscribing to us on YouTube if they wanna hear more about it.

[00:09:14:04 - 00:10:31:23]

Ambie: Yeah, but yes, I guess the main things with Terrorscape 2 is just the components, which I don't know if they're gonna fix that in, because this is prototype things. So the other things I had with the components is it comes with these little rings for the minis, so colored rings, so you know which one is which for your characters, but then it doesn't fit back into the little molded insert when they put the ring on, so you have to take it off and put it back on later again. I don't know if they'll fix that. And then also for the final showdown, which I did not do, so I didn't get to experience this, but there's these cards that are weaknesses, and it shows you it has binoculars that has those red and blue filter things, blue transparent screen things. So one side sees the weaknesses of the alien, and it has icon pictures on there, and you're supposed to see that, and then the alien's not supposed to see that, and then the alien's supposed to see the other side, which shows you the location that the alien will be stronger at, and so they're trying to prepare for the final showdown if they see that, but you know how with these red and blue, sometimes you can see the words without looking through the glasses, which you can in this case, so you can kind of see the icons and stuff, so it's not much of a secret, which means the alien is not supposed to see the other side, and the people aren't supposed to see the other side, so you can kind of see it, which might mess things up, but I haven't played the final showdown part because my people were weak and my roles were weak, so.

[00:10:33:08 - 00:10:34:02]

Crystal: Maybe next time.

[00:10:34:02 - 00:10:49:06]

Ambie: Yeah, so I don't know if they'll fix that in the final game too, but yeah, that was Terrorscape 2. Lots of stuff going on in the game, very big, and it felt thematic, interesting. One versus many where the one person is looking for the hidden people, the hidden many people.

[00:10:49:06 - 00:16:26:16]

Crystal: The game I'm talking about today is the app version of Reiner Knizia's My City, so shout out to Christian from Spiral Burst Studios, who gave me a free copy of the app so I could check it out. He heard that I play some app games and kindly reached out to us, and I was like, "Yes, please, I do want to try this." It just released on both iOS and Android here within the past month or so. If you've ever played My City, it will be very familiar to you. For those of you not familiar with the game, My City is a tile-laying game where you are laying tiles in three plus different colors. You draw from a deck of cards that have the different tiles on them, and then all players will place the drawn tile onto their boards simultaneously, and you are trying to achieve a number of different things to score points, but the kind of the bread and butter, the main part of My City is the campaign. When you play through the campaign, the rules change slightly every single game, so you'll get new things added in and new ways to score, and some of the rules will modify what buildings do, and there's a little bit of more nuance there, but I don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't played the campaign, but the app version translates all of that over and then some, so in the app, you can do a campaign, a full campaign, either with AI, so you can play by yourself with just AI characters, or online, so you can actually play through a campaign with other people that have the app as well, which I think is pretty neat. You can play through a randomized game, which means the rules from the whole campaign, it chooses some of those at random, or you can play an eternal game, which uses the rule set from the very end of the campaign, basically, as the rules for that game, and you can do all of those things both locally or online, which are pretty neat, and then there's also a daily challenge in the app where you go into the app and it has a randomized set of rules that you have to work with, and sometimes those are very difficult. The one for today, I'm not gonna read it because it won't make sense to anybody who doesn't know the game, but it's like today's was a little bit ridiculous, I haven't played through it.

Of all of the board game adaptation apps that I've played, this would rank in the very top echelon, basically. I have encountered no bugs or issues. The instructions are clearly written out. When they incorporate new rules during the campaign, they make it very clear what rules are changing. These rules from the past game are no longer in effect. Here are the new rules that are going into effect. When you're placing tiles, you can rotate them very easily, and then you have to confirm to place so there's no accidental placements of anything. It's easy to click over and see your opponent's boards as well, which matters in some of the scenarios during the campaign because the first person to do certain things will get bonuses, so you definitely wanna keep an eye on your opponent's boards. The artwork matches the aesthetic from the actual board game itself, pretty spot-on perfect. It literally is like you're playing the board game on your phone. I am quite impressed. I've already, let's see, I am on chapter five, episode 15 of the campaign, and there's only 24 episodes in the campaign, so I'm more than halfway through, and I'm really, really loving it, although I'm not loving my AI opponent, Alex, who is beating me currently. Every game, Alex does well, and I'm just like, "Alex!"

Ambie: Can you change the difficulty of the AI?

Crystal: No, there is no difficulty, and you can't change their names either, which technically that does not matter, but it's so funny because one of the AIs is Reiner. It's just Reiner, right? But when I see Reiner Knizia together, those two words, I know how to pronounce it, but I used to have a coworker who spelled his first name the same way, but pronounced it Rainier, and so if I just see the first name by itself, my brain immediately thinks Rainier, not Reiner, and so it's funny because every time I see it, I think of my old coworker, who I liked quite a bit, to be fair, he was lovely, but I don't think of Reiner Knizia, even though he's the literal designer of this game. That's funny. Which is, yeah, and I don't know why, I wish I could rename the AIs, and I don't know why that is, it has no bearing on the game whatsoever. If that's my only nitpick, I'd say that's a pretty darn good app. I looked at Spiral Burst Studios website, because when I played this and I was like, "Wow, this is really good. "What other games have they designed?" They have a few non-board game, puzzle-y type app games that board gamers would probably enjoy, and then they also have Maracaibo Digital, they were the ones who designed that. I've never played Maracaibo, but shoot, maybe I should. Maybe I should get the digital version, and then it also says that they have a new board game app that's currently in development, and that's all it says. It doesn't say what game, so I'm definitely curious to see what else comes out from Spiral Burst, because they did a really good job on this one. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. So yeah, thank you again to Spiral Burst for letting me try it out, and if you all like playing board games on your phone, this one is one I can highly recommend.

[00:16:30:25 - 00:17:05:05]

Crystal: There's a genre of games, Ambie, that you and I both tend to like quite a bit, and then there's an adjacent category that we also like, but maybe not always quite as much, and that would be deduction games and social deduction games, and I would say, generally these are two areas of board gaming that would be discussed separately, because they are two very different genres in a lot of ways, but aside from just the word deduction, they also do bear some similarities, and so we're gonna mash them together and talk about both.

[00:17:05:05 - 00:18:15:07]

Ambie: Yeah, like social deduction, I used to really like, I mean, I still like it, I just don't play it as much, because well, it's hard to get big groups together for bigger social deduction games, and then also there was a time when every new game was social deduction, and I got kinda tired of it, but yeah, like back in the olden days, the Resistance Avalon was my favorite game. That was I think before I ranked all my games officially and stuff, but the Resistance was my favorite game. That's like still my favorite social deduction game, and that has a lot of actual deduction in it, which I think is why, because I like deduction, but like social deduction has a social aspect with people lying to you, and you're trying to like figure out people with hidden roles and stuff, whereas like just straight deduction is the game not lying to you, the game telling you information, right? So, although like one of my favorite games now, Tragedy Looper is deduction, not social deduction, but it's like one versus many, where a person instead of the game is like working against you. So it's not, the person can't lie to you, but they're trying to mislead you, kind of like a hidden movement game too. Like those are deduction, but not social deduction, because it's not like-

[00:18:15:07 - 00:19:25:28]

Crystal: See, and that's where I think these genres blend more than I think people tend to realize, because the game obscuring information and a person obscuring information, it's not always cut and dry in both of those cases, right? Like if we're talking about something like Cryptid, for instance, or Turing Machine, that is pure deduction. That is the game has a secret, and you gotta figure out that secret, and you gotta be the first one to figure out that secret, and if you do, you win the game, like that's it. But to your point, there are games where the game itself might have a secret of sorts, but the players are part of the deception. And so even if it isn't what would be categorized as a social deduction game, using social deduction can be beneficial in those games. Like using what you know of, like if you and Toby were playing Tragedy Looper, or knowing Toby will potentially help you because you know how he thinks. And that is social deduction. It's literally deducing what a person is doing or has done.

[00:19:25:28 - 00:20:05:19]

Ambie: Yeah, I call it mind games a lot of times, I think when I'm talking like mind games, trying to get in the other person's head and stuff. And that's what I really liked about resistance is like fooling other people, or I guess figuring out other people. But I'm not that great at like reading when someone's just lying versus not lying. So I would have to use the deduction part. Whereas like social deduction and bluffing is often compared hand in hand. A lot of games have social deduction and bluffing in them, but I lean towards the ones that have less bluffing because it's hard for me to read people. Whereas like if they do an action, I'm like, okay, why did they do that action? I can see like physical evidence of what they did and then try to like imagine that. But like just looking at their face, like that's harder for me.

[00:20:05:19 - 00:21:09:02]

Crystal: I would agree. I think for me, yeah, just I can't like look at the dilation of their pupils and know what they're doing or whatever. I can't like that's not for me, but there have been times and honestly, it's weird because in a social deduction game, you technically can use all of the information that is presented to you as information, right? You can see or hear a thing, but there are things that kind of fall outside of the scope of the game that present themselves occasionally as well. Like One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a good example of this. When we used to play this all the time, everybody would do little tippy taps.

Ambie: Oh yeah,

Crystal: On the table because we don't want somebody shuffling around with a thing to be obvious in who they are. And it's one of those things where like, that's not how you're supposed to find out who a person is. That's outside of the constraints of the game. But what's interesting is the game doesn't tell you that. You kind of just have to learn, oh, that isn't how I wanna know who the seer is or whatever.

[00:21:09:02 - 00:21:46:06]

Ambie: Yeah, I used to play a lot of mafia in high school. That's what, werewolf is mafia. It's just a different theme. But in that one, people would be sitting next to each other and you can kind of like feel if they get up or something. And I think one time like someone was giving someone else a massage or something back massage while they're playing. And the person who was giving them the massage was actually the mafia. And the person getting the massage was like, oh, I don't think they're the mafia because they were giving me a massage and I didn't like feel anything change during the night. But then they fooled them. They were able to like point while also giving them a massage or something. So they could also use that meta stuff against I guess.

[00:21:46:06 - 00:22:01:16]

Crystal: I mean, that is true. And I think if you're playing with a friendly group of people that you know, that kind of stuff is especially good. Like when you can pull the wall over someone's eyes that knows you well, that's way more satisfying, right?

[00:22:02:22 - 00:22:18:02]

Crystal: So if a game has a hidden role, is it automatically a social deduction game?

Ambie: I feel like those are also different because there's like hidden traitor games and stuff are a separate category like Battlestar Galactica. Is that a social deduction game?

[00:22:18:02 - 00:23:09:20]

Crystal: I mean, I would say, yes. Now is social deduction the primary mechanism of the game, right? So what's interesting, Board Game Geek does not list social deduction as a mechanism. It is not a thing. So you can look up a list of deduction games, but you cannot look up a list of social deduction games. You can look up traitors and hidden movement, hidden identity, I think. There's other mechanisms that often fall under social deduction, but social deduction itself is not a thing. And as I was looking this up, I think I kind of realized why because social deduction really does encompass more than just like, I think when you hear social deduction, you think immediately of things like werewolf and that ilk, but there is more to it than that.

[00:23:09:20 - 00:23:12:20]

Ambie: But yeah, it's like also not clearly defined, I guess.

[00:23:12:20 - 00:24:17:15]

Crystal: I think there could be an argument, a very probably weak argument that all board games are social deduction games. Cause in theory, when I'm playing any board game, let's use Castles of Burgundyas an example, cause a lot of people know Castles of Burgundy. Social deduction is attempting to basically read another player to deduce either what they have done or what they're going to do, perhaps, right? That's one way you could define it. Yes. And so I think that like, even in a game like Castles of Burgundy, knowing what someone might do or trying to throw them off about what you're going to do is something you could do within the confines of that game. Like when you get ship tiles in that game, it moves you forward on the track for turn order. And so you could pick up a couple of ship tiles and somebody might be like, "Oh my gosh, they're trying to jump ahead in turn order." But then if you don't place those ship tiles from your supply onto your board, they don't affect anything. So you could socially manipulate people in non-social games.

[00:24:18:15 - 00:26:27:00]

Ambie: Yeah.

Crystal: I think.

Ambie: Well, yeah, it's like bluffing and stuff.

Crystal: Is every game a social deduction game?

Ambie: Not how we talk about social deduction games, but like a lot of games have that. But not cooperative games. Cooperative game would not be social deduction because you're not deceiving your partners.

Crystal: Oooh, that's true.

Crystal: You've ruined my hot take that all games are social deduction games.

Ambie: But like all competitive games can have that social deception there. Yeah.

Crystal: And you're not talking about like lying about your intentions either, to be fair. Like I'm not saying like on my next turn, I'm gonna do X and then doing Y instead. Like that's not what I'm talking about, right? Cause that's just lying. And that's like, there's no nuance there.

Ambie: Yeah.

Crystal: You can't have a cooperative social deduction game, but you can have a cooperative deduction game. Bomb Busters is a really good example of that, that you and I both really like.

Ambie: Yeah. I love cooperative deduction games.

Crystal: Yeah. And Bomb Busters is neat because the setup is somewhat variable and a lot of pure deduction games, the kind of like their scenarios or specific setups for certain things. Like here are the constraints and there is one specific solution that you must find. Whereas in Bomb Busters, you randomize certain elements with the setup. And so it's not always gonna be exactly the same every single time, which is kind of neat.

Crystal: In general, do you prefer deduction or social deduction?

Ambie: I think deduction.

Crystal: I think I'm at the same place. Like to your point, I used to enjoy social deduction games more. And it is funny because I'm a highly empathetic person. And so I don't like lying cause it makes people feel bad. But like some of my most enjoyable moments in social deduction games in the past have been when I have successfully tricked an entire table full of people.

Ambie: Same here.

Crystal: And I think it's because I don't do that in my, like I think you and I are kind of similar. Like we're nice people generally. Like we don't do anything remotely like that in our normal lives. And so getting to be the quote unquote bad guy in a very safe environment is a little fun.

Ambie: But also in a lot of-

Crystal: It's so scary.

[00:26:28:02 - 00:26:56:22]

Ambie: Yeah, but also in a lot of social deduction games, I don't like being the bad person cause it's more stressful.

Crystal: Oh, it's stressful.

Ambie: Yeah. Yes. And then you also don't get to figure out who the bad people are. Cause I like trying to figure out who the bad people are more than being the bad people, which is why I like resistance Avalon cause you have to figure out who Merlin is. So that's why I like deduction, peer deduction better. Cause it doesn't have like that stress of being bad, but you still, you get to figure out stuff. So that's like the part I like more, but I do still like fooling people. That's always really exciting.

[00:26:56:22 - 00:27:35:00]

Crystal: Yeah. Something that I've noticed that is kind of surprising to me is like in media and entertainment in general, there has been a pretty significant growth of true crime content, like podcasts, movies, TV shows, documentaries, like true crime over the past, I would say five to 10 years has really kind of like become incredibly popular yet that hasn't translated over into the board game space. I feel like it could now obviously like, I don't think you'd want to use real examples, but like the idea of solving mysteries.

[00:27:35:00 - 00:28:11:07]

Ambie: They have like Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, Suspects, they have a lot of cooperative ones or like single player ones. They have like the Hunt a Killer ones or like Cold Case. They have these, I've gotten review copies of some of these like the solo like detective games. It's not like a board game. It's like a one mystery thing where you have like a lot of like flyers and different things, photos, but yeah, a competitive true crime one. Like I don't think I've played anything that's competitive. That would be interesting though. That would probably be kind of like Tragedy Looper. But like if there's like one person who's a murderer covering it up and then the other people are trying to figure it out or something, that would be interesting.

[00:28:11:07 - 00:28:30:29]

Crystal: It just, it seems like something that would be easy to market in this day and age, right? Like, you know, you've listened to the true crime podcast. Now you be the investigator kind of a thing. Like I can like picture the marketing in my head for this non-existent game basically.

[00:28:30:29 - 00:28:42:00]

Ambie: Yeah, the problem with a lot of those mystery games is there it's like cases and then you're done. Like Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, you played the case and you know it, but if it were one versus many, I think this would be interesting.

[00:28:43:07 - 00:29:08:11]

Crystal: Okay, are you and I gonna design a mystery board game together?

Ambie: No. No, we're not, okay. If any of you listeners know about something like this that exists already.

Crystal: Yeah, like a one versus many crime solving type of game. There's gotta be something, right? I don't know, we'll have to see if anybody knows of any. And also if someone is inspired to make one as a result of this podcast, feel free to just mention us in the credits and that'll be enough for us.

[00:29:10:01 - 00:30:04:01]

Ambie: And that’s it for this week’s Board Game Blitz. Visit our website, boardgameblitz.com for more content and links.

This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. Coming soon to Kickstarter, then a tabletop near you, it’s the highly anticipated board game adaptation of the Vampire Survivors video game! Be the bullet hell by visiting VampireSurvivorsTheBoardGame.com to learn more and sign up for future updates! And don’t forget that Blitzketeers get 10% off all purchases, including exclusives, at GreyFoxGames.com by using the code BLITZ10 at checkout!

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Our theme song was composed by Andrew Morrow.

Until next time,

Gaming eyes

They're watching you

They see your every move

Bye everyone!

Crystal: Bye!

[00:30:13:13 - 00:30:27:08]

Crystal: Yeah, no, and I'm about to sneeze right now. So I'm just gonna keep.

...

No, dang it, it's gone. I hate it.

All right.

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