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Let's Talk: Mystery Express

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21 Oct 2014 17:11 #189063 by VonTush
This is a DoW title that looks great, but seems to have gone OOP with little notice. I love deduction games and there is a copy still sitting on the FLGS shelf that I've been considering picking up. But, there seems to be one of those extreme relationships from people with the game where some love, some that hate and fewer somewhere in the middle.

The premise is that you're investigating a murder that happened on a train traveling throughout Europe. Your goal is to figure out the killer, weapon used, motive, location and time. Unlike Clue where there is only one of each card, there are two so you're trying to figure out which card is there only one of. Cards move around players hands as well as board locations, you can do things like search other people's luggage for possible clues or talk to the train conductor to see if you can obtain information from him...It all sounds pretty fun, but also a bit chaotic.

The common disappointments with ME is that there's a big memory component with the cards moving around, solving the Time component plays differently than the rest really goes off the rails for quite a few people. Also that the game plays out where often no one is going to know all five components at the end so it'll either come down to a bit of luck if someone gets a lucky guess, and likely ends in a tie that goes to a tiebreaker. Some have said the ride takes too long but I also think those are the people that might be trying to AP the game.

The people that do like the game are the ones looking for the next level of Clue and by those people most say it is a good fun game. On the whole it looks like it could be pretty fun, but there's this element that makes it sound like it could run out of steam.

So what I'm trying to figure out is, since it doesn't sound like DoW has any intention of reprinting: Has anyone played it? Thoughts? Should I grab the copy? Let it roll off into the sunset? Or just poke around and see if a trade pops up down the line?

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21 Oct 2014 20:58 #189069 by duckgoatwombat
I played half a game of this as I had to bail after becoming unbelievably ill a couple of rounds in. Anyway I still had some strong impressions.

You've nailed my core feelings about the game. Making the best use of your time (action points) is an interesting puzzle and while the deduction aspects are interesting, the heart of the game is about tracking card movement permutations, an exercise that you'll either love or hate. The way certain cards come into play and the way players can gather information were all cleverly thought out but I found it all a little overwrought and though the setting is brilliant I was left feeling disappointed. Mostly it was that the game itself tended to move quite slowly and despite the well done themeing and art the mechanics just failed to bring the two together.
I personally wouldn't buy it as I find the pure(r) games of Hanabi, Sleuth and Code 777 to suit me better. It's definitely a quality game just not one I would be pushing to play on a regular basis.

Coincidentally there is a 13 card microgame (yes, yawn ;) ) on KS at the moment called Dead Drop that does much the same thing with deduction, clue gathering and card tracking, and from the little I've played seems to work very well though is obviously an order of magnitude simpler. It's available as PnP on BGG.
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