Just finished reading the preview article and I have to say, Thumbs up to KW. It looks like another great game.

Glad you like it so far. There's still 2 major game elements to go (conspiracy and personal demons), so keep your eyes peeled for those. Between these three things, each is about equally important for scoring purposes, although obviously some detectives are better at certain parts than others. I feel that each of these three things contains at least one fairly unique mechanic as well (measured movement isn't something normally applied to a boardgame, for instance). Each also has one game structure aspect that differentiates it.

Murder Investigation - Largest single source of VPs.

Conspiracy - Only source of VPs that modifies the others.

Personal Demons - Only source of negative VPs.

I agree... this has just been a cool event. From the early "clues" through the release of the teaser trailer. I for one like the hype and am looking forward to getting the game and seeing how the investigation unfolds.

The preview article was very well done and I'm interested to see how measuring movement will work. The investigation aspect of the game looks very unique and the setting looks tops notch.

Judd

I love the idea with putting the evidence facedown on the suspects. You can easily confuse your opponents. Hopefully you don't forget were you had put your important evidences The other aspect I love is that you already have some choices to do. Do I really put this evidence on that suspect, just to let him go? I love it!

It sounds interesting, but couldn't the game be done to be played with 2 players? This is important for me, because I can't always easily find more people to play with.

You could play it 2 players. I don't promise it'll give as good results though. I wasn't sure enough of a 2 player game being fun to put it on the box. I guess I'd say try it out if you can and see if it meets your needs.

Kevin, that's one kind of an intriguing concept. I like the ruler thing and the "incriminate your favorite suspect"-mechanism (because, let's face it, the ******* in me will most likely abuse the system for that ). As a single game mechanic, it would not be enough for me, but since you promised another two, I'm fairly certain my anticipation is well-founded, and my longing for the box well understandible.

So, uh... will an expansion introduce more detectives with different rulers?

Sounds interesting. Though I am confused as to how you can prove someone both guilty and not guilty as was stated at the start of the article, given how you total up someones "guilt"!

Kamakaze, about having both cards, I suspect that it plays out through the conspiracy part of the game. The Murder 101 article says, "It just means that you’re obsessed with that suspect. In that case, if you can prove the suspect not only guilty , but really guilty , then you’ll receive points for both of your hunches, and a small bonus besides." So if you have both cards and can prove the guy guilty of both muder and of playing a role in teh greater conspiracy then the victory point gods smile upon you!

Can't wait for this game to come out!

Does look pretty interesting to say the least. Can't wait for the next few previews

Thanks for the info. I can already see I'm not interested and move on and leave this game to others. Y'all have fun!

As a matter of fact, I pre-ordered my game today.

But that doesn't mean that you can stop convincing me, Kevin! *shakes fist*

Jeez, one preveiw and i'm already psyched to buy the game. what does that say? it says this game will ROCK! i love the fixed move rates and the whole "i like you so i think your guilty, yet the other guy i don't like" and the whole planting evidence is just cool, and realsitic! I just want the rules to be out now...

The Hunches aspect, as well as the fluid method of determining the guilt of the suspects is interesting. It really plays to the concept present in even today's court systems that guilt is often a matter of perspective and circumstance often seperate, and occasionally completely absent from, physical evidence.

That aside, I must ask, how are the cases determined in the game? Is there just a "murder" and all evidence is generated in a random or card draw format, or is each case its own seperate entity with markers placed in specific areas of the board according to a layout, like the dungeon layouts in Descent?

The info you have provided thus far leads me to believe that even if the latter is the case (specific layouts instead of random) there is a good deal of replayability built into the game based on hunch cards and each detectives strengths and weaknesses. However, even with the variables, a static form of case development or deployment only has so much replayability. Unlike Descent, where the Overlord can craft a new dungeon layout, players cannot craft new cases without "cheating" or ruining the mystery element of the game for themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I am not criticizing the format of the game and fully expect to purchase the game at my earliest opportunity. My concern is that I have several others who participate in board games with me, and they occasionally seem to try and find fault with a game, usually about time commitment or game play, and try to get me to play something else which is usally much shorter in duration and much more inane.

This game sounds quite engrossing so far, however, so maybe it will shut them up for a bit. I can't wait

Based on the video and the preview articles, it looks like the murder cases are fixed scenarios, much like the GOO's in Arkham Horror; a completely arbitrary guess on my part thinks there'll be about 20 of them (with more scenarios added as DLC in the coming months). The videos show a picture of the crime scene, along with flavor text. On the right it tells you where suspects are placed at the start. Additional details and parameters for the cases are unknown at this time.

However, consider the following randomizing elements combinatorics-wise:

• 20 cases (assumption)
• 5 players each drawing 1 of 6 Guilty Hunches and 1 of 6 Innocent Hunches, possibilities include players getting both for a Suspect, or a Suspect going completely undrawn
• Evidence draws are completely random.
• Players can both play defensively (putting high evidence tokens on their Guilty Hunch), or offensively (dumping negative evidence tokens on others, therefore making their Guilty Hunch more guilty by comparison); both actions look the same to a spectator.
• The "personal demons", which Kevin described as initial negative VPs you're trying to mitigate, are likely randomized as well from a set of cards.
• The conspiracy link jigsaw pieces are also random draws, so each game could end up with a different conspiracy (and therefore a different asset being devalued/hypervalued)

Food for thought on replayability.