Chronicles of Crime

Chronicles of Crime is a cooperative game of Crime investigation mixing a board game, an app and virtual Reality. With the same physical components, players will be able to play plenty of different scenarios and solve many different cases.

In the game you have two decks of cards; one is characters and the other is clues, which are split into standard and special types. On top of this you have a central board to store clues that you have gathered during your investigation, location mats where you place character cards that are in those locations, and four specialist character mats. You can consult these specialists for medical, physical and psychological advice, during the case.

All these components have one thing in common - a QR code. To play the game, you will need to download a Free Android or iOS app to your mobile device. The use of an app for gameplay brings a unique element to this very exciting immersive game.

Loading up the app for the first time will take you into a simple tutorial case where you will learn the basics of the game. Cases will involve you being called to a scene which you can generally examine using the app through the phones display.  Interviews take place by scanning the QR code of characters, you can then ask them about other characters and items by scanning the relevant codes. Moving to locations around the city is done in the same fashion.

To begin, players select the case and scenario they want to play in the app and start it. The narrative begins there, giving the players the necessary components to begin their case investigation. The scenarios begin with a case summary and initial Location for the players to travel to.

Players start conversations with People in their Location by scanning the QR code on the Person card. This puts the app in Interrogation mode. While in Interrogation mode players can scan any other non-location card to ask the person about that item. Players can also scan the Forensic Contact cards to call the respective contacts about Evidence they’ve found.

If the location is a crime scene, the app presents the players with the opportunity to Search for Clues. In this timed mode, the player looks through the phone at a 360 degree picture of the crime scene. The player lists everything they see and another player pulls cards from the Evidence Card stack that match.

As players search Crime Scenes, find Evidence, and Interrogate People, they’ll begin to piece together the details of the crime they’re investigating. Players can scan Evidence while in Interrogation mode to attempt to find out additional information.

Once the players believe they have pieced together the case, the app will ask you a series of questions to to determine how much they actually learned. Players then gain points by answering these questions correctly..

Chronicles of Crime is a great game and experience, one that is easy to play and rewards logical thinking. It is quite unlike most other games, the closest it resembles is the popular escape room games, like Exit: The Game. For those budding armchair detectives in your life this is a fantastic choice.