Jolly Thinkers PJOL01 Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, Mixed Colours

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The Forensic Scientist can place the bullets as fast or slowly as he’d like. In many cases it helps to wait for the Investigators to discuss current clues before adding more. This way he can direct the discussions toward the correct cards. I love a good murder mystery almost as much as I love any game where you get to deceive people, so I was incredibly keen to get my hands on Deception: Murder in Hong Kong! The Game The Accomplice is on the side of the Murderer. They know the Murderer’s identity and the Clue and Means cards relating to the crime. They must help the Murderer to win.

The set up for Deception is done in three parts. There is the scene set up, the roles, and then badge tokens. Scene To start the game, the dastardly crime must first be committed. To do so, every player except the Forensic Scientist closes their eyes. Then, when everyone has DEFINITELY closed their eyes, the Murderer opens their eyes and points at one of each of their Clue and Means cards, making sure the Forensic Scientist can see them. When an Investigator does that successfully, the crime is solved and the Forensic Scientist and the Investigators win the game.All players have lost their chance to solve the crime (either because they made an incorrect guess or did not attempt to "Solve the Crime" by the end of the third and final round of Presentation). In this case, the Murderer (and Accomplice) win the game. They continue to participate as normal and may still present during all Presentation phases but may not make another attempt to solve the crime.

The only new information you gain related to the group hypotheses are the new clue cards swapped in. I really do like this dynamic as the forensic scientist player has to use the new card, and has to eliminate one from the table. Do you remove a clue that everyone has already gained as much information out of as they will, to prevent them from overthinking it? Or do you remove that clue that didn’t give them anything at all? Do you try to angle your strategy towards bringing them closer to the cause of death, or the clue? Maybe you eliminate one of the clues they spent a lot of time over in the previous round, indicating that they were misleading themselves by overthinking it. Everything about it is touchy and subtle, and when you draw a clue that can’t possibly give them any information it’s frustrating in the best kind of way. Players are free to mix and match Roles in any way which is fun for them. The following sets are ones that have been tested and work well for creating fun and tense games. Even though everyone we’ve played Deception with has loved it, we know it won’t be a fit for every family. The first reason is the name of the game itself. With the title including “murder”, many people may immediately be turned off. Other than the Forensic Scientist, every player, including the Murderer (and the Accomplice) can make one single attempt to "Solve the Crime" at any time during the game. To try to solve the crime, a player should announce, "Let me Solve the Crime!" That player then points to one Clue card and one Means card in front of another player. All of these evidence cards will be placed in the center of the table and the forensic scientist may begin placing the bullet markers on each tile. There may only be one marker placed on each tile and it must only be placed on one of the six spots on the tile.If at any time a player wants to make a guess to Solve the Case, they can do so. However, each player (other than the Forensic Scientist) only gets one guess during the game. So they need to be judicious when to do so. If they make an incorrect guess, they aren’t out of the game. They can still participate in all the discussion to help catch the murderer, but they just can’t make another guess. A crime scene is a location where a crime has been committed. It is usually the place where the body is found, or where the crime took place. It can also be the place where the suspect was found or where the suspect was last seen.

Witness (1): The witness wins if they or the investigators correctly identify the murder and the evidence and means that prove their guilt. The witness knows which players are playing the murderer and accomplice are but not which role they have. The witness will try to lead the investigators towards these two subtly because if they are caught and killed at the end of the game the murder goes free. SETUP

Roles

When the crime takes place, the Murderer chooses 1 Clue card and 1 Means card as the solution to the crime. These will be the "Key Evidence" and "Means of Murder" respectively. Cases of violent crime totalled 1,840, a drop of 10.3 per cent. The most significant drop was in the number of burglary cases, which stood at 170 and represented a 49.6 per cent decrease. That said, I did find the Forensic Scientist role to be either a blessing or a curse. On the one hand, it is incredibly fun to sit silently and deduce clues that will tip off your team as to the solution of the murder – there’s a reason this role is so popular for players of Mysterium. But on the other hand, the Forensic Scientist can take no real part in the discussion or group deduction. For me, I ended up feeling quite isolated. At any point during the investigation phase, a player may attempt to solve the murder. This is done by cashing in your badge token and pointing out a player and a means of murder and an evidence clue. If these are the correct evidence the forensic scientist will say yes, and the game will be over.