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Crime travels
For Crime Scene Moscow, we’re traveling all the way to Russia where a brutal murder needs to be solved and we’re the only ones up to the task. Filled with game elements similar to escape room puzzles, this game would be a perfect match for fans of Unlock and Exit games.
The gripping story is written by renowned crime writer, Arttu Tuominen and paints the grimy scene of a drug riddled club in Moscow that has been evacuated after a murder has taken place.
As investigators, you must pick apart the scene for clues and follow the gripping narrative to find out who was behind the grizzly murders and put them behind bars before it can happen again.
Before we get stuck into this review, it’s worth noting that due to the graphic nature of scenes in this game, it’s not suitable for young players and may be upsetting for those affected by murder and drugs.
The Evidence
For a small game box, it comes packed with a wide selection of game components that contain clear and vivid images and the stock that is used is made to a really high quality. The game also contains:
● Four varieties of game cards
● Fold out Crime Scene tile
● Evidence folder
● Story booklet
● Instruction booklets and pamphlets
Although it may seem like there’s a large amount of components for a small crime scene game, each element plays an important part during gameplay and serves to create an immersive experience unlike any other puzzle game out there.
Scene of the crime
Players have to find the prompts from the narrative on a fold out tile that contains a picture of the crime scene. The scene is split into a numbered grid, so that each square contains items
that may coincide with evidence. As players read through the narrative, it prompts them to find certain items in the crime scene and locate the evidence card that relates to the grid number that the item appears in.
As a group, we found this to be really interesting and it was by far one of the best features of the game to interact with. The red herrings dotted around made finding the right item challenging and it kept us engaged throughout our playthrough.
It’s all in front of us!
Another fantastic element of this game was the evidence trail; an amazing way of keeping track of the evidence by having it all laid out in front of the players. The idea was in a similar way to pinning photos and evidence on a cork board and marking the paths between them with red string. It also served as a great clarification for finding the right answers for a puzzle, as the coloured string would link up to the following card if you had the correct one.
Having played a wide variety of similar styled puzzle games, I can easily say that I haven’t experienced a mechanic as cool as this in any other games to this day. It also helped to draw our minds away from disappointing puzzles that weren’t quite as engaging.
Missed the mark
Unfortunately, even though we thoroughly enjoyed our playthrough of Crime Scene: Moscow 1989; there were some elements that left us feeling a little disappointed.
The execution of a couple of the puzzles could have been better implemented or had a clearer solution. One example of this was when we found ourselves questioning if we would be able to carry on with the game, because the booklet hint gave a misleading instruction.
The only other issue I had was the grammar throughout the game. Where the game has been translated to English, the finished prompts, instructions and hints were difficult to understand at times and didn’t necessarily lead us in the right direction. For escape room/ puzzle style games such as this, players are dependent on clear instructions to lead them in the right direction; and without them, we as players felt lost at points.
Closing the case
Issues aside, our group of players thoroughly enjoyed this crime scene challenge and all the twists and turns that came with it. Of course, it’s not unusual for some in-game puzzles to be less memorable for players in comparison to others but it’s the other elements of the game that pulled us back in and kept us engrossed until the thrilling end.
We plan on picking up the rest in the series as soon as we can and look forward to finding other crime scene style games to get stuck into.
