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Ever wanted to play a game that's a slice of Guess Who topped with a sprinkling of Cluedo, with the added wrinkle of betting on the culprit. Well, today is your lucky day! Grab your pad, grab your pencil and unleash your inner Poirot. Museum Suspects is a game of looking at clues, narrowing down the possible suspects and a group of plucky anthropomorphic suspects.
In Museum Suspects, a valuable artefact has been stolen from the museum and you must apprehend the guilty party, as long as are still knocking around the ancient fossils and paintings of the museum. The culprit or culprits quite possibly also could have escaped in this quirky mix of game styles, it's up to you to work out what happened and who was to blame.
A Simple Setup
The setup of Museum Suspects is very straightforward. Shuffle the museum's inhabitants and lay them out in a four-by-four grid. Then shuffle the possible clue cards and place one wither side of the four rows of suspects. This gives you sixteen suspects and eight clues to accuse them with. The clues are made up from eight decks. These decks refer to the room the crime took place, the position of innocent animals on the grid and even if they were wearing headphones are not. You know where this is going, I know you do, Guess Who?
Rule Out The Innocent
On your turn, you must perform two actions. Firstly, you can look at any of the eight clues then you must bet on a suspect. Each player has a pool of cardboard tokens that have values on the back ranging from one to six and these are used as a shared pool for betting on suspects and placing on clues to try and make the other players life a bit more difficult when looking for clues.
To look at a clue you must place a cardboard token of equal or higher value than one that's on there already. This does create a weird bluffing system where you can try and dissuade people from looking at good clues and trying to force them to look at bad ones. If there is no token on a clue you can place any value token on it you please.
After you have looked at the clue, you cross off which clue you saw in your quaint little detective pad and then cross off the corresponding miscreants in the grid, also located in your pad. After you can place any of your tokens, face down this time, on a suspect you think may have committed the heinous crime. IN the end thhe winner is determined by who has the most points on the guilty party, or in the event of no guilty party left, the exit tile.
Less Deduction More Puzzle
Museum Suspects, due to its random puzzle setup, can be a weird game at times. I thought it would require more deduction but in reality, it's just a game of looking at clues and crossing off suspects. I feel the interesting parts of the game are the betting and bluffing about clue cards. Also, due to it being random, there can be one suspect, multiple suspects or even no suspects at all.
I feel, that while this game was a bit lighter than I would have liked and a bit less deduction than I would have liked, it's great for family and kids. My kids enjoyed it greatly, a quick game that lies between Cluedo and Guess Who with a few extra wrinkles to spice up proceedings.
Save The Planet
The components in Museum Suspects are really nice. I especially like Blue Orange games’ drive to cut down on plastic baggies by including the tokens and pencils in paper envelopes. It's a nice touch. The tiles are thick and sturdy and the notepads are functional and attractive. I thought the artwork was bright, well drawn and very adorable.
What I also appreciated is how everything fits snugly in the box and there is no space wasted inside. I have seen too many games in recent times that bloat the size of the box and have far too much spare space. I suppose that goes hand in hand with the paper envelopes though, it's nice for companies to have one eye on the future of the planet, especially when our hobby uses so much resources.
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed Museum Suspects, yes I would have liked it to be a bit more deduction focused but it is a nice game to play with my kids and family. It may even be a good game to introduce people to the hobby. It's cute, clean and very attractive. Museum Suspects’ set up, teardown and runtime are all perfect for this weight of game, it never outstays it's welcome and is entertaining throughout. I am just not sure about how many more plays I will get out of it and if I do, it will be with the family or newcomers only.
