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MicroMacro: Crime City
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MicroMacro: Crime City does what it says on the tin! On a Macro sized map, misdeeds are shown in Micro detail. You will not only find where the incidents take place, but also be able to back track through the events leading up to them.
You play the role of consulting detective aiding a struggling Police Department with 16 cases, varying from the trivial to the heinous. These cases are presented in a number of steps on cards, varying in length from 5 steps for the introductory cases, up to 11 steps for the most complex. After a summary description of the case is read out you are asked to locate specific scenes or persons on the cityscape. When you think you have found the scene requested, flip the card to see the correct answer. Each step successfully located will lead on to the next until you reach the finale!
Player Count: 1-4
Time: 15-45 minutes
Age: 12+
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Description
MicroMacro: Crime City does what it says on the tin! On a Macro sized map, misdeeds are shown in Micro detail. You will not only find where the incidents take place, but also be able to back track through the events leading up to them.
You play the role of consulting detective aiding a struggling Police Department with 16 cases, varying from the trivial to the heinous. These cases are presented in a number of steps on cards, varying in length from 5 steps for the introductory cases, up to 11 steps for the most complex. After a summary description of the case is read out you are asked to locate specific scenes or persons on the cityscape. When you think you have found the scene requested, flip the card to see the correct answer. Each step successfully located will lead on to the next until you reach the finale!
Player Count: 1-4
Time: 15-45 minutes
Age: 12+
MicroMacro Crime City designed by Johannes Sich and published by Pegasus Spiele is a cooperative detective game. Designed for one to four players, together or alone you’ll be tasked with solving 16 tricky criminal cases by identifying motives, finding evidence and convicting perpetrators. A keen eye is equally as important as a clever deduction.
What’s In The Box?!
Inside you’ll find a huge black and white city map, which folds out to a whopping 110cm width x 75cm height. The wonderfully brief rulebook advises putting it on a large surface with good lighting. Personally, I found sticking it to a wall was much easier and avoided blocking the view of others when leaning over a table. The map also has a grid reference around the edge, which makes things infinitely easier to keep track of.
There are 120 cards, which make up the 16 criminal cases you’ll need to solve, each with varying difficulties (rated one to five stars). You’ll also get 16 envelopes to sort the cases into, which obscure the text to avoid any spoilers. That said, they don’t completely mask the text so you’ll need someone with strong enough willpower to resist reading the answers.
The aforementioned short rulebook, which is a folded A4 piece of paper that covers everything you need to know clearly and concisely. A magnifying glass rounds off the contents, some of my group found it useful and some didn’t.
Hello Detective, Let’s Play a Game
You’ll start off by unfolding the city map and ensuring there’s plenty of space and lighting. Next, you’ll assign a Lead Investigator. They still investigate the map with everyone else. But also have the task of reading out objectives, advancing the case and ensuring no spoilers are given.
The Lead Investigator then takes a case out of an envelope and reads aloud the top card, which gives an overview of the cases and, on occasion, subtle clues. The top card is then turned over and the team receives its first task. This will always start simply with locating a person or building… or a body. Once the team believes it has completed a task the Lead Investigator turns over the card. If they are correct the case continues, if they are incorrect the team goes back and tries again. But the Lead Investigator cannot continue as they now know the solution to that part of the case. They must wait for the rest of the team to get the task right before joining back in.
Each case follows this formula until their conclusions. More difficult cases have more steps with fewer hints. In earlier cases, you’ll be giving an area to search, with hints like “between the market and the hardware store. As the difficulty of the cases increases the cards become vaguer. In one case my team had to identify all the things a couple did throughout their day. We weren’t told how many things needed to be found or where to start. This led to faces almost touching the map as everyone scrutinised every footstep the couple took.
Case Closed
MicroMacro Crime City is a fantastic game with an art style that is simple yet striking. The map is extremely detailed without becoming muddled or confusing. A handy short mystery on the cover of the box is a great way to get people who may not usually play board games to have a quick go. Then you can bring out the giant map for a proper session.
Early cases serve as a way to orient players around the map. It allows them to familiarise themselves with the layout while remaining fun. The more difficult cases are an excellent challenge that give a great sense of satisfaction when solved. Especially the five-star cases.
The box states the game is for one to four players. My only gripe with this game is playing solo. It leaves no margin for error, if you get part of a case wrong you can’t go back and try again as you’ll have already read the answer. It can be fun going back and finding out where you went wrong, but it’s not the best way to play.
Each case is estimated to take between 15 and 45 minutes to complete. This is true of laters cases, but me and my team managed to get through the first six in just under half an hour. On the plus side, once you complete all the cases you can visit the MicroMacro website and sign up for a newsletter. They’ll then send you extra print and play cases to continue the fun. Or, you can pick up the shiny new sequel MicroMacro: Crime City – Full House.
Editors note: This blog was originally published on May 25th, 2021. Updated on October 7th, 2021 to improve the information available.
Welcome to Crime City. It’s a place of murder, mayhem and, most importantly, mysteries. MicroMacro: Crime City is a delightful romp through crime-infested streets and YOU, the investigator, have been charged with solving those misdeeds.
Accessibility Summary
- The instructions are clear and well formatted.
- Each case is quite short.
- You may struggle if you have vision or sensory processing issues.
- Memorising the locations involved in a case can be difficult, but there is a solution!*
Solving the Mysteries
The game centres around following clues on the cards for each of the 16 cases (plus an extra hidden on the box) to solve a crime. No spoilers: cards usually contain questions like:
- Where is the hat?
- Where did the victim live?
- Where are the perpetrators now?
Think Where’s Wally for adults. The questions aren’t complicated, but finding the solutions is a fun challenge.
The cases themselves range from lost hats to murder. The game is suitable for ages 12+, but the start card for each case indicates the severity of the crime involved, acting like a basic trigger warning so you can decide what works for you and your players.
It’s part 1 of 4 games (plus a bonus box that combines the previous four games) and can be played by 1 to 4 players. You’ll need a large surface – a wall, table, or a hard floor, and bright lighting.
You really can play this game solo, but it’s fun with more players too! I did the first few cases solo and later cases with other people, and I couldn’t tell you which I preferred. It’s all down to your personal choice and your friends’ availability!
Getting Set Up
Setup is really straightforward – all you need to do is:
- Put a sticker on your magnifying glass.
- Put some cards into cute little envelopes.
You could probably do it in 5 minutes, but I accidentally had the TV on, so it took an hour.
The components are of average quality. I had the map on the carpet to begin with, and it tore in seconds. You definitely need a hard surface for it, but the artwork is amazing. A bigger magnifying glass would have been great, but as it’s entirely useable as it is. The packaging is nice, but the box could easily have been smaller, though the cat enjoyed it!
Playing the Game
The map shows the city as a place, but also represents the events happening in time. So, you might find a character at the scene of the crime and be able to track their movements forwards and backwards through their story.
You work your way through these stories in short bursts of play from 15 to 45 minutes per case. If you go by the information on to the box that is. Your play time per case is likely to differ based on concentration levels, energy, and so on.
When you’re done with a case, simply move on to the next!
The Cases
The introductory case is nice and simple. It eases you into the game and is contained within a small area of the map. It’s a lighthearted case, as crimes go, and shouldn’t cause any trouble to solve.
Later cases get tougher and longer, and many have more than the 5 cards you get for the first few crimes. As you bring down MicroMacro: Crime City’s underbelly, you might find that the tougher cases are great because you can really get your teeth into them.
More About Accessibility
If you have problems with eyesight or sensory processing issues, you might find this game quite hard. The map is very detailed, large, and the things you need to find are typically half a centimetre to 2 centimetres in size. It’s entirely black and white. The text on the case cards is also quite small, which is also potentially problematic if you have vision problems.
*The solution promised above: because I struggle with the typical ADHD memory and processing issues, I used tiny arrow-shaped post-it notes to keep track of what we’d found at strategic points. There aren’t any written rules against it, and it just made the whole game so much less frustrating as I didn’t have to spend ages re-finding or remembering things from earlier in a case.
Executive dysfunction can be… not nice to you sometimes, but the rules for MicroMacro: Crime City are short and have largely been well written. The formatting is also pretty good. The creators used blocks of text, but it’s broken up by bullet points and highlighted information.
You don’t even need to read all the instructions through before playing, just try playing one instruction at a time! Another a major positive: the instructions are white text on a black background.
Each case is relatively short, so if you’re not concentrating, it’s fine because you haven’t lost much progress like you would in a longer game. If you’re feeling in the zone, you can always take on one of the longer, tougher cases. There are no turns, so you don’t have to spend time waiting for others to hurry up.
Do what you need to do to help yourself with your concentration – music, silence, TV, fidget toys – and get stuck in!
Final Thoughts
Even being relatively new to board gaming, MicroMacro: Crime City was so simple to learn. Whilst I solved the first case solo, in the rest of the cases I took the role of lead investigator and was able to explain the rules to the other players without much issue.
There is an advanced mode option, which you play without the case cards. That is, you use the start card and solve the rest of the crime yourself. So, if you’re not a fan of doing what you’re told, or being spoon-fed, this might be the way to go after the introduction case.
There’s virtually no replayability, but there are 16 cases to play, plus an extra one on the box. You also have 3 more games and a bonus box to look forward to after this.
So why would you want to play this game? In short, it’s simple, easy to play but hard to master, and you get a great sense of achievement completing the cases.
All in all, I loved MicroMacro: Crime City, and I can’t wait to play the next one!
Ratings
Artwork: 5
Complexity: 2
Replayability: 1
Player interaction: 4
Component quality: 3
Overall: 90
You might like:
- Quick fire cases.
- Play solo or in a team.
- The level of accessibility.
You might not like:
- Being spoon-fed clues.
- Lack of replayability.
- Detailed map might hurt your brain.
Zatu Score
You might like
- Fun cases, despite the morbid theme
- The highly detailed map
- Following people not mentioned in the cases - theres a baby who has a fun-filled day!
Might not like
- Playing solo
- The magnifying glass