Picture Perfect: The Sherlock Expansion

Picture Perfect feels like a modern board gaming take on the classic Cluedo due to the limited information and deductive reasoning for your placement of the party guests. The first expansion Movie Stars added famous guests to the party with some new mechanisms to consider, then the Pickpocket expansion added an extra layer of complexity due to the thieves needing to be placed near guests who had valuables. But with these expansions one important thing was missing……..MURDER. This is where the Sherlock Expansion comes in.

Thankfully the latest expansion brings all the murder you need for a great party plus some famous detectives to help you solve the case.

‘So my dear Watson does The Sherlock Expansion deduce the perfect game or has it murdered this party?’ Read on to find out.

Scream, There Has Been A Murder! (Of The Components List)

This expansion box is full of new components including new standees (Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson and Irene Adler) with character envelopes, an alibi pad, preference cards, exchange cards, alibi cards and a murderer preference card. There are so many components that the publisher got confused and the list included in the rules is incorrect.

This caused some frustration when sorting the components on receipt. I know not everyone does that when they are playing a new game or expansion but I like to know everything is correct before I get halfway through a game to realise something is missing.

Thankfully I discovered everything was correct after some research.

Do You Think The Dog Did It?

The main hook of this expansion is that one of the guests has been murdered and it is your job to work out who the murderer is using an alibi system.

At the beginning of the game you shuffle the character alibi cards and turn one face up, this is the victim. You turn over the table in the middle of the player boards (you don’t use any of the table furniture) and place the character laying in it as a coffin (I’m not joking). Then you take another character alibi card and leave it face down, this is the murderer. You then place the murderers preference card with this as well as a floor space card indicating how the murderer can escape from justice.

All of the other alibi cards are placed in envelopes without looking at them. Before anyone writes in I am happy to say that not only can the two children in this game not be murdered but they will always have the alibi cards which says they didn’t witness anything or have an alibi for anyone. However it could still be the dog or the plant (no idea how that would work in the real world).

During the game you will look into characters envelopes and they will be able to provide alibis for other characters (as well as their other normal requirements). When this happens you will cross off that person from your alibi sheet. Hopefully by the end of the game you will have crossed off all but one person meaning you know who the murderer is.

In between each round you will use the seven new exchange cards which adds a new mechanism. It allows you to ask other players about characters they have alibis for. Before they can give you an answer all other players must close their eyes then they will indicate if they do with a thumbs up, they don’t with a thumbs down and not sure with a closed fist.

You will also be instructed to take an envelope of a character you have an alibi for meaning all other players on the table will be able to mark that character off. I found these new exchange cards really speed the game up and kept the game at a sweet 30 to 45 minute mark.

I Gathered You All Here To Confirm That The Murderer Is None Other Than…

By the end of the game you must have placed Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson and this is where you can decide if you want the murderer to escape or not. If you are confident you know who the guilty party is then it is a good idea to place them next to that person. Then Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson will give you 12 points each if you are correct. If you are less sure then deliberately place them away from who you suspect carried out the heinous crime. This way you will get extra points for the murderer.

When everyone is ready you turn over the murderer card to reveal the bad person (or dog or plant). You then score all of your cards normally, together with points for Sherlock and Watson together with the five cards for the murderer.

But Wait, There’s More

This alibi mode alone would have been enough for me, however the expansion includes several variants such as a mode where you play with Irene Adler who scores five points for each VIP she is standing next to at the end of the game (the VIPs cannot score negative points). You can also play with all of the new characters as guests, or using a QR code provided in the rules you can play with different suspects even from the previous expansion (I think Charlie Chaplin did it).

Final Thoughts

This is easily my favourite expansion of all three released so far. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson fit naturally into the Picture Perfect world and it is great fun helping them to solve the murder (or helping the murderer to escape). The alibi system is so easy to incorporate and, together with the sheets provided, make you feel like a real detective when you work out ‘who dun-it’. The new exchange cards speed the game up and the additional preference cards are a welcome addition.

Now I have read through the rules and played with the expansion several times I would be happy to teach the game with The Sherlock Expansion mixed in straight away for new players.

I have knocked a point off the component quality due to the incorrect components list on the instructions. It is frustrating when you can’t match what it says should be in the box and what you actually get. I made some trips to Board Game Geek rules clarification pages and I saw I wasn’t the only one. Thankfully the publishers have said this will be remedied in the next print run.

I can only hope that Arcane Wonders & Corax Games have more plans for this game (maybe even a big box to store everything in as mine is bursting at the seams). But if this is the last expansion for Picture Perfect they certainly saved the best for last.