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Chronicles of Crime is a co-operative game of criminal investigation in the City of London that mixes board game, an app and a touch of Virtual Reality…

You and your team will undertake cases that will find you visiting locations around the city, interviewing suspects or potential witnesses, and searching for vital clues in 3D scenes!

Providing us with a copy of the game Lucky Duck Games are swiftly building a reputation for producing dynamic board games from mobile properties.

Chronicles of Crime however takes their offering to another level and bridges this gap by being a board game which integrates with it’s own app.

The app is free to download and essential to game play as it’s used to progress your scenario, collect evidence, talk with suspects & witnesses and via a fantastic VR experience you will even explore crime scenes!

The clock is ticking…

Having selected your scenario, the Chief of Police issues you a case to solve and a countdown begins within the app – each decision and action you take will use up valuable time in your case, so choosing actions wisely is an essential and team based factor…

Travelling to locations will use up larger portions of time at 20 minutes, while talking to people of interest or investigating scenes and items uses 5 minutes per turn. Any remaining time after solving a case will influence the final score: so choose actions wisely to win by the highest margin!

It should also be noted that as an extra layer of experience, for some scenarios the passage of time will affect the availability of people of interest who move around – in this case time really is not on your side!

Game Play…

The game centers around the Evidence Board where items, characters and locations are all brought together to form your case.

Each asset contains a QR code which is scan-able within the app, so for each action you wish to take its as simple as selecting the card and scanning in the code to begin that action which can consist of:

  • Visiting a location
  • Interrogating Characters
  • Collecting Evidence
  • Speaking to the Forensics Team

If items and information become relevant to the investigation you are prompted to add them to the Evidence Board and importantly you can then use this to prompt for more information.

For example you can speak to the Scientist in your Forensics Team and then scan in the item of interest – this means you can interrogate a Character and prompt them about this new found clue that was unavailable previously.

The stand out element of the game however comes when visiting a crime scene where you can enter a Virtual Reality mode via your device.

With just under a minute to investigate you will pan around and scour the scene, describing to your team everything you can see.

You can re-enter the scene if you missed something first time around, or if a colleague would rather take a second appraisal but this uses up valuable time.

So instead stay alert and describe as much as you can… the smallest detail can make or break a case!

As you gather your evidence you will find yourself turning to NPC colleagues for support:

  • The Doctor for Autopsy and medical advice
  • The Scientist for object analysis
  • The Hacker for research and device access
  • The Criminologist for Psychological advice and background details on characters

Once you believe you have gathered enough evidence to solve the case you can return to the Chief of Police to report your findings at which point you will be asked a series of questions and you will put forward the cards you feel fit the solution.

Depending on the final score you may opt to press forward and read the story behind the case or re-enter the scenario to improve your score.

Summing up the Case…

Undoubtedly Chronicles of Crime is a superbly designed game both in its premise and execution – Lucky Duck Games are making advances in the tabletop experience with each new release and here we have a game that is not only thought provoking and engaging in its story but it’s truly immersive and team focused.

In terms of table presence this is such a striking game and the artwork is perfectly illustrated by Matijos Gebreselassie.

It introduces tonnes of unique characters to the world which grows around us as the evidence board expands during our investigations.

Out of the box there are 6 scenarios with the ability to add more – either buying via the app, through unlocking via peripherals such as the VR glasses or from boxed expansions such as Noir or Redview.

We can assure you that you will certainly want to collect all these additional materials and we’ve been fortunate to not only play through the official expansions but to also access exclusive scenarios, aswell as collecting some very suspicious characters who may be familiar to some tabletop readers…

The included and extended scenarios all cleverly reuse these assets from within the base game – so at first glance things are looking quite sparse given the size of the box, until you realize that it’s actually designed to hold expansions, additional assets and those fantastic VR Glasses that introduce yet another dimension and scenario to the game…

Packaging and future planning is an area that Lucky Duck is making great advances in because not only is there space for later expansions, but each of the cards are securely held behind a molded lid so no matter the orientation of storage all cards will remain in place when you open the box.

As to the experience itself…

Well each story is well conceived and drawn out with interesting and suspicious characters that will keep you guessing all the way to the conclusion.

The star of the show however is the mobile app as it certainly does bring a whole new experience to the table.

When it comes to the VR elements you start to see how tabletop and technology really can intersect – the ability to investigate a scene and interact with objects and your team just adds tension, flavor and immersion that is more akin to a murder mystery roleplay than any traditional board game night.

While the objective here is to use your keen sense of observation to pick out the intricacies of a scene and relay it to your team, we found that if you cast your device to a nearby TV it also allows colleagues to see through your eyes and they can use this essential time to observe with you and direct attention…

Is this cheating? We may have to take a mulligan on that as we’ve seen too many episodes of CSI that relay live feeds back to the lab for us to say… why not! ENHANCE!

And how about replayability?

Longevity of replay is up for debate here – given that a scenario can’t really be re-run once solved as it would only serve as a challenge to beat your previous score. Some may therefore see this as a wasteful game that may dwindle on your shelf…

While that may be true of other Mystery/Escape Room titles, Lucky Duck Games is fulfilling additional scenarios and new releases regularly (albeit at a cost) to keep interest going for each gaming night and let’s not forget that assets are reusable so that really does extend play ability with each new digital download.

Overall Chronicles of Crime is a true Event Game that comes alive with a team of friends around you and perhaps is a title played for really special occasions so that each valuable scenario can be savored and enjoyed within your gaming group.

In summary, if this is the direction of tabletop encounters then Lucky Duck Games is the studio to lead the way – we love Chronicles of Crime and what it represents for the industry.