London Present day:
You just left the commissioner’s office. You’re not sure how you feel, but definitely not good. A body was found in Hyde Park, and the commissioner just made it your case. It’s not your first murder case. But with the vague details the commissioner gave you, something about this one feels worse than usual. You can feel it in your guts. Leaving the police station, getting in your car, and close the door. You think about what you just heard and already know you’ll have to tell the family, and that’s no easy task. You shake off your thoughts, start the engine, and drive away to the crime scene. to solve the case and add it to the Chronicles of Crime file.
Game Objective
Each scenario offers a unique criminal investigation. The game is fully cooperative and all players are working together to solve the mystery.
The story will develop as you collect evidence and interrogate suspects. When you feel you are ready to close the case, go back to the Police Station and answer a series of questions that will determine your score as a team.
Set Up
- Place the Location Boards to the side of the Main Board
- Place Character Cards and Special Items Cards face down to the side of the Board
- Make Evidence Category Cards available to all players as well as the VR Goggles
- All Forensic Contacts are always in play. Split these up amongst the players
- Set the Home Location at the bottom of the Main Board
- NOTICE THAT THE MAIN BOARD HAS:
- 20 Evidence slots
- 6 Locations slots
- 3 Unlocated Characters slots
- Each Location Board contains 3 characters slots
How To Play
You progress in Chronicles of Crime by scanning Locations, Characters and Evidence Category cards. When the scan window is displayed, point at any QR Code on a card or board. Wait for the code to become green, then tap anywhere to trigger the scan.
- Scan a Location card: allows you to move to this location.
- Scan a Character card: allows you to interrogate the character.
Once scanned, the character will answer questions about any other characters or evidence. To do so, simply scan these cards and the character will speak about them. You can exit interrogation mode by pressing the “goodbye” button.
- Scan an Evidence Category card: allows you to pick up a clue that you have spotted. Extra details become available and if it’s import- ant it indicates that you should put it on your clue board.
- Scan a Forensic Contact: allows you to call your contact. When calling your contact, every other scan will make your contact speak about the topic. You can exit the call by pressing the “goodbye” button.
Locations, Characters and Special Items should stay face down until explicitly named by the application. During the game some of these cards will be revealed. These cards have the following symbols and a number or a letter.
The group should discuss together which card should be scanned.
In the world of Chronicles of Crime, time is very important. You can see the current time on the top right of the screen.
Each time you scan an item, interrogate a suspect or observe a scene, 5 minutes of the in-game time passes. Each time you travel from one place to another, 20 minutes of in-game time passes. The in-game time has an influence on the final scoring. The quicker you solve the case, the better score you will get. In some scenarios, time passing in-game also means situation can change.
Time is not always your friend.
Ending
When you believe you have found the bottom line of the story, you can give your report to your superior. Go back to the Home location and press ‘Solve the Case’.
A series of questions will be asked. To answer them, scan the cards that support your deductions. Your score will depend on your answers.
Chronicles of Crime is the most insane and high-tech board game I have ever played. Let explain this a little better before I get way to excited. Lucky Duck Games are about to release a game that is part Board Game, part phone app and part Virtual Reality. It is a game that had my interests peaked from the moment I heard about it. Though Dice, Cards and Meeples are my favourite things in the world, I do love tech and gadget so much.
You are probably thinking right now, how? How do you get all that stuff to work as one and actually make it enjoyable?
I had all these questions and thought it would be done ok but couldn’t be done well. Especially with the technology of VR being in a relative infant stage. Not to mention, the technology not as readily available to all as link a smart phone.
I know I personally have a VR Headset, because I got one when I brought me latest phone. Otherwise I wouldn’t just casually have it sitting around for use and I know of the 3 others I played this with, none of them had VR. So how do you get around something like this?
Quite simple actually. A simple and easy to attach “goggle clip” I guess is the best way to explain it. You simply slip it over your phone and it turns it into a VR Headset. And quite surprisingly, a pretty good VR Headset at that. We never had any issues while play the game. We only missed things because we are horrible Cops, not because of the VR Goggles.
So enough about the tech and more about the game. Chronicles of Crime, is an investigative game lead by an app. During the game the app will give you locations, people and clues to solve this murder. It tells you cards to draw by giving you the card number. The app allows you to interrogate the person, enter clues or move from locations by simple scanning the QR Codes on the cards.
The most remarkable thing about Chronicles of Crime is at no time do you feel like it’s not a board game. The app leads the game, you scan the card and you even look into the world using VR but the app just feels like a component of the game like a dice or a meeple. It is remarkable and Luck Duck Games need to be applauded for that.
The prototype only had one mission, but there will be six in the Kickstarter. Once you played it once, that is it, the game is done. I can see this expanding and Lucky Duck Games making several expansions to this game. I would love to see them go crazy with the expansions, 16th Century cases, Sherlock Holmes, Futuristic Cases and all kinds of weird and wonderful expansions.
My only real issues with this game, and I don’t even think you can call it an issue as such. The cards I received had a gloss finish and on the table we were playing on, there was had an overhead light. There was a little glare and we had to pick up the cards to scan and sometimes the scanning would take a little time.
If you enjoy games like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective or fancy yourself the next Leroy Jethro Gibbs; I can’t recommend this game enough. It is fun, clever, challenging and an amazingly interactive game that I think everyone will enjoy.
Sign up to Lucky Duck Mailing list to notified as soon as it launches or check out there preview Kickstarter page on the 27th of February
