You have always joked about having an outer body experience, but this time you really are having one. You find yourself hovering over your body after being murder and the crowd below is trying to figure out who killed you and how it was done. If only there was a way you could tell them. They are so close, but ghosts don’t talk so how are you going to be able to help them solve your murder? Yet, you soon find out that the crowd of people below are not your ordinary group of people. They claim to have paranormal abilities and are tempting to make contact with you. The connections been made and your story is about to unfold.
Overview
In Paranormal Detectives from Lucky Duck games and designed by Szymon Maliński, Adrian Orzechowski, Marcin Łączyński, one player plays as a ghost who has recently been murdered. The game plays 2-6 players and through the powers of a group of psychic mediums, their job is to use their abilities to get in contact with you to find out the who, where, why, how, and the murder weapon information of your murder. It is a deduction party game where the detectives are competing against it other to figure out the murder details first. If they are unable to figure out the full details, whichever detective figures out the most correct information before the end of the game is declared the winner. If you are familiar with Mysterium then some aspects of the game will be easily understood by you. While that is one game that many will compare Paranormal Detectives to, are the two games different enough to warrant owning both? Spoiler alert, yes. If you are not a fan of Mysterium, does this mean you will not like it? No. If you are new to the board game hobby, what game can this be compared to for you to get a sense of if it’s worth trying? I’d personally say and party game version of Clue, that will make you laugh.
Setup
The is a main game board that you will want to setup in the center of your play area, along with a blank dry erase board called a quill sheet. Also place the following game components next to the board within reach of the players; ghost meter pieces, talking board numbered markers, wound markers, and the hangman knots. Decide which player will be the ghost and randomly give this player a story card, a dry erase marker, the deck of tarot cards, the ghost sheet, a privacy board, and the 3 ghost interaction cards. Everyone else playing as the paranormal detectives will receive a privacy screen, a dry erase marker, a detective information sheet, and a set number of interaction (action cards) dependent on the number of players. The Ghost reads their randomly selected story card secretly to themselves. On the main board they utilize the wound markers denoting on the body chalk outline where they have been wounded during their murder. The ghost also marks their characters gender according to the information from the story. The ghost then reads aloud a small description of clues that detectives are made aware of according to the ghost’s body they have discovered at the crime scene.
Gameplay
Determine which detective will go first play rotates clockwise from there. On their turn, detectives have the option of performing up to 2 phases in order. The first is they must ask one question to the ghost. To do this they select an interaction card from their hand to play face up and ask the ghost out loud any question they choose that does not have a yes or no answer. The ghost must answer the question, interacting in the manner of the detectives played interaction card. We will get to the possible interactions shortly. After the ghost answers, players take notes on their info sheet keeping it hidden from other players. Be mindful that once you play your interaction card you can no longer play that card again. So choosing wisely and in a timely manner is key to your success. The second thing a detective can do is optionally make a guess at solving the crime. They are trying to get all 5 elements of the crime correct; Who, Where, Why, How, and the Weapon. If they guess all 5 correctly the game ends with them the winner. If not and they only get a partial answer, the ghost get to secretly write on that detectives sheet the number of elements they were correct on (0-4). They can not say which were correct, only a single number. The ghost records on their sheet the number that the deceptive guessed correctly for their record. The ghost then gives all detectives an additional clue, using 1 of their 3 interaction cards. No questions are asked at this time, only free info from the ghost. Play then continues clockwise until one detective gets all five elements correct or all detectives play their final interaction card without all 5 elements being discovered.
The following interactions are available to players:
Tarot Cards: Using tarot card to arrange in any manner the ghost sees fit to answer the asked question
Talking Board: The ghost using number indicators (number 1-5) to spell out there answer on the board. The catch is that the ghost is not pointing to an exact letter but a group of 3 letters, letting them know their letter is one amongst the 3. Creating some interesting decoding throughout the game.
Ghost Meter: Features various scaled responses such as small to big, light to heavy, hot- cold. Ghosts use marker to answer the question placing markers along a slider scale. For example if the ghost was asked the type of weapon they could answer with a marker closer to small instead of big, a marker closer to loud instead of silent, and a marker closer to hot instead of cold to indicate the weapon is a gun.
Quill Pen: The ghost moves the hand of the detective while they draw the answer. The drawing must be one continuous line.
Hangman’s Knot: The ghosts uses flexible rope to create their answer. Making shapes, symbols, etc
Ghost Scream: The ghost makes either a sound to answer the question or pointing to an object in the room
Whisper of Shadows: Th ghost mouths a single word answer without making a sound
Ghost Touch: Draws the answer on the back of the detective. Only shapes and symbols
Haunted Mirror: The ghost mimes an answer. Up to 3 seconds only
Overview
As a huge fan of Mysterium, I was excited to give this one a try. I wanted to personally see if this game was different enough and good enough to have in my collection along with Mysterium. We played a 4 player game with my wife who is a huge fan of Mysterium as well and two family members who have never played Mysterium and are new/casual gamers. We had a blast playing, as the entire group enjoyed laughing trying to figure out the clues being given by the ghost. Of course being the ghost I gave amazing clues and it was a tight race between all 3 detectives to figure out the 5 questions of the murder story. Being the ghost is challenging as you try to be creative with the limited interaction cards played and how you can possibly answer the question with 2 pieces of bendable rope/wire. The challenge for the detectives is taking good notes and narrowing down the answers.
What I like about the game is that as a party game, there is a good amount of strategy to draw in strategy board gamers but light enough for new and casual gamers to enjoy themselves and be at equal playing level with experienced board gamers. Every detectives turn also requires other detectives to be engaged and paying attention so there is minimal downtime between turns or else you might miss a clue.
The only downfall I foresee is having that one player in the group who just isn’t into the game or they are so lost or unengaged that they make the experience unenjoyable for others. I don’t think this is a downfall of Paranormal Detectives only but also an issue with other party games. Even good/great party games shine best with players who are engaged and open minded. The last issue with the game is that the story cards are one time plays as players will know what the story card answers are so future games limit them to only being the ghost. Gladly this is mitigated with 28 story card coming in the base box and in great Lucky Duck fashion an app that allows players to download more stories, even some community created stories.
In the end if you are a fan of party games or just deduction games you need to give this one a try. Also if you just love to have fun and want to introduce your Clue fans to the awesomeness that this hobby has to offer, give Paranormal Detectives a shot.