For Thanksgiving this year, my wife wanted to do something different. She picked up an UNSOLVED CASE FILES: COLD CASE MYSTERY MURDER GAME: WHO KILLED HARMONY ASHCROFT? CAN YOU SOLVE THE CRIME?
We started detecting around twelve noon and cracked open the case file. I was impressed by the contents. The pictures clipped to each individual file on a suspect/person of interest made me wish for a white board to mount them on. I think they would have looked great.
We spread the pictures over a card table and dug into the background matter.
The case is divided up well. We were examining a case that had been "solved," except for the fact that the wrong man was locked up in jail. That has been happening a lot, as you can see from the news. Of course, the justice system gets a lot of the court cases right, and I never want to lose sight of that. Still, with everything in front of us, I'm glad this was just a game.
Our first task was to prove the DA's office had gotten it wrong and had locked up an innocent man. The game has an online component where the players have to list the documents that were used to prove each piece of evidence introduced into the case.
Randi came up with the key clue, and the rest of us had been over the material several times. Diligence and an eye for detail is importance.
Once that hurdle was cleared, we ended up searching through interviews for an out-and-out lie that would lead us to the guilty party. Bill and I had already locked onto the guy we thought did it (and we were right) but we didn't have the necessary documents in our list to prove it online. Randi caught that piece of evidence as well and we knitted the trail together.
It didn't take long after that before we tumbled onto the last clue we needed to catch our killer and we did.
I like that you have to play fair with the game and list the documents that you have to use to prove your case. It's not quite Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with a poker, but it's certainly a diverting exercise in logic.
I have a friend who was a police interrogator who would probably solved the case in minutes because he's used to sifting through witness statements, but this was a good exercise for us and kept us occupied for close to three hours.
We all had a good time, and I'm interested in further exploring the games. They can be play by an individual or a group. I don't think I'd be interested in playing it solo. I liked the group dynamic, and I think playing wish Sherry and Chandler could be a lot of fun, so we'll probably try another one over the Christmas holidays.
There's even a mystery game that is kid-friendly.
