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Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game – Season One, a.k.a. Detective: Season One, is a fully co-operative, deeply immersive board game in which 1-5 players take on the roles of investigators trying to solve a crime.
Detective: Season One is a new product in the award-winning Detective line, one with a shorter playing time that's tailored for a mystery game night with simpler family-friendly rules. The game consists of three standalone cases, and each of them can be played in around 90 minutes. Each of the cases challenges players with different settings and styles. The cases are:
• Blood, Ink, and Tears moves the action to Great Britain, where players visit an old mansion and discover family secrets from the past that lead them to clues behind the mysterious death of the family patron. Fans of Agatha Christie's novels will find themselves at home in this rather funny case!
• Solid Alibi throws players in the middle of a bloody conflict between gangs and criminals in the Italian district. Players have to not only solve the crime and discover who killed Robert Parkson, but also witness growing tension in the district and find out who to trust in the spiral of violence and mutual accusations!
• Natural Causes takes players to a university campus in the U.S. Professor Calvin Higgs is found dead in his lab at the Biology Institute of Virginia University. Players need to find out whether his death is from natural causes, or perhaps there's someone in his surroundings responsible for this horrible crime. But what could be the motive?
Part of the Detective – A Modern Crime Board Game (Portal Games) family — see Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game for the combined view.
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Detective: Season One - How To Play
- Simpler version of Detective.
- Detective
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's like, falling into a warm comfortable bed. It's just all nice and cozy and you know what to expect
- I enjoy train games don't know why but I enjoy a train game
- for an old-school euro game I really enjoyed this too it didn't have a lot of flash or dazzle or anything unique it's an older game reprinted
- the person who wants to be first has to pay full price person who wants to be second it's got to pay full price then the next people have to pay half price and the last person doesn't underpass it's that half-price and zero price
- if you don't have enough money to pay your expenses you're in a world of hurt
- there's not a lot of flash to it mm-hmm solid mechanics solid concepts concepts that I enjoy
- theme doesn't draw me in but theme turns me off maybe we are sitting there looking at what's flashy too
- portability I can't argue with that that is the selling point of that console right now
- Oh okay I should not have dismissed this game strictly on theme because it's a solid no little euro game
References (from this video)
- Shorter playtime
- Streamlined campaign
- Detective
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Shorter Scenarios — Campaigns take approximately 90 minutes to play.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- If you're judging this group and you're on the sheepdog and you're digging through all that fur and you only see one eye then you've got the wrong end
- Ugly on a moose have you ever heard that
- the investigators are dogs and you're investigating like evil cats and everything like that
- this game is a brain burner
- it really is and it's very mathy
- it was surprisingly faithful to the game in how you play it
- we were debating like would it be better to put down this card and take a hit to our water if it meant getting some money back for it
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- There is no you win card in here
- Immerse yourself in the experience as much as you like
- you won't have time to follow every lead
- the actions you perform in the game will use up time which you track on the board
- you can replay the case if you'd like to try to get a better score
References (from this video)
- accessible introduction to the detective genre with strong deduction mechanics
- case design that rewards discussion and collaborative reasoning
- season 1 adds photos of suspects and a mind-map flavor that deepens immersion
- less intimidating than the original while preserving core feel
- some players may miss the internet-search element present in Detective: A Modern Crime Game
- not as long or as content-rich as the original campaign for those seeking deeper investigations
- investigation, deduction, collaboration
- modern city crime investigations; three standalone cases with a noir-esque vibe
- episodic mysterys; reader-driven opening stories; evolving theories based on clues
- Detective: A Modern Crime Game
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- cooperative deduction — players work together to interpret leads, manage time pressure, and assemble a web of clues without revealing every piece of information to the team.
- Deduction — players work together to interpret leads, manage time pressure, and assemble a web of clues without revealing every piece of information to the team.
- lead-collection and note-taking — no single magic piece of evidence; each card adds threads to the theories, encouraging players to take notes and discuss possibilities.
- scenario-based cases — three standalone cases with unique narratives, allowing flexible play order and repeatability.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- there's no magic piece of evidence you need to find to solve the case
- it's a race to finish an enclosure first
- you read the opening story and then it's up to you to decide which leads to follow
- the game is begging you to take risks because if you ever get 21 on a mission you not only win the mission but you lose a notoriety token