Tiny Epic Crimes - Board Game Review

welcome to allies or enemies I'm Jess and I am Sean and today we are talking about tiny epic crimes which is published by gambling games and designed by Scott alms and we were provided this copy by the publisher for review but the thoughts in this video are all our own and in tiny epic crimes you are police officers trying to solve the crime as you go around town collect various bits of evidence but let's take a closer look at how [Music] Place players start the game with a special ability a car at headquarters and a crime to Sal each turn you will first drive and then take an action which includes several ways to gather Clues such as searching for evidence by flipping tokens catching informants or Witnesses if you catch a mobster in the right row or column bringing in a mobster for holding by taking them to HQ stakeouts which involve Bing time to gain tokens and good old fashion of resting whichever player gains the third of a kind of token also gets to take a Peak at one piece of evidence also all of these actions move your marker up the time track and sometimes over these lines which cause events which are bad things that you need to deal with once your time crosses into the Red Zone you can choose who you think did it and once everyone rest their cases the murderer is revealed and the best detective is named on top of the competitive mode you can also play the game cooperatively which is mostly the same but you Share info but each detective only has access to some of the actions so you'll need to decide who's the wild card and who's too old for this so that's how it plays and I like that there are the two different options of choosing the competitive and the cooperative and our very first game we played cooperatively which was a good way of being able to learn the rules together so I do recommend maybe for your first one of playing it cooperatively but I think overall I'm probably going to choose the competitive one more yeah I totally agree on both things I'm really glad we played Co-op together because it's just lower stakes and you can all learn and it's like it's a little G I guess but the competitive feels like like that's kind of the full game like the competitive you're doing a lot more of gaining the um the suspect cards and and you're trying to finish those events partly just to learn what other people know because only some people have those those like key bits of information and those are so important like you need to have at least three of those and especially in a three or four player game you really have to finish off those events so you can learn what other people know yeah and I think in the competitive mode as well how much time you spend becomes even more important because you may be able to pull off two turns in a row if you do lowcost actions so I really like that decision of needing to try and do things more efficiently I mean cooperatively you do too the timer is really ticking down I think you just feel it more in the competitive mode and I also like that when you've got one of something and then someone else gets one of something like you have to think about oh am i setting up someone to get the third one because that's really the key bit of information but also trying to get on board with all of them so that you get a suspect whenever it's solved and I think that's a really nice Dynamic yeah I do like that there are a lot of it's you don't have access to everything all of the time which is nice too because that also might play into when you decide to go into day or nighttime is you know if each of us have one and we're working for that third one I might actually want to get back into the other phase that will then give me the opportunity to to get that third token so I do like that depending on whether it's day or night you can only do some of the actions and the actions all have a cost and then things get changed up drastically with those event cards as well and at first I don't know I don't know how at first I thought the event cards were probably too harsh they felt some of them felt really difficult to achieve and some of them were just like you can't you know do the the pink action anymore and it's like but I was working towards that but I think it is necessary yeah and I think they're once we like after we've played a little bit more we're a little less afraid of them too but I think the key isn't so much the I think you're right it's that it's first of all that like negative thing of now you can't do this but it's also the positive thing of you want to learn that information so you are going to risk those because it can be such a big payoff on those so they just kind of naturally will go away a bit you're you're still G to have two or three too many events penalties but losing all you do is you lose a suspect and you can lose three or four suspects in a game and still learn everything and so it doesn't really make sense even to solve those for the first half of the game it's kind of those come into play once someone has learned a core bit of information that you want to steal from them yeah cuz they can cost a lot of time so if you sol but early before anyone knows anything you're really missing out on one of the core rewards and that does bring me to one of the aspects is the randomness that can happen and so a key part of a lot of the things you're doing is betting on on time and time is a very precious resource you know it's you won't have everything you need by the time you get to the end you don't want to be spending a lot so it is tricky you have to be okay with knowing that you will decide ahead of time of how much time to risk and you you the odds might be in your favor and you might still fail and that can be tough yeah it's really tough when you bet like five because there'll be some that say something like um like choose one to five roll a dice as long as it's equal to or lower you succeed but you can bet five plus move that's like six you've only got 50 time in a game that's a huge amount of your time and then roll a six and get nothing out of that turn and that does feel bad there are odds and that's part of the game that does feel bad there's also the randomness of those events cuz some of them especially at two players are basically impossible it's like someone has to stand on a suitcase and someone else has to stand on the other suitcase and you're just not going to coordinate and do that you're just not so in a four player game that probably is going to happen so I would say like we're probably going to start taking out a few of those just to even that out a bit but again it's like there needs to be a bit of Randomness otherwise I don't think it would quite work and I like the um the brown ones that you have to kind of decide how much you want to gamble on what number it's going to be I think those are good because if you fail once you know what the number is so the next time you'll succeed that's true it does give you some information and speaking of Randomness that leads us into replayability because the randomness of which events come out and that you know you don't aren't always going to be guaranteed to succeed does give it some replayability it does and there are there's OB the obvious Randomness is it's going to be a different person who committed the crime each time so you're not going to know and the puzzle's always going to be new because that's just the nature of this sort of game in the puzzle and the the city is all placed differently um so that's going to change things the events are going to change things the who you're drawing out of the bag is going to change things so there is quite a bit of variability yeah and one of the biggest ones too is your ability so at the beginning of the game you get get dealt two ability cards and you you pick one of them and that does change things a bit I will say they do seem to be a little bit uneven some of them seem stronger in some games than others but that having that ongoing throughout the game ability also makes it feel different there are also a couple of expansions the first one is a mini expansion called crooked capos that adds two modules the Crooked modules is a bit of a hidden roll and the capos modules adds these more challenging Mobsters that give you bigger rewards when you are when you arrest them on top of that there is a much bigger expansion called kingpins and that adds a whole bunch of stuff one of the main things is you are trying to figure out who the Kingpin is on top of doing everything else yeah it's the Kingpin one is really a whole other level we played it in like our fourth game and it felt like a lot there's already quite a bit to keep track of when you're following like all of the event things and everything else that's going on but this is like now you're getting uh well basically you kind of have to solve almost two cases at once because you got this shared little car that moves around and that's like busting up these like flop houses and then those are deciding who the Kingpin is but you want like one kind of um like flop house thing they're like violence or I don't even remember there like the four different kind of attributes and you want one of them to be involved in the Kingpin there's just there's too much of it to explain everything but it's interesting and it's cool to have I think once you played like 10 games of this I think you would get a little tired of how the base game plays and this does add a whole other layer that I think's neat but I don't think I'll go back to it until we've played until we've got to like that 10 games yeah I definitely wouldn't throw it in in the first game I would wait kind of that 10 game level where you are very comfortable with your action with keeping track of the events and everything else but it is nice to add if you are finding you're kind of doing the same thing and if it's feeling a little bit similar for sure in terms of the other one I think if we aren't using Kingpin we'll probably add the capos because those are a nice little addition yeah I think the capos are great there's kind of no reason not to add them because they're just like a little bit harder to find usually you have to be at a certain level on your like little badge track and then there's just some little like they cost one extra time or they do whatever and then they all give you a different benefit which I like the hidden rule thing though is I wouldn't use it at two at all maybe at four players it' be more interesting because it's not it's not like even a hidden Trader it's just one person can't drive their car or other people have cars so you're just kind of watching for that and if you call them out on it you get a little benefit if you're wrong you lose a little bit if no one calls you out you get that little benefit and the benefits like one time or you move one on your track or whatever it is so it's not huge but it just it gives you something in a four player game that you can kind of watch on other people's turns which is fine but I think that one's like if you didn't get the kickstarter you don't have it you're fine but the Kingpin I do think if you've played a bunch and you're like I really like this game and I just want a little more um I think that moving the patrol car and getting rid of things and you've got these cool monuments on the board they look they just look cool and extra cards and all sorts of stuff that I really do think adds another layer but it's just a layer you do not need for the for your first Chun because it is hard I think they Ed the end of the game really well it's been rare that we have a 100% knowing who it was that did the crime it's often between like two people which is a really nice way to go where you think you might have it but there's a chance that you don't yeah I It's usually the last turn if I get it it's the last turn if I but you're right it's most games has been out of two or three and then I make a guess and I've never guessed right I've got it i' i' fully 100% got it down to the one and got it but anytime it's been a 5050 I've gone with the wrong person yeah I I have also done that so it is beneficial to 100% get it but you're not necessarily going to and I wonder though if that does change with player count so I will say that we have only played at two players and it works really well as a two-player game at two players there are two of the clue tokens that are only three instead of five the pink and the blue so often for those it is a race of who's going to get the third one to be able to get the final piece of evidence for that but at more players there are five of them so you're just going to have less of a chance of being the one that gets that final clue token yeah and you'll also have to risk a little bit more in the brown ones where you have to roll like the one to five at two we generally we find ways like there are a few of the um Force cards that let you Peak underneath a few of them so we tend to be able to to avoid that four and five but at four players you you're going to be like I know it's a five and I'm still going to do it because I need to get that suspect card so I do think that there are a lot of ways where that four player game is going to be a little bit more interesting but I was just I was happy that it still works at two but let's talk a little bit about the components so what do you think about the components I think the components are a bit of a mixed bag I think the city comes together really nicely I like that all the cards fit together so well I like the little car that you're driving around as well I think the art is nice I like your your image of your people for the detectives I think where it gets a little bit tricky is how they do the suspect cards so the suspects are one of them is going to be the murderer that you're trying to solve and it uses the thing where you have to use like a red Looking Glass like they used to be in like cereal boxes yeah exactly but you can still read it without the red thing kind of yeah so they've solved that by having when you get one piece of evidence instead of you know just looking at that one piece with your viewfinder you put it in a whole separate envelope which is good it means you only see that one bit but the envelopes are really tight and so what that means is we have had it where a suspect card has gotten a bit like nicked on the bottom and that means from now on if we see that suspect card somewhere we know who it is yeah and I wish I didn't remember it but I will remember it forever I think the only thing that's going to fix it is when second or third like I kind of want to just Jam them all in that envelope and get them all nicked hopefully hopefully in the same way though yeah in kind of the same place but yeah they are a little tight and people online have said kind of stretch them out a bit like people have said use a bread knife or use whatever um we didn't know that so we just went right into it so I guess try and do that a little bit but I think in general that is really that's going to be the one complaint that a lot of folks have but in general I do like it and I really like um the bad guys they all have like there's a nice mix of people they have these fun little litera of names and I think that's really nice um I think the Capo thing is I think how everything's kind of screen printed is nice I would say I kind of wish so we got these little guys here which are a little bonus add-on I think that you could have got um these are great so you can get these I definitely would they're just a little book where you write in your evidence and they're fun they flip like a little police book and then you write in who you've got if you don't have these it's fun you've got a card that has this and you can write the information and it's not going to be like the end of the world at all but I just I like this I like writing on this it's fun and it's got that um that kind of clue thing because people are going to compare this to clue and I guess that's fair because it's like the other game where you're kind of doing this but this plays way way different to how clue plays and it's obviously it's quite a bit better game I would say clue I loved as a kid I loved it I'm not throwing shade at clue but it hasn't aged as well as I might like it to and this is a little bit like maybe what you wish it was and because it plays it two as well the one thing I will add to the components as well is the bag is nice and soft I really like the bag that you're pulling the Mobsters out of too but going back to it being like clue who do you think this game is for so I think that first group is maybe a little bit that you are kind of nostalgic for clue and you want a little bit of that this is not um a deductive game like that is and I'll stop comparing it to clue because really it is so surface level but this is not a deductive game if that's kind of what you're expecting because it's not like other people have information that you can kind of figure out by how they interact with other folks this is much more you you want to solve those things and that's going to directly give you information but the interesting thing is that interaction of like when do I leave you that third thing for you to get that key bit of evidence versus like and but I also want to be part of getting that evidence it's this interesting kind of interaction that I think is a little bit different from most games where it's not really mean but it's not super nice but it's just there but there is quite a bit of interaction yeah I think the interaction really plays into efficiency because you're trying to determine which action would be the most efficient so you're spending the least amount of time to give yourself the most amount of turns but factoring in the what information the other players have so that might change the direction of what you need to do when and because of that you don't want to leave them an opportunity and you want to jump on any opportunity that becomes available as well but it isn't a negative interaction and I think they tried to add a bit more interaction with the Crooked mini expansion but it still isn't like a negative interaction or or deducing what people say so if you're looking for that this doesn't have that right I will say another group that is going to like this obviously if you're a fan of the tiny epic games we we've played all of them we have all of them we we enjoy the series and I think this does something different that's one of the things I like about the tiny epic series is all of them do something a little bit different and they're not like 10 out of 10 games but they're solid games that come in a really small box and this continues that and I would say this is this will probably make like my top five in the series it wouldn't be my number one but I think it's solid and I think it does something different than any of them do and I think one of the cool things about this one is a lot of the other games I'm like okay this feels like a smaller version of that um but that's not always the case this one doesn't feel at least not that I've played like a smaller version of any anything that I can just go oh yeah this is that this is like kind of its own thing yeah it feels like its own thing and it might be that we haven't played these type of we haven't played the whatever it's the smaller version of yeah exactly but it does feel different to us and it felt unique I went in with kind of no expectations of what it would be and I've really enjoyed being able to figure it out and this amount of strategy that there is I I think I found surprising just because of that initial is this going to be like clue comparison right and I went into it with a bit of expectation because I really like film Noir and I really like detective stuff so I was like I think I'm going to like this one and I had a little bit I think of a higher bar than you and it did meet those expectations I'm not saying that this is like it's going to blow your socks off that this is like an absolute must have but if you like detective e stuff if you like tiny epiy stuff I think people are generally going to be pretty happy with this game just know that it's not like a deduction game and I will add that if you really hate Randomness there is a bit of Randomness in here with the dice rolls and the event cards but there is also quite a bit of strategy and maybe more than you might expect we have had a couple of games where the dice gods have not been on our side and that can be frustrating so if you don't want any Randomness just be aware that this does have a little bit and that is it that is Tiny epic crimes the latest one that we have played in the tiny epic series thank you so much for watching please let us know in the comments if you've played tiny epic crimes or what your favorite crime theme game is and as usual please like subscribe and hopefully we'll see you next time for another [Music] game