Q Mysteries is the latest game family from GDM Games for the deductive and mystery solving board games niche, if you like mystery novels like Sherlock Holmes or those from Agatha Christie or if you like series like CSI or NCIS this card game could be of your interest.
Q Mysteries is a family of cooperative card games that could be played solitary and consist of only one deck with about 60 cards and a brochure with instructions, as well as some questions and the solution to the crime presented.
This game has been designed by Martí Lucas Feliu and Josep Izquierdo Sánchez under the direction of the editor of GDM Games Francisco Gallego Arredondo, being illustrated by Alba Aragón (Myths at War, Metal Mania). The mysteries available at the moment are Last Call, The Archaeologist’s Tomb and Death on July 4.
The mysteries presented so far are three murders of different kinds. Each one is presented through a very well elaborated audio whose link comes in the boxes of each game in the form of a QR code. The introductory audio allows us to enter the environment, describing the event and giving us a scenario.
The letters are decently illustrated and show clues such as letters or photographs, some of these clues will be good while others will be irrelevant, so we must choose those that we believe will help us in solving the mystery and discarding those that we consider a distraction.
The mechanics of the game is simple, you take a number of cards and they are placed one by one on the table, either face up as a clue to solve the mystery or in the discard pile, replacing the card played immediately in both cases, the game Continue until you have used all the cards.
At this point, we could think «Well, then I can put all the cards in the table and that’s it» but there are two things that prevent us from doing so, the first thing is that the game requires a minimum of discarded cards and the second is that the game has a series of questions to determine how much of the mystery we have uncover, from that score we will subtract the irrelevant cards that have been chosen as important.
The scoring system has a nice scale according to our performance.
Final comments on Q Mysteries
It seems to me that despite being an analytic-deductive game in Mysteries Q chance plays an important role because there are clues that without other references may seem relevant when they are not, although this effect is greater at the beginning.
In the first case we played we used too many cards and we had a bad score, but still we enjoyed it a lot and it left us a lesson, you should not drop all the cards, you should try to spin theories before choosing and observe the cards that your comrades download .
Something important to note is that each game is a single use, since once finished the truth is revealed and you can only play it if you forget the answers, however, unlike other games of this style in Mysteries Q there is no damage to the components, being able to offer it to a different group of people.
We have tried Q Mysteries with our children of 10 and 8 years respectively. We all liked it a lot, simple rules, a fluid game, immersive and stimulating.
I would recommend this game to anyone, especially those who enjoy a mystery story whether it’s Scooby Doo or CSI, Geronimo Stilton or Sherlock Holmes, if you enjoy collecting clues to bust the culprit you should try Mysteries Q, you’ll appreciate it.
Finally and sadly Mysteries Q is not in english language yet, but Francisco Gallego has told me Q Mysteries will be available in this laguage but we have not a certain date, I hope it will be soon.
