Masters of Crime: Shadows

This is a fresh take on tabletop story-driven gaming. Different from the everpresent Exit boxes, this game instead presents you with a set of sealed envelopes and a deck of cards - but don't be fooled, as the simplicity of the materials masks a surprising amount of gameplay complexity. Each of the 72 numbered cards includes quite a bit of prose describing the story of the game and laying out decisions for you to make, which result in drawing different other cards, opening envelopes, etc. A "heist board" is also provided to track your progress.Along the way, some outside knowledge is required, and these areas are indicated with a "web research" icon to ensure you know when the game is asking you to use other resources, which is appreciated.This is a substantial time and effort commitment - you'll want to set aside a full afternoon or evening for this, and you'll want a group of folks who don't mind reading cards aloud or passing them around, then strategizing and debating about your next move. In a way, the gameplay has some parallels to a tabletop RPG campaign - this definitely goes beyond the Exit boxes' "guess what the creators were thinking".There's a companion web site used at various points during the game as well. A nice feature from that site is that you can reset the game to play again - well, sort of. Downloadable copies of the few artifacts that invite you to write on them are available, but they're in German only, so you might want to make photocopies of anything you're tempted to write on before playing. But there's nothing fundamentally destructive about the gameplay.This isn't an experience for casual gamers, but for someone who really loves text adventures or choose-your-own-adventure role playing and who wants an optimization challenge centered around pulling off a complex heist, this is an intriguing new take on the boxed adventure genre!

While I haven't had the chance to full on play this myself yet (the holidays are a busy time!), this looks amazing with a great premise. AND you can even play by yourself! This is a huge plus for me as an only kid whose friends live in other states, and has no one to play games with. Many may say this has no replayability, there are ways to do that. Keep playing until you get a perfect score with the right team, store it for long enough that you don't remember it very well, or have adhd with memory issues and you have less time to set it aside before playing again, or perhaps you play it by yourself, but later have friends to play with. This is the first board game I've ever seen that actually allows for a single player and I got so excited. I love crime related shows/movies/video games/etc. so I had to get this and it looks super fun. I know I'll totally immerse myself, taking far longer to play than is typical.

excellent game

This is fantastic. I love games that can be played by yourself or with a group. Yes, it's a long game but that's part of what makes it worthwhile. It's only able to be played once then you can give it to someone else to try. I recommend making copies of the "notes" before you write on them so they can be used again. There's so much about this game that makes it fun - the interaction and different methods to solve the puzzles is so clever and makes it all the more enjoyable and keeps you guessing.$25 is about what you'd pay to do an escape game (most are even more than that) so this is VERY worth it. I recommend HIGHLY!

There are a lot of "Escape room" type games, and others in the puzzle genre.Typically you're playing as relative "good guys", most classically trying to escape or solve a crime.This series turns those traditions on their head by having you play as criminals. A fun twist. Especially because, in this case at least, you're also trying to get IN to a place (instead of out), since this is about an Art Heist.The puzzles are fun, pretty well-balanced and reasonable, and make good use of the internet for cool types of interaction. Means someday this will probably not be solvable any more, since Kosmos won't be paying to host this content forever. But I'd expect it to be there for many years, and anyway you can really only play through this experience once (though you can then give it to someone else, which is pretty great)All in all we had a good time with this. If you, either by yourself or with other likeminded adults, like the idea of devoting a few hours to some detective/puzzle-solving work surrounding this theme, I think you'll be as pleased as we were.

Because they titled this a “murder mystery,” I expected more of a murder mystery dinner party style box set. This is not that. It’s more of a “choose your own adventure“ art theft heist card game.Please set aside at least 3 hours (likely more!) for this game. I would recommend spending half an hour just studying how the game works before you start. We got lost quite a few times and definitely didn’t play the game correctly.Be ready to think. There are highly complex puzzles and research that must be done as well as group decisions.Overall, I think this would be a great game for serious gamers or thinkers with a bit of time to spend. We were expecting a more relaxed, casual game night and this was not it. Excellent for the right audience who is patient.As regards quality of game pieces- the main board is a single use only paper sheet. You will not be playing this game again. The “notes” page included was slick and many pens and pencils would not work on that type of material. The cards were good quality, as well as the folded and sealed “envelopes.”