Detective Club – Board Game Review
Follow Genre: Guessing game
Players: 4-8
Age: 8+
Duration: +- 45 minutes
Distributor: Jumping Turtle Games

Detective Club – Board Game Review

Site Score
8.0
Good: Artwork, Simplicity
Bad: Artwork doesn't really correspond with the theme
User Score
10.0
(6 votes)
Click to vote
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Rating: 10.0/10 (6 votes cast)

It has been a while since we dived into the lives of international men of mysteries when we reviewed the different installments of the Codenames board games. We loved the guessing portion of the game, and how easy it was to get into. This time, we get to disguise ourselves as detectives, albeit with an imposter in our midst. You’ll have to work together to uncover the imposter, and bring home the points. If the imposter goes uncovered, he and the active player of the round will rake in the points. We were intrigued by the set-up as well as the great artwork in this tin box.

Contents

  • 168 Evidence cards
  • 58 Victory point tokens
  • 8 Voting tokens
  • 8 Player markers
  • 7 Notebooks
  • 1 Pencil

The contents of Detective Club are amazing to look at. The wooden magnifying glasses look nicely made and add some value to the package, especially seeing that custom-made pieces like this aren’t really cheap to make. The other contents, like the scoring tokens and the player boards, are neatly made, but don’t stand out. The big winner of the package is the stack of actual evidence cards. The drawings may not immediately make you think of a detective-themed game, the artwork is simply stunning. We loved examining all the cards when playing through the game.

Mechanics

Detective Club has two portions, as it depends on which role you play in the game. In one situation, you’ll have to work as the active player and aid the imposter to bluff his way through the round. If you’re one of the detectives, you’ll have to guess who the imposter is. Both scenarios will score you points, and at the end of all the different rounds, you’ll have to collect most points. The game involves bluffing a lot.

The concept is quite simple actually. You’ll each get 6 cards, no matter how many players. Each round will have an active player, that places his/her first card in front of his token. From this card, he will write a word on all the players’ notebooks, except one. This word is the topic of this round. For example, if the first card the player places has a mouse in it, the player can pick the word ‘rodent’. Then every player will get a notebook with that word on it, and they will have to match with a card of their own that expresses the word ‘rodent’. Sadly, one player will get a blank notebook, and will have to guess the word. If he sees other people put down cards with mice and rats on them, it might be easy to match. Then the active player will place his second card, and then everyone will also place their second cards.

At the end of the round, the active player reveals the word, and then everyone has to explain why they matched their cards with the chosen word. This means that the imposter will hear the word for the first time, and has to come up with a proper explanation. If he bluffs his way through, the active player and the imposter can score points. If not, the players guessing who the imposter is will earn points. Overall this is the basic offset and you’ll be playing in a matter of minutes.

Luck or Strategy?

Truth be told, while the active player can be a bit strategic in the sense of picking a very easy and logical word, making it easier for the imposter to score points, together with the active player, this game depends heavily on luck of the draw. Sometimes a topic or word is extremely easy to guess as the imposter, but even so, his/her cards can suck beyond belief. Sometimes you just can’t properly work with the cards you have in your hand, or give a proper spin to your choices. Nonetheless, we noticed the game is completely different when played with more people, than it is with a minimum of four people.

Conclusion

Detective Club is a very entertaining and easy to get into kind of board game for young and old. The game presents you with amazing artwork on the cards, and while the detective theme isn’t properly embedded in said artwork, the topic works quite well. We enjoyed our playthroughs, as well as having to guess who the imposter was. We can certainly recommend this one for everyone during a fairly casual board game evening.

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Rating: 10.0/10 (6 votes cast)
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Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)
Detective Club - Board Game Review, 10.0 out of 10 based on 6 ratings
Ibuki


Aspiring ninja.

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