Review - Chronicles of Crime + Expansions!

When board games and technology combine!

---

Chronicles of Crime is a co-operative detective-style game that has you searching for clues, speaking to witnesses, and examining evidence in order to solve one of hundreds of cases.

This game is a fresh take on classic investigation games, and blew us out of the water with its unique game mechanics! To begin, the cards and boards in the base game are the same for each case you play, no matter if you're saving a kidnapped girl or solving a murder. Each card has a QR code on it which you scan through an app to progress the story. It's all about scanning the right cards in the right combination to get the information you're looking for to solve the case. We've never seen anything like this and it was one of the best integrations of technology I've ever seen in a board game. Another piece of technology that has been added to this game is Virtual Reality (VR). At some points in the case you are required to search for clues. When this happens, you are given the option to attach your phone to a VR headset and look around a 3D environment in order to find the clues. I’m curious to see where else the integration of technology into board games can take us!

Pros

⬤ Integration of Technology - The way this game has combined QR code scanning with a classic detective-style board game is incredible. It’s such a unique idea, and I think there are a lot of places where this could have gone wrong. But it didn’t!

⬤ Consistent game flow - It always feels like there are loads of leads to follow up on, so you’re never really stuck in a dry spot.

⬤ Time Pressure - Each minor investigation you do takes time, from 10 minutes to an hour, and travelling to places also takes time. This quickly adds up and before you know it you’re at the end of the day. I felt like the time pressure was just perfect. It wasn’t so short that solving the case felt impossible, but it definitely made us consider whether certain investigations are worth the 5 minutes they cost.

⬤ Virtual Reality! - I’ll admit it is a bit tacky of me to be so amazed by VR, and its inclusion in the game is really not necessary, however I can’t help but love this little addition.

⬤ Great for groups - Although this game is recommended for 1-4 players, I think you could easily play with more, and my group has played with up to 6 players. If you’re playing just off the phone, it is annoying with more than 2 players. You need to pass around the phone and read a lot of text aloud and it all gets a bit convoluted. If you have a Chromecast, though, you can cast the phone to the TV and all sit around watching the game unfold.

Cons

⬤ Translation - There are mild translation errors here and there. They have never caused us to not understand what a card was saying, though. Most of the time they are just funny.

⬤ “DLC-Style” Expansions - The base game gives you a tutorial plus 3 cases which each have from one to three chapters within them. Each chapter can be completed within 1 - 1.5 hours, so you are getting around 5-7 hours of gameplay from the whole game. This isn’t a lot. If you want to get more out of the game, you need to spend around $7 per case to get access to additional cases, or you can buy one of the expansions, Noir and Welcome to Redview, for another $40 or so. There is a community scenario page, however, where you can download and play additional cases for free that have been made by fans of the game. I’m very glad they made this available, and it allows you to get more out of the game.

⬤ Vague questions - When you are finally ready to solve the case, you are asked a series of questions which you must scan the correct card as the answer. Sometimes these questions are vague and it leaves too much room for error. We know the answer, but we found ourselves questioning which specific card we think they want us to scan to answer it.

Expansions

There are currently two expansions for Chronicles of Crime: Noir and Welcome to Redview.

Noir

The Noir expansion adds new characters, new items, locations, and mechanisms of play to the game. The cases are set in the 1920s, and you get additional actions you can perform aside from just ‘investigating’. You can ‘Spy’, ‘Break-In’, ‘Bribe’, or ‘Intimidate’, in order to get additional useful or incriminating evidence that you might not be able to obtain otherwise. This adds a new dynamic to the game and is a refreshing change from the base game.

Welcome to Redview

This is my favourite of the two CoC expansions. Welcome to Redview adds the element of actually playing a character to the game, rather than just controlling some invisible unnamed group of detectives. In this expansion you also get ‘energy’ which you can spend to perform ‘tests’ in order to attempt certain actions. Depending which action you attempt, and whether you are successful or not determines what evidence you will gain from the action. I enjoyed this once again refreshing new style of play, and is very much an improvement on the original.

My only criticism of the expansion is the lack of consequence for failing a test. When my group were playing, we attempted to sneak up on this guy to see if we could listen in on his conversation. We rolled, used energy, and failed the test. We were then anticipating that the guy would turn around and beat us up, however it just said “you fail to sneak up and listen.” We are then taken back to the option page, where we just pressed “sneak up and listen” again, this time succeeding. There was no consequence to failing this test or getting caught, other than wasting time, and it continued to let us retry until we were successful. This lack of feedback made us feel that we could really just try anything and it didn’t matter whether we failed because then we could just try again.

Aside from this, though, the expansion was good.

General Tips for Play

1. Definitely, DEFINITELY cast to the TV. Whether you do that by ChromeCast or another means, this adds to the experience of the game tenfold. Everyone can then see what is being scanned without all having to peer over a tiny phone. Just make sure you turn off the annoying background music so it doesn’t blast through the TV speakers.

2. Do not purchase the VR headset that goes with the game. It is around $25, when you can use any VR headset. I bought a fake Google Cardboard from Ebay for $4, and it works perfectly. The VR is not necessary for the game, but it does add just that little extra bit of interaction that definitely makes the game feel more immersive.

3. Use the community scenario download page. There are some great-looking cases that you can download and play as with any other case, but for free! These cases have been created by the community and can be downloaded here: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/252363/chronicles-crime-fan-made-expansions

This will save you a lot of money, and will keep your game lasting indefinitely!

4. Allocate one person to be in charge of a different component. For example, we had one person who would always pull out the new locations, one person for new characters, one person to do the scanning, etc. This allows everyone to get involved and ensures each player is playing attention. The more minds focused on the one case, the more fun and creative theories you can come up with!

Chronicles of Crime feels like the younger, cooler brother of Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, who is better at technology and easier to talk to. This game doesn’t overcomplicate the plotlines, it doesn’t vomit unnecessary information and descriptions all over you, and it keeps things relatively succinct. This has become one of our favourite games recently, due to its comfortable, compact playstyle, and I’m excited to see where else they can take it from here.

---

Daniel