Photo above is property of One Crime Story
Company: One Crime Story
Game: The Case of Alexander Morrison
Country: Portugal 🇵🇹
Language: English, Portuguese, Spanish
Type of Game: Tabletop Game 📬
Genre: Murder Mystery
Date Played: November 15, 2024
Difficulty (based on 2 players): 7/10
Size of Team: 1-5+ ppl (ages 14+)
Time: Unlimited (Approximately 1-2 Hrs.)
Price: 40€
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Alexander Morrison was found dead in his apartment in Vale Seco in an enigmatic way. A scandal at the company he worked for shook the city of Vale Seco in the previous weeks. All eyes point towards Alexander as the person in charge of the big accounts. Several suspects were pointed out for his death, but without ever ruling out the possibility that it was suicide or an accident. In addition to possibly being involved in this defiance at the company and according to the pink magazines, Alexander is still involved in a love triangle.
Video above is property of One Crime Story
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The production is impressive from the get go, starting with the artful collage on the box, to the quality and realism of the printed materials themselves. They've done a great job of representing the case, which is important because a lot of the story is communicated through the visuals, and it's the kind of realistic case file game where you are going to be lingering and pondering over the pieces as you mentally work the case. So you're going to want it to be evocative as well as informationally communicative, which I think they have nailed. My only micro grip is this: first in the use of cursive, make sure it is the optimally legible kind, and secondly, because they had to fit all the contents within the parameters of the box, some of the text is very minute and straining to read. Minor criticisms but you may want to have a magnifying glass handy for a couple bits. Otherwise a very sharp and professional production which sets the standard for case file realism.
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
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The game is styled as a realistic case file, and it does a good job of having that feel without overwhelming you with material. It does a good job of giving you a sense of a multiplicity of interconnected means and motives. I liked the story, it was believable, maybe not wholly in the end, but it had the airs of a good mystery, and I liked the characters and their motives - they did a fantastic job of world building and setting the scene. It could have been a little more twisty, but it had its secrets to reveal. The game is complex enough that you are going to need to take notes, and will have you going through the familiar and fun phases of starting with being completely without a clue, to slowly building a picture through the leads, to finally grappling with the burden of untangling a final challenging conundrum. Overviewing the game I can see how they designed the structure of the puzzles leans on the side of being more linear for sake of ease of play, meaning the process of elimination is less evidence triangulation to do, though the final solve actually comes from several pieces. It has an expansive variety of ways in which to eliminate suspects, with an interesting set of materials to interpret. I think the level of the focus of the creators of the game was focused on making every solve different, which they've done quite well, but I think in future games they should layer this process a little more, adding greater degrees of complexity to the triangulation of evidence, as well as evolving the story of the motives more from out of these revelations, as opposed to simply picking the right one. I feel because realistic case files don't have the benefit of including many abstract puzzles, they really need to make a layered cake out of what appears at first to be quite simple facts on the surface. Of course it depends on what level of difficulty you are calibrating your games towards, but this is the direction these games should tend towards if they want to create ever greater A-ha moments, which is what it's all about at all levels of gameplay
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In a way it is straightforward in its process of deduction. Use the information to methodically eliminate suspects while building a picture of what actually happened. I wouldn't say it's as perfectly layered as it could have been. Some of the eliminations are a bit too plain-faced, and what emerges therefore may be in itself both varied and clever, if not quite having enough of a mysterious core, nor be as revealing in its resolution as one would hope. If the depth of the story and the puzzling are intertwined, and if one is too surface then so will the other be. Why couldn't X suspect have done it?: Because Y evidence seems to simply communicate that they weren't there because of Z reason - but the final layer of solving must ideally be significantly more complex than this, and must be the product of a longer process of deduction. Its virtue though may actually be that there is just the right amount of complexity, of required deduction and triangulation, without becoming too abstract or obtuse. The elimination of the final group of suspects and explaining the mystery is still quite a challenging - and thus also rewarding - bit of thinking. They had the right idea for sure, it just needed to be taken one layer farther - which is something I've always been preaching about these games.
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Would I recommend "The Case of Alexander Morrison"? Yes, I think it's a well done realistic case file for your average amateur sleuth. My first impression in engaging with the material is that they've hit the stylistic nail on the head. The game has a definite air of intrigue, and I really enjoyed the process of immersing myself in the material. A good mystery game is ultimately measured by its puzzles, and design wise the gameplay is smart, albeit conventional. In retrospect looking over playing the game it does the foundational parts of a mystery game well, the variety of the forms of elimination, and the swirling and interconnection of motives, but the higher level layers it struggles with, beyond having a strong final conundrum. It's really hard to create a mystery that is at all times logical and plausible as well as being continuously novel. I feel with these creators though that they are just getting started, and I'm sure they will grow, and so I'm intrigued to play what they come out with next.
(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)
Disclosure: We thank One Crime Story for providing us with samples of the game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.
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