Mysterium

[dirk2112]

We went to the board game store to try a few games out that people have been talking about lately.  We mainly went to play Tokaido, which was ok but not something we wanted to buy.  We then saw Mysterium set up and we bought it after learning the mechanics.

What is Mysterium?
Ever wonder what our board games do when we aren't around to play them?  Well, probably not.  In this case, the game of Clue (Cluedo) started a relationship with Dixit and Mysterium is their offspring. 

Players?
The box says you can play with 2 players, but you really shouldn't.  That would be terrible.  I would say 3 players is the absolute minimum, but the game gets better with additional players.  We have only played with 3 and 4, but can't wait to play with 5 or 6. 

Theme
THERE HAS BEEN A MURDER...  or several perhaps.  A ghost haunts Warwick Manor and a number of psychics have arrived to help the ghost find peace by catching the murderer.  The ghost communicates through visions (~Dixit cards) to help each psychic figure out a suspect, a place, and a weapon. 

How it works
One player plays as the ghost, while the rest are psychics.  Each psychic will come up with different suspects, places, and weapons used in different crimes committed at the manor.  The players have to find one thing at a time.  First you work on the suspect, then the room, then the weapon.  You get 7 tries to get all 3 correct.  Every psychic must get all 3 correct or everyone loses.  At the end game, the players have to figure out which psychic's scenario relates to the ghost.  For example, I may have the nun, in the shed, with a pistol.  Decar may have the magician, in the library, with a hammer.  Paul may have the police officer, near the pool, with the statue.  At the end the players have to correctly guess which psychic has the scenario specific to the ghost's murder.   The ghost uses 3 cards and the majority rules deciding on the correct scenario.  Back to the example, the ghost may hand out cards featuring a top hat, a ladder, and a wrench.  The top hat definitely reeks of magician, but the ladder seems more like something in the shed.  If you look at the library card, you can see a ladder, so Decar's scenario is looking good.  Then a wrench is a tool, a hammer is a tool, that has to be it.  Most of the time it isn't that easy.


Cooperative
Like all cooperative games, the players win or lose together.   After the ghost hands out the vision cards, the psychics have 2 minutes (there is a timer) to discuss what the visions could mean.  There is a difference between the original Polish version of the game and the newer English version.  In the English version psychics can vote if they agree or disagree with other psychic's choices.  Being correct will give them a better shot at the end game. 

The Ghost

The ghost is the most important player in the game as it hands out the visions to all of the players.  A bad ghost is guaranteed to cause a loss for all players.  The ghost WANTS to help the psychics because when they win, it wins.  The ghost will be verbally harassed by psychics not liking their vision cards and rarely thanked for doing a good job.  The ghost is not allowed to speak, so all the punishment it receives during the game has to be internalized.  When the psychics make a guess, the ghost can knock once for correct or twice for incorrect.  The ghost is also given raven tokens (amount various by difficulty) that allows it to get a different hand of cards to deal to the psychics.  The cards are sometimes completely unhelpful, and these tokens have saved the day on occasion.

The psychics
More psychics bring more chaos.  The ghost gives psychic A a card with a wrench.  Psychic A may believe that the ghost is telling her that the driver is her suspect.  Psychic B might suggest that next to the wrench is a gear, so he thinks that psychic A should pick the clock maker.  Psychic A gets to make the final decision about her scenario, but will she go with her gut or with what the group thinks?

Kids
Kids can make great psychics.  Sometimes the mind of a child is needed to point out the most basic of things.  In one game as the ghost, I passed my son a picture of a snake charmer sitting next to a vase.  The weapon was the vase and my son quickly identified it.  My wife then said that that the weapon was poison because she associated the snake venom with poison.  She talked him out of the correct choice, but that is part of the game.

My kid is a terrible ghost.  Absolutely terrible.  He loves it though, so we humor him.   He has trouble keeping track of which psychic is going after which suspect, weapon, or room.  One time, he wanted me to pick the Kitchen as the room and handed me a picture with tigers on it.  I later asked him why he associated tigers with a kitchen and he said, "when you look at tigers, don't you think of meat?"  I explained to him that people don't eat tigers as they are quite endangered and don't taste nearly as good as spotted owls  . 

Conclusion
We enjoy this game.  We really love Clue though, so there is that.  We never much liked Dixit.  This game gives Dixit a purpose, so we really like that about it.  If you don't like Clue or Dixit, avoid this game. 

There is an expansion coming out and we will have to buy it.  Unfortunately with games like this and Dixit, we get used to the cards and the game becomes too easy.  I have heard you can throw dixit cards into the mix, but haven't tried that yet. 

Like every game, try before you buy.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2636.0

[Willem]

We stumbled across this game last week at the Geek convention in Margate.
It looked very nice, and in the end, my girlfriends dad and i decided to go half-and-half on it, and we bought it!
We've tried it last sunday, and immediately played 4 games in a row with a group of 5 total, switching the person that it the ghost.

We loved it!
We played 2 more games yesterday, and it is still good!
We won most of our games, but lost a couple to. Some before everyone was able to get to the last part, and some in the final vision.

A very good game! I've heard there is an expansion pack for it as well, so im looking in to buying this now

[dirk2112]

I am glad you like it.   

We have the first expansion (Hidden Signs), but have never opened it.  Unfortunately the game doesn't come out very often because my wife and son prefer the One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Love Letter Premium when we have people over.