Murder in the Paris Opera House
🎭Kronologic: Paris 1920 is a hot new logical deduction murder-mystery game. 🕵️ We played it first at the UK Games Expo and immediately wanted to grab a copy, then we had to find out that the games didn’t arrive in time. 🥲 But alas, now at GenCon we swooped down like greedy eagles and got us a copy 😂.
The game takes place in the Paris Opera House. There are 3 distinct cases, 5 variations each, with their own backstory and thematic flavor, but the gameplay itself is the same across them. 🧐
In every scenario there are 6 people moving around 6 rooms of the Opera and tracked across 6 points in time. However you are only aware of their starting position and have to investigate! You will be using a sheet to make notes.
Turns are simple. You just ask a question, either:
🔍 How many times was this person in this room?
🔍How many people were in this room at this time?
You just take the respective room card and person or time tile and fit them together to get the answer. If you look through the hole you will see 2 pieces of information: one is shared that you have to read out loud, and one is more useful, and only for you! So even if it’s not your turn, you will get some crumbles of info that helps you puzzle together the happenings of the night.
The difference between the 3 included cases are the questions you have to answer:
- In the first one the detective is poisoned. To solve the case you have to find out who was alone in a room with him and at which time.
- In the second there is a “phantom” causing all kinds of havoc. You have to find the person who is always alone in a room at all 6 times.
- In the third case a diamond necklace was stolen. Every time the thief is together with one other person in a room, the necklace changes hands, so you need to know who holds it in the end.
All of the cases are fun, and the core gameplay holds up well. This is a true logical puzzle, where every little information leads you further towards your goal. We really love it!
The game has the subtitle “Paris 1920”, because there are already other standalone packs in the works called “Cuzco 1450” and “Babylon 2500”. I am super interested in what ways those will deviate from this edition! 🙂
