The Butler Did It (Mysterium)

December 4th, 1928.
I fear my time on this earth has come to an end, or so it would seem.  Just yesterday I woke up and passed right through the privvy door.  I know that no one will be able to read this, as I write it with my finger, and the words appear for the briefest of seconds.  The man living here, Mr. MacDowell, seems to be a nice but a bit jumpy.  I am not sure if he is reacting to my presence or not, but I can only pray it is the former.  I leave this Mysterium (oops, meant to write mystery) to him.



BACKGROUND: Mysterium is a board game published by Libellud in 2015 for 2 to 7 players.  One person takes the role of a ghost with amnesia, and can only give the barest hints of who killed them, while the other players, or mediums, attempt to decipher the clues.

GAMEPLAY:  Each turn, the ghost takes a Vision Card, a card with very pretty art, and gives one to each medium, drawiing back up to 7 cards each time a card is dealt.  Using a crow token allows the ghost to discard based on the difficulty.  Then, the Mediums look at their cards, and the timer is flipped.  Each medium tries to guess appropriately based on the cards laid out in front of their tokens on the first stage.  Once time runs out, mediums cannot move their token anymore.  At the end of each turn, the clock hand moves forward 1 hour.



WINNING:  If a token is placed on the card that matches the card on the ghosts board, they move forward on the track.  The players win only if every player guessed correctly all 3 times.  If at any point the clock would move past 7 o'clock, the game ends and everyone loses.

CONCLUSION:  Mysterium shares a lot of similarities with Dixit, both are weirdly named games with enjoyable mechanics and beautiful artwork.  Mysterium could have fallen into the trap Exploding Kittens did, where just the art sells the game, but it manages to be so much more.  Although this game is supposed to be co-operative between the ghost and mediums, it never felt as difficult as other co-op games, and that's a shame.  I enjoy working against the clock, against the game itself, and I never really seemed to struggle.  Does that make it easy?  Well, I do know the clock did get to 6, so I don't know.  Playing with your normal game group might actually make this too easy.  This is a game that seems to embrace the idea of playing with strangers, or as an ice-breaker.  There's a simplicity to this that makes it accessible to others not used to games, but it is a detective game, first and foremost.  You might have fun solving this one.