A Study in Fuchsia, or Maybe Auburn (13 Clues)

The poor detectives of Scotland Yard can't seem to catch a break.  Sherlock Holmes (Consulting Detective, mind you) has been busy at work sparring with Moriarty, and Mr. X has drained their resources in his game of cat and mouse.  While this has been going on, the detectives have all spotted various clues related to the others crimes.  While they could solve all of these crimes in one night with a pooled resource, they are now all over London.  Worse, the criminals are intercepting their reports to the station.  The thing to do?  Get the detectives to guess their own crime, and hope that all 13 Clues get to them in time...



BACKGROUND:  13 Clues is a deduction driven card game, created by Andrés J. Voicu & Giacomo Tappainer, and published by Italian company dV Giochi & CMON in the United States.  All players attempt to guess a Who, Where, and Why that all players but themselves can see. 

GAMEPLAY:  Each player will have seen 5 cards; 1 Person, Place, and Weapon card which will be placed in the front of a players screen so all but that player can see them, and 2 placed behind the screen of the player who drew them.  Each turn, that player draws a Clue (maginfiying glass) token if they have none, and spend their Clue tokens to do one the following actions: Give a player a Clue token to ask them how many of a specific Color or Sub-Category (I.E., Inside or Outside, Close or Ranged Weapon) they see, or either put one of their Clue tokens in the central Pool or give one to a player with none to look at a face-down card.  The turn ends when that player runs out of Clue Tokens.

WINNING:  If a player believes that they have all the information, they give a Clue token to any player with none, or into the central Pool, to guess the Person, Location, and Weapon on their screen.  If they guess correct, they win!  If they don't, the players indicate as such, and play continues.

CONCLUSION:  This feels like a streamlined Clue, but with more information lacking. There can be, and usually are, cards that are never seen.  Because of that, you have to change your approach, and that can be a bit daunting to those new to this game.  Long story short, it's the next step of difficulty up from Clue, so if you like Clue, but want or are just interested in a slightly higher difficulty, pull out your magnifying glasses and scope out 13 Clues.