Crimes in History: H. H. Holmes' Murder Castle travels back to the time of 1893, daring to investigate the twisted and unpredictable World's Fair Hotel. Tasked to collect evidence while battling through the absurdities of a chaotic, booby-trapped castle - all while dodging Holmes himself. It is not just sleuthing for evidence while exploring the maniacal hotel; the other detectives thrive in solving the case first, which leads to sabotage and backstabbing, all while alluding Holmes.
Our Thoughts
We found this game to be teeming with amusing and challenging mechanics. There are thirty room tiles inspired by the original blueprints of the Murder Castle that contain safes with varying amounts of evidence for players to collect. The tiles have a comic book vibe, and each image tells the narrative of the room. It is tile placement reminiscent of Betrayal at House on the Hill game. Each game, the order is random, bringing a fresh methodology play.
The World's Fair Ferris Wheel is revamped to be the evidence cube holder. Each gondola holds five randomly chosen cubes. The bottom gondola is the Unloading Zone for the adding of new evidence on the tiles. Knowing what evidence would be next helped plan ahead to see when you should place a room tile and fill the safe. The rotating Ferris Wheel refills from the evidence bag.
The first player marker is an old skeleton key, which is a nice touch and furthermore needed as turns can get confusing the first few games.
The event cards can make around fascinating and or frustrating. These cards can sabotage with trapdoors and pickpocket a fellow investigator. They can bring lucky breaks with free evidence from the Evidence bag and finding hidden pathways.
H.H. Holmes gets a turn each round and can move freely through the castle. Some cards offer the choice of rooms to move Holmes, and there is where you can play more cooperative and move him away or cutthroat and place him in a room with a player. There are adverse effects when you run into H.H. Holmes.
We didn't want the game to end when the first player succeeded that we made a House Rule to continue playing till the last investigator made it to the end.
The only addition we would like to add is a way to sabotage the safes in the rooms. Then it would not be a guarantee that the evidence is collected when is a room. Yes, this would make the game longer, and we would be very alright with that.
Podcast #50
Steeped in strategies and treachery but remember the consequences- H.H. Holmes is just around the corner!
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Let’s be honest; there is still a bit of drama when we play.
Sit Down -Grab a Drink – Join the Game
Suzzan Smith
