Review of suspicious museums | Quest board game

The local art museum was robbed. And you take on the role of a detective trying to determine which of the 16 suspects still trapped in the building is guilty. Obviously these cartoon animals aren’t the best thieves considering they didn’t make it out of the building… Ocean’s 16 they aren’t.

regardless of Museum suspects is a family weight loss game where you’ll be eliminating suspects and hopefully narrowing the circle until you can identify the culprits.

Gameplay Overview:

The gameplay in Museum Suspects is as simple as possible. Suspects will be arranged in a 4 by 4 grid, with eight clues placed at the end of each row. Players will be dealt a stack of twelve tokens numbered 1 through 6 (the combination is slightly different for each player depending on turn order).

On your turn, you must look at a clue card and place one of your numbered tokens on it. If there is already a numbered token from another player there, you must use the same or higher token. Each tip will help eliminate suspects from the grid. Each card will eliminate up to 4 suspects. However, since there are 24 suspects in the game and you only use 16, there’s always a slight difference in how useful a clue can be.

After reviewing the clue (and probably marking it on the accompanying tracking sheet), you must place another token on the suspect you believe is guilty. This token is placed face down and hidden from other players.

The game continues like this for 6 rounds. There is a possibility that no one is at fault and you can put a token on the way out to get on it. After the last turn, you’ll unlock all the clues and find out which of the suspects is guilty, if any. Players get points for their tokens for guilty suspects. The player with the most points wins.

Game experience:

If you’ve been thinking about picking up Clue to play with your family, you should probably just grab Museum Suspects. It’s easier to learn, faster to play, and thematically similar (although it’s a heist cartoon, not a murder one, which is better for kids).

As with Clue, there is still a heavy reliance on luck. Some clues will be better than others. After the first move, you’ll eliminate, at best, 25% of the suspects, but you still need to make a guess. Which can ultimately work in your favor… or against you if you use your tokens with a low level early on when things are not so clear. Even at the last turn, you will almost never be completely sure who is right.

Strategy, to the extent it exists, is really about evaluating other players’ guesses. Especially players who saw clues you didn’t. Given that the clue cards follow a pattern (one rules out a whole row, another a column, a third is based on the background color, etc.), you can try to use some amazing deductive reasoning to get some insight into what the other people at the table know. .

The “bets” on the hint cards are the worst part of the game. Even with a full 4 players, you’ll just want to use the least amount of tokens possible to put on the clue cards and the highest value to frame the suspects. At the beginning of the game, you can use a lower value when you have little information. But given that each clue will provide very close to the same value, there’s little incentive to place a high-value token on one so that other players don’t see it.

Final thoughts:

Overall, my son and family enjoyed our plays Museum suspects. It’s quick to pick up and the theme works really well as a family game. The endgame of uncovering clue cards and slowly eliminating suspects always brings plenty of tension and the occasional bit of garbage.

There isn’t a ton of strategy. Luck plays a huge role. But for something you can learn and play in less than 45 minutes, Museum Suspects is a good candidate for the children’s game shelf.

Final score: 3.5 stars – A great family weight loss game with a great kid-friendly theme.

hits:
• Quick to learn, ready to play in less than 10 minutes
• The animal robbery cartoon theme works well
• Revealing clues at the end make for a fun suspenseful finale.

misses:
• Luck plays a big role in your success or failure.
• Using tokens to prevent others from seeing the hint doesn’t seem as valuable as it should be.