Mysterium
Description
A horrible crime has been committed on the grounds of Warwick Manor and it's up to the psychic investigators to get to the bottom of it. In Mysterium, one player takes on the role of the ghost and over the course of a week, tries to lead the investigators to their culprit. Each night the team will be met with visions, but what is the ghost trying to tell you? Can the psychics determine the weapon, location and killer or will a violent criminal pull off the perfect murder?
2-7 Players
10+
Medium
Long
Review
Mysterium has become a go-to pick for our Halloween game nights. Though you can technically play with just two people we recommend having at the very least three if not four players when taking on the mystery of the manor. Similar to the classic board game Clue, the team of investigators are looking to pull together their suspect, location, and murder weapon. Unlike Clue though the team can help each other when trying to decipher the very abstract hints given to them from the ghost. These hints can give true meaning to the phrase “a picture is worth 1000 words” as they are nothing more than paintings that leave much of the interpretation not only to the psychics but the ghosts.
Deciphering the images given to you by the ghost has led us to plenty of laugh-out-loud moments as it's more about reading the player than reading cards. For example, say the ghost knows your suspect is the chef, and the best picture they have is of a tea party. The psychic can easily assume that you are directing them towards the old woman as their suspect. This is where understanding how your teammates think can really make all the difference.
Winning the whole game becomes the tricky part. The rules change depending on how many players there are but typically the ending comes down to how well you did throughout the game. After the team of psychics have gathered their suspect-location-weapon sets the ghost must lead them to who the true culprit is. Only thing is the ghost is limited to 3 picture cards for hints and if your psychics did not do well it could be down to 1. This can make choosing the right culprit extremely difficult and in order to win a majority must make the correct selection. Personally this has led to more losses than wins but we like to say the person who guessed correctly is still a winner.
Overall I would highly recommend picking Mysterium up for those who average 4-7 people in their game nights. Even with the near hour long runtime we always find ourselves playing at least two to three times throughout the night. If you love mysteries and looking for a good cooperative game with a large group of friends please give this one a try.
Purchase the game on Amazon here.
