If you’re not content with just reading about a detective, and have always fancied a forensic foray, interrogation and pinning a new suspect to the board, then maybe it’s time to test your deductive logic with a mystery board game. We’ve teamed up with Rent, Shuffle and Roll – experts in the world of board games – to bring you 10 of the best in the crime genre.
Below you’ll find their list of favourites in no particular order. If you spot one you fancy trying, you can buy it or rent it from Rent, Shuffle and Roll, which ensures you won’t play it once then have it sitting on your shelf for 25 years. If you’ve any questions about any of them then feel free to reach out to Rent, Shuffle and Roll – their details are at the bottom of the piece.
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective
Grab your pipe and don your deerstalker – it’s time to solve a mystery Sherlock Holmes style! These games come with maps and newspapers so prepare to make space on your table and get your notebook ready. These are not quick, light puzzle. There is plenty here to really get stuck into and games in this series can take you a whole month to get through as each game comes with about 10 scenarios. In the past we’ve poured a drink, settled into the couch and dived into Victorian London. It’s hard not to get immersed in the crooked and winding streets, the famous locales and, of course, the detailed mystery that unfolds.
Buy it here | Rent it here
Deckscape
Deckscape games are pocket sized mysteries for one to six players which pack a punch. We love taking these on holiday as they are so compact without sacrificing any of the quality. With 10+ different decks to choose from you will find puzzles from Egypt to El Dorado, themed from Dracula to Alice in Wonderland and beyond! Work your way through the deck solving puzzles, riddles and codes in the hopes of escaping castles, finding lost cities and more.
Buy it here | Rent it here
Mysterium
Can you interpret the visions of a ghost? One player takes on the role of the ghost who uses images on cards to try and communicate how they died. Everyone else is a medium, using their best intuition to piece together the truth from the images. See if you are on the same wavelength as your friends! We love this game because everyone is working towards the same goal but it feels like a traditional board game – the art is beautiful and it looks great on the table!
Buy it here | Rent it here
Mr Jack
Mr Jack is the ultimate cat and mouse deduction game for two players where one character plays the detective and the other plays Mr Jack (the Ripper). Mr Jack is hiding his identity behind that of another character – will he succeed in slipping away into the night or will the detective catch him in time? Work against each other in this game in a strategic effort to escape or unmask Jack – this game is quick to learn with a great set of rules and endlessly repayable. We love this one for holidays as it plays quick and is fairly small on the table.
Buy it here | Rent it here
Blood on the Clocktower
If you’re looking for a social deduction game for a big group you have come to the right place. Blood on the Clocktower is a hidden role game where you have to unravel lies and use deduction to weed out the evil players and stop the demon from winning. With a whole host of characters including the puppeteer storyteller there is plenty of replayablility especially as the game really changes with each group.
Buy it here | Rent it here
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Betrayal is one of our all-time favourites as it ticks so many boxes. As a group you are exploring a creepy house together with the first half of the game being cooperative while you go deeper into the mansion finding items and encountering strange events. Then the haunt is triggered and one of the players becomes the traitor – switching the gameplay to a ‘one vs all’ dynamic. The heroes and the traitor are supplied separate rule books for the second half of the game so each has to try to survive and foil the others’ secret plans. We love the thematics of the game and the brilliant storytelling you find yourself in. The twist of the haunt is so exciting because you don’t know when it will come nor who will be chosen. With 50 unique scenarios in the base game and another 50 in the expansion there is enough in this game to keep you playing for years.
Buy it here | Rent it here
Unlock!
The Unlock! games give you the feel of being in an escape room with just a deck of cards and an app for your phone, for one to six players. The puzzles are hugely varied but the game mechanisms are beautifully simple – you can enter codes in the app, work out patterns and combine cards to solve them in a way which feels really intuitive. Each box has three decks and there are over 11 boxes so heaps of choice! For us this is the nearest you can get to an escape room experience from a deck of cards.
Buy it here | Rent it here
Cantaloop
For lovers of the classic point and click PC games we have the board game for you! Cantaloop is a physical game where you move through the pages and use a key to combine items, explore locations and speak with the characters. The mechanism works well and is a refreshing take on this type of game. In this episode you are a crook who needs to break a hacker out of prison to join his team. Bring a sense of humour for this mystery as it’s got a sharp and relentless wit to it!
Buy it here | Rent it here
Decktective
The Decktective games are similar to the Deckscape and Unlock! games in that they revolve around a deck of cards, but what Decktective does differently is that it uses the cards and the game box to create a 3D crime scene while telling an enthralling story. We found the mechanics of this game to be very story driven and different to what we’d encountered before and immediately fell in love.
Buy it here | Rent it here
Mystery Agency
The concept of an escape room in a box is not new by any means but what sets Mystery Agency apart is the quality of these games. Each case has beautifully crafted components and an immersive storyline to keep you solving puzzles until you have cracked the mystery. For us this is the most beautifully crafted of the escape room in a box genre with fantastic puzzles which suck you into the story and its theme. Each runs for about an hour.
Buy it here | Rent it here
About Rent, Shuffle and Roll
At Rent, Shuffle and Roll we rent board games including all the above on a monthly basis. Our Mystery Vault brings all these games together in one place so our members can hire and play them once and move on without the hassle and cost of purchasing them and then reselling them at a loss. If you have any questions about any of the above games we’d love to help you out – you can email us on hello@rentshuffleandroll.co.uk or see more about us on our site here.