The genre of true crime and solving mysteries has become quite popular in recent years, so it’s no surprise that there are board games that put you as a lead detective! True Crime Stories is a little unexpected, however, as you aren’t actually a detective; you are a member of the US Postal Service, who does have the power to resolve crimes that happen within the US Post.
Yeah, America is weird. Anyway, in True Crime Stories, there are three different stories for you to solve, the first one being a sort of starter story that tests your ability to be able to solve crimes, and the others being more challenging once you have passed your probation. The different mysteries each have various bits of paper handout evidence that help you figure out what is going on.
Opening up the information and seeing what you have, before using the tools at your disposal is the aim of the game. In the first story, for example, there is mention of racketeering, fraud and vandalism, but we need to solve the issue of who sent a threatening letter. Looking at bits of conversations heard by another officer of the law, timetables of when people were arrested and information on orders at different fruit vendors, you’re able to pull together enough information to make an accusation.
You can then unlock more information, which can then be used to see a fuller picture. Unlocking this new information in True Crime Stories is actually done through sending emails to your line manager and seeing if they have more information for you. At the end of the game, you actually need to pick which evidence is going to be needed in court to prove who did the crime, and then need to select those in an app to see if you actually solved the case.
True Crime Stories doesn’t have super serious or scary stories within it, creating a fun, family friendly game. I really enjoyed the fact that you are a postal office worker, which is always quite funny, and I feel like the individual bits and bobs in each of the cases are really well made.
You can get a copy of True Crime Stories on Amazon.
