“Crime Zoom” – review of a crime game by Lucky Duck Games

Crime Zoom (2021) – is a position that engages and provides entertainment, but above all is thoughtful. There is a lot of good in the pocket format. The Lucky Duck Games publishing house has given me two variants of the game (each consists of a deck of 55 cards and instructions). The writer Stéphane Anquetil is responsible for both versions. supplement to Chronicles of Crime: Noir. 

Crime Zoom: The last card 

The game is about unraveling a murder mystery. We do not race here, who is the first to come up with the solution to the investigation, but we only cooperate (up to 6 people may play detectives). We arrange the 15 cards in such a way as to reflect the crime scene. Then we discover each of them one by one in order to take a closer look at the objects or people that are on the chosen illustration (we can examine, among others, the mysterious inscription on the wall, traces on the window, the location of the victim or the contents of her bookcase). In the variant of  Crime Zoom: The Last Card, the  action is set in Brooklyn in the 1980s. A shootout takes place in the tenement of the mysterious Franc Bucco. Who is behind all this? We will seek answers to these and other questions during the investigation.

The position is in the noir style, which works very well in this case. Clues can lead you astray and provide solid clues. We look at fingerprints, account statements and even insurance policies. We listen to the testimonies of witnesses and try to find out the motive of the crime. We must, of course, also deduce who committed it and with what tool this person did it. The card is engaging and really well written, unlike in my opinion the highly overrated Detective from Portal Games. The entire game takes about an hour.

Crime Zoom: Birds of bad omen 

We have a similar situation in  Crime Zoom: Birds of Bad omen . The differences are, among others on the number of cards that make up the crime scene and – of course – on the murderous plot itself. In this edition, we are moving to contemporary Paris. In one of the office buildings we find the body of a filigree woman. Why did someone decide to take her life? As you guessed it, we need to find out. At the end of the investigation, we read an epilogue that reveals the characters’ motivations. Thus, we make sure that the conclusions we have submitted in the report are correct. As with The  Last Card , I had a great time playing this position. I immersed myself in a world presented almost as much as in  Sherlock from Rebel.

Why are both games great?

As I mentioned before, these items are very well written, allowing you to feel the stuffy atmosphere of individual places (be it a French metropolis or a dingy tenement house in Brooklyn). A huge plus is that, apart from trying to unravel the mystery, we delve into the private life of the victims and somehow try to write their biography.