We play lots of board games (including tabletop games and card games) in our house. We all love game night, and we all have our favourite games but do love discovering new games to play. We like all types of games but particularly like ones where you need to think, using logic and deduction to win. For this reason, we were delighted when we received Casefile: Truth & Deception for review.
Casefile: Truth & Deception is a board game based on the very popular true crime podcast: Casefile. It is a game for 3 to 4 players, aged 12+ and takes anywhere between 30 to 60 minutes to play. It is similar to an old favourite Cluedo and has elements of Guess Who.
In Casefile: Truth & Deception we find out that the wealthy businessman Casey Parker has been murdered! He has a very long list of enemies, anybody could have committed the deadly crime. But thankfully there is lots of evidence for the detectives (the players) to find and decipher to unmask the killer, bringing them to justice.
The idea of the game is to be the first detective to find out where the crime occurred, why the victim killed and what weapon was used to commit the murder and then catch the killer using deduction skills, evidence cards, truth and deception to crack the case. And you can solve a different crime, with the same victim, every time you play and have a different outcome.
In the box:
- Casefile Gameboard
- 4 Case Trackers
- 4 Dry-Erase Markers
- 44 Cards
- Deception Die
- Confidential Folder
- Instructions
Setting up to play is straightforward. Each player is given a dry-erase marker and a case tracker. The Casefile gameboard is placed in the centre of the table. The cards need to be separated into the five different types: Weapon, Location, Motive, Suspect and False Evidence and shuffled. Select a card at random (without looking) from the Weapon, Location, Motive and Suspect piles and place them, without anyone seeing what is on the cards, into the Confidential Folder – this folder now holds the solution to identify the killer. Then combine the five card piles together, shuffle them and deal five cards to each player. The remaining cards and then placed on the gameboard in the centre of the table. Place the die near the gameboard and you are ready to play and solve a murder!
This is a game of deduction, deception and collecting evidence and to keep track of this each players uses their case tracker. When the game starts players can look at the cards they have been dealt and can mark these off in their case tracker, as they are holding the cards, they clearly can’t be part of the solution. The idea is to collect or eliminate enough pieces of evidence by asking questions, trading evidence cards and leading other players down the wrong path, to make an educated guess to who the killer is, where the murder happened, what weapon was used to commit the murder and what the motive was. Get it right and you win, get it wrong and you are out of the game.
But be aware, there is false evidence floating around to throw you off the scent and other players can bluff, lie and deceive so you really do need to be sure of the evidence in front of you.
Overall, Casefile: Truth & Deception is a great game. It has lots of fun and tension and means you have to pay attention. A challenging game, that is extremely interesting and lots of fun – fans of Cluedo will love it!
It is easy to play, evidence cards can be traded (they all have a numeric value to make it work) and evidence cards and case trackers can be stolen by other players (this can be quite frustrating when losing everything that you have collected).
The artwork on the cards and case trackers is very good and doesn’t feature any gory images, so is suitable for all players. Although we did think that the card used could have been a bit thicker, it is a bit thin but doesn’t make any difference to the gameplay.
The game is played until a player guesses the answers correctly or all players are knocked out through wrong guesses. There is no time limit, but we found a game takes between 30 to 60 minutes to play. It is really satisfying to be able to correctly deduce the answers and solve the murder.
We also like that it can be played over and over again. The victim is always the same, but the final answer changes each time that you play as cards are selected at random, with 44 cards, there are near infinite possibilities. Therefore, there is lots of playability.
We all enjoyed Casefile: Truth & Deception. It is simple to setup, easy to play and gets those brain cells working. It would make an excellent gift this Christmas for older children and teenagers and lots of fun to play together as a family.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £26.99
Available to buy from Amazon here.
