Flash Review — MicroMacro: Crime City

Players: 1-4 (coop)
Works well with just 2: Yes!
Solo quality: Perfect
Age: 12+
Playtime: 15-45 min
Complexity: 2/10

Before we begin, a few words on the above data points:

• You can theoretically play MM:CC with an infinite number of players, but I doubt your table can accommodate that many bodies. 4 is just more manageable.
• From a game mechanic standpoint, kids as young as 5 could play this; I think the 12+ is a recommendation based on the subject matter (murders and stuff).
• Don’t let that complexity rating fool you: the rules are super simple but the game doesn’t play itself.

Welcome to Crime City, where everyone’s a crook so you better watch your back!
Opening the small box reveals rather sparse components: a large 75 cm x 110 cm black-and-white map of the titular city, a bunch of cards, and a magnifying glass.
Not much, right? And yet...

The map depicts the hustle and bustle of a regular modern-day city. Subway stations, a variety of shops, large parks, City Hall, living quarters—all beautifully drawn in isometric perspective. Woven throughout the scenery are 16 different crimes that unfold before your very eyes. Of course, everything is small and busy, so at first it’s not clear what’s going on. That’s why each case asks that you concentrate on the activities of a few central characters.
For instance: how did the bunny last seen in front of the theater holding a heart-shaped balloon disappear? (Yeah, he’s the guy on the cover.) What happened to him and why? That case, like every other one, comes in the form of a handful of cards, each asking specific questions. Where was the restaurant owner before she met her end? Who killed her? For what reason? And where can the murderer be found now?

The key is the poster, and it’s a genius design. You see, the poster doesn’t show a snapshot of the city, a single moment frozen in time. Instead, it shows a series of moments, all merged together in one image; and if you’re observant enough, you can rewind and fast-foward time to access different moments in the story you’re asked to untangle.
Take that bunny guy with the balloon. If you look around the theater, you’ll spot him a little distance down one of the busy streets, and the way he’s facing tells you that’s where he went next. If you then look in the opposite direction, you might spot him right before he got to the theater. Keep going in either direction, and you’ll unspool his entire day—what he did, whom he met—right up to that fatal moment. (Of course, people don’t always walk in a straight line, so you’ll probably have to do some looking around before you find him again.)

Think of it like if Sherlock Holmes and Wally (or Waldo in North America) got together to create a detective game. It’s engrossing and brilliant and I can’t wait to dive into that map again.
The game’s 16 cases should keep you busy for a little while; and once you’ve solved everything, give the game to a friend and buy volume two, which is already out!

[In Germany, MicroMacro: Crime City won Spiel des Jahres (literally “game of the year”) for 2021. That prize is bestowed upon the best family game of the year, and it’s not difficult to see why they went with this one. It’s great.]

Most easily forgotten rule: For the very first time, I can’t think of anything. The game is that straightforward.





# # #

Flash Review — Praga Caput Regni

Players: 1-4

Works well with just 2: Yes!
Solo quality: Acceptable—it’s a “beat your own score” kind of thing
Age: 12+
Playtime: 45-150 min
Complexity: 7.5/10

Welcome to 1347! It’s your job to make Prague into the heart of Europe by building new fortifications, a university, and the famous Charles Bridge that joins the old town with the new town. Don’t forget the eggs!

Praga is an action selection game where you pick up a tile from the action wheel and implement one of the two options on that tile. The game runs on a classic menu of actions that let you gain resources and then spend them building a variety of things, all of which will yield points in one way or another. Each of those typical actions is retooled here in a clever way, but never as brilliantly as the action wheel itself.

In addition to the action per se, picking an action tile can produce up to two bonuses: the first bonus comes from the section of the wheel (the spoke, if you will) that the action tile came from, while the second bonus depends on how far that action tile had traveled (along with the wheel) on the board before you selected it. The more you wait to pick up an action tile, the more valuable its board bonus will become—if no one takes it before you do, naturally. When you’re done with your action, rotate the wheel one step and hook your tile to the wheel once more, in the red section (i.e. the “back” of the wheel). Ready for the next player!

The Praga action wheel (actually called "action crane" in the game)

Praga may look like something you’ve played before, but it’s fresh and ingenious, and that wheel changes everything. 

Most easily forgotten rule: Make sure you discard down to two windows at the end of your turn.

# # #

Flash Review — Unfathomable

Players: 3-6 (semi-coop)
Age: 14+
Playtime: 120-240 min
Complexity: 8.5/10

One brisk night in 1913, The SS Atlantica is slowly steaming its way to Boston, ferrying passengers and… other beings, across the Atlantic. Whether or not it makes landfall depends on the level of cooperation players can muster, even in the face of nautical abominations.

Unfathomable is a cooperative game with (at least!) one Lovecraftian being masquerading as a run-of-the-mill human. The SS Atlantica shall face many challenges before reaching its destination, and while humans will run around fixing the boiler room, raiding the cargo hold to arm themselves, or dropping by the chapel to engage in a banishment ritual (gotta cleanse the ship of those infernal creatures!), the traitor(s) in their midst will try to ensure the ship runs out of resources, is overwhelmed by Deep Ones, or sinks right to the bottom of the ocean.

If this sounds dire, the worst is yet to come: some of the traitors may not realize they’re supposed to work against the humans until the ship is well under way. So that friend you’ve been trusting to get you out of a tight spot for the last hour? Well he might just stick a rusty knife between your shoulder blades next time he gets a chance. That is, if the monsters don’t get you first…

Some uninvinted guests

Unfathomable is a retooling of the Battlestar Galactica boardgame published back in 2008. While the theme is obviously different, every single mechanic has also been reexamined, and I have to say that the new incarnation is a better game all around. Whatever you found clunky or unnecessarily heavy in BSG is gone from Unfathomable. My favorite change? The jump track is now TWO tracks: a travel track that moves the ship forward (and does only that) and a ritual track that wipes enemies off the board. You can’t do both at once anymore, so you’ll need someone manning the engine, and someone else casting spells to keep the horrors at bay. Also, revealed bad guys get to do a lot more here than they ever could in BSG, which is another great improvement.

Lastly, don’t be frightened by the game’s complexity rating: it sure is an intricate design with lots of moving parts, but once things get going, it’s smooth sailing… until it’s not.

Most easily forgotten rule: Each time the ship moves, enemies “left behind” in the water around the ship move one space towards the back. Sounds logical, but for some reason we keep forgetting to do it. :)

# # #