Players: 2
Playing Time: 30 minutes
The Components
Mr. Jack comes in a bookshelf box with a small set of components.
The board is a standard 4-panel affair, linen-textured in full color. Besides showing the playing field upon which the characters of Mr. Jack move, it also helpfully depicts the 8 turns of the game and shows what happens on each.
A number of cardboard chits are included for placement on the board, including 6 gaslights, 2 manholes, and 2 cordons, once more all linen-textured cardboard.
Meanwhile, the characters (and a turn marker) are all good-quality wooden pieces. Each is a circular disc upon which you affix stickers. The character tokens very helpfully have two stickers. There's a full-color one for the front, which is for when a character is a suspect, and a grayscale pictures for the back, which is for when the character is known innocent. This is one of the best nuances of the game.
The remaining bits are all cards: 8 character cards, 8 alibi cards, and 1 witness card. Each of these is actually a high-quality bit of thick cardboard rather than cardstock. The character cards notably each show what the character can do in fairly obvious icons.
I'm not that fond of the cartoony artwork in the game, which doesn't really fit the Jack the Ripper theming in my mind. However beyond that the components are all quite high quality and easy to use. I've thus let it eke in a "5" out of "5" for Style: very well done.
The Gameplay
In Mr. Jack one player takes on the role of Jack the Ripper and the other player takes the role of the investigators trying to capture him.
Setup: Mr. Jack is actually a very analytical strategy game, and thus there's a standard setup. The eight suspects, six gaslamps, two police cordons, and two covered manhole tiles are all placed on the board in a specified setup.
The Jack character takes one of the alibi cards, looks at it, then sets it aside. He now knows who Jack the Ripper actually is.
Finally the witness card is placed to depict that "There is a witness", meaning that Jack can't initially escape.
Order of Play: The game is played in 8 turns, each of which contains three steps:
- Choose & Use Characters
- Call for Witnesses
- Shut Off a Gaslight
Choose & Use Characters: The game centers around the eight characters laid out on the board. Each turn 4 of the 8 character cards are revealed, making those 4 characters available for play that turn. All the characters will be available over the course of every pair of rounds, then the character cards are reshuffled.
On odd-numbered turns the investigator player goes first, choosing and using one character, then the Jack character chooses and uses two, then the investigator player uses the last character. On even-numbered turns the opposite occurs.
When using a character, the player must move them and/or use their special power.
Moving. Moving occurs on a hex map laid out over the board of the London alleys. Each player moves 1-3 spaces each turn (except for Miss Stealthy who moves 1-4). A character can spend a movement point to move into a hex or from one open manhole to another. He may not move through buildings, gardens, or gaslamps. The character who is secretly Jack may also move off the board in one of the four corners if there is not a police cordon there.
Special Powers. Each character also has a special power who's use is mandatory (with the exception of Sir William Gull and Miss Stealthy, who have optional movement based powers). Generally powers can used before or after movement, with a few exceptions. The powers are:
- Inspector Lestrade: Moves a police cordon from one corner to another.
- Jeremy Bert: Moves a covered manhole tile to an open manhole.
- John H. Watson: At the end of movement Dr. Watson points his lantern, which illuminates a row of hexes.
- John Smith: Moves a lit gaslamp to a shut-off gaslamp space.
- Miss Stealthy: May move through buildings, gaslamps, and gardens.
- Seargent Goodley: May "whistle" to cause three characters to together move a sum of three spaces toward him.
- Sherlock Holmes: Allows you to look at an alibi card, telling you one person who isn't Jack the Ripper--or preventing your opponent from determining the same.
- Sir William Gull: May exchange spaces with another character instead of normal movement.
Call for Witnesses: Now the Jack player assesses whether Jack is visible or not. A character is visible if they are adjacent to a gaslamp, adjacent to another character, or in the path of Dr. Watson's lantern.
When it's declared whether Jack is visible or not, some portion of the suspects are immediately placed out of contention (because they're visible when Jack isn't, or vice-versa). The investigator player marks this by flipping the appropriate characters face-down.
Shut Off a Gaslight: On each of the first four turns, a designated gaslamp is then removed from the board, shutting it off.
Winning the Game: The investigator player wins the game by moving another character onto Jack the Ripper and accusing him.
The Jack player wins if:
- He moves Jack off the board (which may only be done in a direction without a police cordon when Jack was hidden on the previous turn).
- He lasts through the end of turn 8 without Jack getting caught.
- The investigator makes a false accusation.
Relationships to Other Games
Mr. Jack is a surprisingly abstract and analytical deduction game.
At the abstract level it reminds me of another popular Asmodee game, Dungeon Twister. Both games have strong theming, yet the games are very thoughtful with very meaningful moves that are mostly tactical in nature. They also both are games where there are lots of different pieces with special powers.
At the deductive level, Mr. Jack of course shares some relationship with everything from Clue to Mystery of the Abbey. The deductive factor is here totally encompassed in the gameplay, and the idea is for the investigator player to force invormation revelation while the Jack player is trying to occlude it.
Finally this is one of a few Jack the Ripper games on the market. The most notable of the others is probably Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper.
The Game Design
As already noted, Mr Jack. is a thoughtful, tactical game. You have to make decisions that constantly affect multiple factors, including who's in shadow, who's not, and whether Jack will be able to make a run for it on the next turn. Because of the many special powers, there can be considerable back and forth as you consider the permutations (which can unfortunately also cause some Analysis Paralysis in gamers subject to such).
Mr. Jack also does a very good job of creating two sides that are balanced, yet different. A player's thought process will be very different depending on whether he's playing Jack or the investigators, and this makes for a game that has that much more longevity.
The color in Mr. Jack is great. The different powers create a lot of variety in the game. Though I wish that a few more of the personas had been historical, rather than archetypical figures, nonetheless the game gives a fun view of Victorian London.
Finally, on top of that all, Mr. Jack is short and plays quickly, a real coup for a game of this depth.
My only concern is with ultimate replayability as the somewhat abstract play and the standardized setups give the possibility of the game becoming mechanical after too many plays. Nonetheless, it should stand up to a dozen or more plays even between serious opponents.
Generally Mr. Jack is a standout release among 2-player games, and thus I've given it a high "4" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
Mr. Jack is a uniquely thoughtful and tactical game of deductive play for two players that's unlike pretty much anything else in the field.
