Players: 3-5
Playing Time: 1-2 hours
The Components
Mystery Express comes with a set of high-quality components, all up to Days of Wonder's usual excellent standards.
Gameboard: A three-panel gameboard. It's largely an abstraction, showing where the train currently is and what happens at various times and in various cars. There are also five spaces for cards. I do have some qualms about the usability of the icons for the cars, since many players were still stumbling over them by the end of the game, but I think after a game most players should know what's what.
The gameboard is designed with a 1930s look (as is the case for the rest of the game) which is generally quite attractive and evocative . To support the theme, the linen-textured board has a soft, matte finish.
Cards: There are a set of 72 total "crime" cards, which represent the facts of a murder: 48 of them represent modus operandi, motive, suspect, and location, while the last 24 represent time.
If the board was attractive then those first 48 cards are entirely gorgeous, with the subjects of the various "crime categories" (such as a "stabbed" modus operandi, a "rivalry" motive, "Candy" a suspect, and a "Lounge Card" location) laid out amidst very attractive art deco framings. I did have some initial usability concerns concerning about being able to see colors and card names while looking at a fan of crime cards, but they faded quickly away during play (while the beauty just stuck around).
The time cards are much simpler, showing a pretty plain clock face (in a somewhat ornate clock), but that's entirely appropriat, because the time cards are viewed quickly (as discussed below). Very cleverly, one corner of the time cards is extra rounded, to make sure that you don't accidentally view a time card upside down.
Wood Bits: This game has 9 of the most beautiful wooden bits I've seen: 5 player character figures and 1 conductor--which all look like busts--plus a train, a whistle, and a bag. They're all carved with such detail that I was sure they were plastic, but looking back at them now, I can see the grain on the bottom, so I have to guess they're wood. They're painted in 9 different colors.
Cardboard Bits: There are several linen-textured, matte-finish cardboard tokens, including markers for all the players (used to track use of your special power & keep your "discarded" cards separate from your hand), plus tokens for the conductor and two additional passengers.
Note Pads: The deduction pad is an attractive four-color notepad that lets you keep track of what you learn over the course of the game (essentially, what cards you've seen--and possibly what happened to them) . The telegram is more plain, just printed in blue, but it looks like an authentic form, and is just used to hold a few guesses.
Character Wallet: But how do you hide your notepad? In your character wallet, a folded cardstock component, printed in full color. It's got some nicely written color text about each character and also contains a summary of all the car actions.
Overall, the components of Mystery Express are very good quality and entirely beautiful. As I've noted, I had some usability concerns with both cards and board, but they're minor enough that they'll go away by a second game, if not during the first.
I will also note that some of these components feel a bit overproduced. You don't really need much of the board, nor all of those big wooden figures. But they do add nicely to theming and the weight of the game, so I for one don't mind them.
Overall, I've let Mystery Express eke in a "5" out of "5" for Style. Despite my various small qualms the pure beauty and quality of the components triumph.
The Gameplay
The object of Mystery Express is to identify as many of the elements of a murder--drawn from modus operandi, motive, suspect, location, and time--as possible.
One of the biggest items of note in the deck is that there are two of each card, and thus the correct crime elements only have one card in play--which can make identifying them both simpler and harder.
Setup: The five crime card decks are shuffled and one of each deck is placed under the board. Each player gets 7 cards randomly picked from among the four "regular" crime card categories, with the rest going to two passengers who will board the train later on and the conductor. (Certain cards are removed in games with less than five players, to make everything come out right). The time cards are not dealt out, but instead sit next to the board.
Each player also receives a ticket, a notepad, a telegram, and a character token. A first player begins the game.
Special Powers. Each character gets a special power that they can use once a round. Four of the players get to look at (once) a certain color of crime card when it is discarded. The fifth gets an extra hour for their investigation each round.
Order of Play: Over the course of a round, two things happen. First, players take actions. Second, the Mystery Express moves to the next town on its route.
Taking Actions: Each turn each player has 4-5 hours to turn up clues. He does this by visiting the different cars on the train, each of which has 1 or 2 actions that each take 1 hour or more to perform. After a player has used up his allotted hours, his turn ends.
Marking Cards. Each action either causes players to exchange cards in some way or else to reveal at cards in some way. Whenever a player receives a card from another player or shows it to another player, he must then take that card and put it in his personal discard pile. A player may only use cards from his hand, not the discard pile, for future exchanges or reveals in the same round.
This help to accommodate the fact that there are two of each card. This way, if you see the same card twice in a round, you know they're separate cards (absent use of the lesser Club Car power), because each is placed in the discard pile as used.
Each player will recover all the cards from his discard pile at the end of each turn.
The Action List: Here's the list of all the possible actions, by car. By seeing and getting cards, you can learn more about what cards are in play, hopefully gaining enough information over the course of a single round to make some new deductions--before cards come back into play from discard.
Club Car. You can force someone to pick up all their cards of a specific color (1h) or, once the passengers have come aboard, you can take one of their cards (3h).
Dining Car. You can invite one or more players to dinner, and each one shows you a card of a different color (1 h).
Lounge Car. Everyone must reveal one card of a certain color to all players (2h).
Passenger Car. Each player passes one card of a certain color to the left or to the right (1h).
Sleeping Car. You have a 50% chance (determined by whether you can figure out which hand the luggage token is in) of taking one card from a specific player (1h or 2h).
Smoking Car. Two players give you cards of a specific color, then you give each of those players a card (3h).
The Conductor: The conductor moves around; he'll be in a different car each round. If you take an action in the car with the conductor, you then get to take the conductor action as well. This lets you take one of the conductor's three cards and replace it with one of your own.
Moving the Train: After all of the players have taken their actions, they all put their discard piles back into their hands. The train then moves, resulting in different things occurring (based on where the train is). Most notably, passengers come on board at the first and third stop. At the fourth stop, each player makes a guess (with his telegram) for crime elements that he feels good about. At the fifth stop, the game ends.
The Clock Cards. At the first, third, and fourth stops, the clock cards are shown. Each time the the current first player will rapidly display them in a slightly different way. For example, at the first stop he just shows them one at a time, displaying them one on top of another. There are three of each clock card, but one of the set is under the board. Thus players try and figure out which card is missing as the deck is quickly gone through. And, they're not allowed to take any notes until all of the cards have been shown.
Ending the Game: The game ends at the fifth stop. Each player makes his final guesses as to the five elements of the crime, then the cards under the board are revealed. The player who guesses the most elements correctly wins. In case of a tie, the telegrams sent off on turn four are used as tiebreakers.
Relationships to Other Games
Broadly, Mystery Express is a deduction game.
When it was announced, it almost immediately got compared to Days of Wonder's other deduction game, Mystery of the Abbey, but I think they're pretty distant cousins. Abbey is a pretty light, chaotic, and fairly lucky game, whereas Express is much more seriously deductive; it really allows you to go out and hunt down the particular information that you're seeking.
I'd compare Mystery Express more to Sid Sackson's deductive classic, Sleuth. They both feel like they require serious thinking to parse the information you're getting and analyze (though I think that Express is also much simpler than Sleuth, which at times requires excessive thoughtfulness).
The Game Design
Mystery Express is a high-quality, thoughtful deduction game for those looking for games where they really have to hunt down information.
Together, the idea of there being two of each card and the idea of cards being temporarily out of play when they're shown or moved create a very interesting dynamic. The first requires you to see two copies of a card to remove it from suspicion, while the second sets a tight time limit on how long you have to make that double sighting.
I've seen some early comments on the game which suggest that the way cards move around creates chaos (as it does in Mystery of the Abbey), but that's just not the case at all in Mystery Express. Rather, it's a well understood part of the mechanics. It's what creates the core tension of the game, as you try to see similar cards fast, and it's also what creates the basis for more long-term thinking, as you try and figure out if the two copies of the same card you saw from different people could possibly be the same or not.
(Usually you just have to say, "I can't say", but there are a few times when you might be able to make a better guess.)
However, you can do more with the system than just try and figure out what cards other people have. You can also manipulate the system, as a person holding some cards, to try and hide cards from other people. You can try to show the same cards to the same people over the course of the game (though your discard pile might restrict that), or even better, you might try and hide the existence of a card from everyone, perhaps misleading the other players into thinking that card is one of the hidden five.
The end game is worth some discussion. Most deduction games are about solving the mystery precisely, and this can cause problems. In Sleuth For example, you can play forever if you can't figure out how to solve the mystery, while in Mystery of the Abbey, players often seem to start taking guesses when they're down to 3 or 4 suspects, spoiling the endgame. Mystery Express avoids any of these problems with its timed ending, and I think it's an excellent solution.
Mind you, it can increase the randomness at the end of the game. If multiple people have each done a good job of figuring out the hidden cards, they're likely to have three or four out of the five answers, and the person who guesses the best among those will win. However, there's considerable deductive skill to get to that point--and you can also make further deductions about how to guess best, when you must guess.
Finally, I should talk about the time cards. My initial fear when I saw the rules for it was that it was going to be a pure memory mechanic. It's not, not even close. Instead it's just a question of figuring how to whittle down possibilities over the course of the three views of that deck. So, I don't have any particular problems with time as it exists. But, I'm not convinced it adds a lot to the game. It's so orthogonal from the rest of the play that it feels like an add-on. I think you could play without time, and you might have a better game.
But issues of time and the possibility of randomness at the end are just minor qualms. I only had one real issue with the game, and that's that it felt long to me. Whereas the box said 60-90 minutes, we clocked in at more than two hours. Some of this was probably first-game issues, as it takes a while to really figure out what you're doing in Mystery Express and also to figure out what all the cars do. So, I think this issue would go away with additional plays.
Overall, I'm pretty enchanted with Mystery Express. It's got nice color tied to a fairly intelligent deductive core. But at the same time the set endpoint keeps the more thoughtful analysis required from dragging things out. At this moment, Mystery Express would definitely be my deductive game of choice, and thus I've given it a full "5" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
Mystery Express rides the rails between classic deduction games Sleuth and Mystery of the Abbey. It offers serious and thoughtful deduction but presents it in a fairly light and enjoyable package. If you're looking for deduction that rewards skill more than Clue, Mystery of the Abbey, or most of the other classics, this is the game for you.
