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Nicole Simeone
Death on the Cards
You'll need the help of your little grey cells for this card game.
Of all the game shops in the world, I walked into one with a gem of a card game. It was Christmas time, close to the present purchasing cut off when Adam and I stuck our heads in a local hobby shop. Like most gift ideas, I hadn’t meant to be shopping for myself. But a black box sat tucked on a shelf, calling my name. Most people would have overlooked it. I happened to catch the huge name gracing the cover. Agatha Christie.
I am diligently working my way through her collection of works. I started with her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, and am currently on his nineteenth adventure. That sounds like I’ve made a dent, doesn’t it? For most other authors, yes. Ms. Christie, however, was the predecessor to the Energizer Bunny. I haven’t even reached the halfway point of the Poirot collection. Anyway, to the game.
As you might guess, Death on the Cards is a whodunnit Agatha Christie-style. The general objective is to stop the murderer from escaping…unless you’re the murderer, of course. Everyone at the table has secrets, you’ll want to guard those secrets even if murder isn’t in your cards. No one wants to fall into social disgrace, after all.
You and your dinner party, because murder always happens at a dinner party, are dealt a hand of cards. The deck is comprised of event, devious, “not so fast,” detective cards, and a single card stating the murderer has escaped. The murderer at the table wants to hasten that card’s reveal because, well, obvious reasons.
For those at the table seeking to catch the murderer, you have help on the way in the form of all of Christie’s sleuthing heroes.
To play detective cards, you need to have a set of cards to play. For example, Poirot has the number three noted in the upper left-hand corner of his card. That’s indicating three detective cards need to be put down to use Poirot’s action. Included in the deck are Harley Quin Wildcards, which will facilitate putting detectives into play.
There are quirks to a few of the detectives. Ariadane Oliver cannot be played as her own set as she was always a helping hand on other detective stories. Tommy and Tuppence can be considered wild cards for one another but no other detective.
Each player on their turn gets to perform one action, play an event card, put a detective set down, or add a detective to an existing set. In the event, your hand doesn’t have a card you can or want to play, you’ll need to discard a card from your hand.
The gameplay is affected by the number of people at the table. Death on the Cards, unlike so many games, does have a two-player mode. For two players, two types of cards are removed from the deck because they serve no purpose. For a larger party of five and six, a card is added to the deck to spice up the action.
As you can guess, I was interested in this game because someone sat down with Christie’s work to make a game. The Christie estate partnered with Modiphius Entertainment to bring this game into being. And the care and attention to detail are evident once you start flipping through the cards.
Bits and pieces of her work show up everywhere on these cards showing what a labor of love this game is.
The conditions associated with the number of players at the table might not seem like a big deal; however, the gameplay is absolutely different. In a two-player game, the murderer’s identity isn’t really a secret. The innocent party at the table’s main objective is to block the murderer’s attempts to escape and speeding up the end of the game.
When there are more people at the table, obviously there are more secrets to discover. The Suspicion card offers up an ingenious way to get a glimpse into what your playmates are thinking. With more pieces in play, it makes for a true murder mystery.
I haven’t had the pleasure of playing with five or six players, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. It does mean that I can’t say what the Accomplice card adds to the mystery. So, I’ll have to write an update when I wrangle enough people to the table.
I have two nit-picky things. First, the illustration of Poirot has hair. Not earth-shattering, I know. But, the man as I know him is bald. Second, the person born closest to Agatha Christie’s birthday gets to go first. This means, in my house, Adam is always going to go first. Again, not earth-shattering and exclusive to probably to my home.
If you haven’t picked up any of Agatha Christie’s works, I would highly recommend that you do. She is a master of mystery and dry humor. If I ever figure out a digestible way to review her works, you’ll probably see some Wednesday posts on her. Until then, check out what your library has because she has to be in every library, so you can dabble without spending a penny.
That’s all I have for now. Till next time, Nerd Girls!