In somewhat of a change, yet still book adjacent, I was thrilled to be asked by Zoe to join a tour/game review for this nursery rhyme based card game, Foul Play’s ‘Once Upon A Crime’!

For the unitiated (i.e me), these are packs of cards, there are currently two available, this one and ‘‘The Manor House Murder’ as well as plans for many more!
As a mum on a mission to get my kids (3 girls, aged 11,14 and 16) to get off their phones and play games with me, I have been on a hiding to nothing.

Until now….

We have played multiple rounds of this game, which, at first, I have to admit we found hard to get to grips with. We took to playing Bad Cop better than Good Cop which was surprising, but these are 2 of the ways that we can play the game.

With the Good Cop version, you find out who did the crime and accuse them appropriately where in Bad Cop, you make the evidence fit the crime!

The cards are divided into sections so you have character cards (twisted villainous takes on the classics, Sinbad and Goldilocks and so on) Evidence Cards and cards which allow you to swap, steal, trade or discard until you have 1 character card and three pieces of evidence (A,B and C) which identify the perpetrator.

For example, if you hold Red Riding Hood, you could use 3 cards that identify the perpetrator of the crime as wearing red, using a bladed weapon and look for a yellow ribbon . All they have to do is have A, B and C on the Evidence cards and you can let your accusations fly!

The games stacked up pretty quickly, we played in a group of 3, and we helped each other so out of 5 games played today, Jenny (16) won 1 game, I (46) won 1 game and Flo (11) won 3 ! They really enjoyed the games and found it fun as they swapped and traded, applying their observational skills to spotting the little details on the character cards.

It encouraged them to think analytically and tactically to outsmart each other-to be fair they didn’t have to work hard to outsmart me!-and were keen to find out if there were other packs that they could play.

They also asked if you can combine packs-I am not sure if you can at this point but it sounds like a fun option to explore in the future.

I would definitely recommend this card game as a way to engage with your children and do something a little different over the holidays.

Check out my Instagram for pics of the playing cards, as a quality marker the cards are sturdy and have a nice finish to them, which makes them feel glossy and well manufactured.

Here is what the Foul Play team have to say about how they came into being-

 

History of Foul Play

What’s a Murder Mystery Events Company to do?

With a pandemic sweeping the nation and no sign of being able to perform their confounding criminal cabarets or incredible interactive investigations any time soon,they needed to come up with a plan,another way to provide mystery to the masses (and provide income to keep themselves afloat!)

Well, lockdown does strange things to people, especially actors who can’t go out and perform. So, one fateful evening,ben and Lee Cooper-Muir decided to come up with a whole new way to murder people. Keeping their cards close to their chest they plotted and schemed until ‘Foul Play:The Murder Mystery Card Game‘ was born. So, what to do next?

This is where After Dark enters the picture.

After all, Ben and Lee were two of the operators of the infamous murder mystery company.Maybe they could collaborate to bring the game to the masses.

When lockdown restrictions were lifted , a top-secret meeting was held with the other criminal masterminds behind After Dark, Helen Burrows,Sophie Webster and Tom Fisher, and a pact was made.

The game would be launched amd licensed under the After Dark banner.In true After Dark style, the team burst into action and began the beta testing,proofing, proofing and MORE proofing until finally all the kinks were ironed out,mysteries were solved, and ‘Foul Play’ came to life!

We hope you enjoy playing it,and although we all hope to be back performing soon, WATCH THIS SPACE! Now we know we can create and produce games, we’ve got a lot more fun things planned for the future….

Twitter @foulplaygamers @zooloo2008