Day 2 - Detective Club

Detective Club is a more gamery version of Dixit and one that to me is a lot more fun. Releasing in 2008 Dixit took the gaming world by storm with it's mix of simple gameplay and incredible acid trip worthy art. Since then every publisher under the sun has released their own games that make use of the Dixit style art cards in different ways.

Personally I keep all my "Dixit Cards" in opaque sleeves in a small wooden chest and bring them out whenever we play any of the dixit style art games, like Mysterium, Muse or Stella, giving me access to a lot of weird and wonderful cards all in the one box.

Detective Club uses the art cards in a hidden traitor style game, similar to Spyfall, where all the players know the clue word except one, The Conspirator, and the players need to work out who doesn't know. The clue giver puts out a picture and then writes a secret word that relates to their chosen image in all of the notebooks bar 1. These are dealt out to the players secretly. Each player looks at their notebook and must play a card they think matches the clue word, including The Conspirator

After each player including the clue giver has played 2 cards the word is revealed and everyone must justify their card plays. This is then followed by a vote where everyone tries to work out who didn't know. Points are given for correctly identifying the conspirator, while the cluegiver and conspirator score points if 0-1 players can correctly identify the conspirator.

The fun of Detective Club is in the justification phase, where players have to argue why their cards are valid picks for the clue word. For example, how do you defend a picture of a desert when the clue word was snow? The more creative or persuasive your friends are the more fun this game is. On the flip side, those easily frustrated by limited choices may find the game annoying rather liberating.

For me though Detective Club provides a framework for creativity & deception and those are two of my best qualities. It combines two good games, Spyfall & Dixit and manages to be better than both.