On the 25th June it’s National Unplugging Day – a day when you avoid your tablets and spend some quality family time together. Maybe playing a board game or two? We received Scotland Yard from Ravensburger games, a board game which has been around for a while now. Read on to find out more!
Scotland Yard is a board game which has a few ways to play. It’s definitely a lot more fun when there are more than two of you playing, though I’d recommend doing the easier version first to get the hang of what to do.
For review purposes, assume there are three of us playing. One person is Mister X. The other players are detectives. The purpose of the game is to move around stops in London to track down Mister X. That’s a really simple way to explain it, as there are different ways to move around London.
Mister X wears a visor – after all, he doesn’t want the other players to know where he is.
You have a taxi which covers every stop, a bus which covers quite a lot of stops and finally when playing the difficult version of the game, you have the underground which moves you around the board faster.
The easy version of Scotland Yard has the counters on the board at all times, except for Mister X when he’s doing invisible moves. All of Mister X’s moves are tracked on this handy board. When you’re Mister X it’s handy as I kept forgetting where I was.
When you’re doing the difficult version of the game, Mister X only appears on the board three times. This is where the strategic play comes into it – Scotland Yard is quite clever. If you know where Mister X passed through, you also know the way he has travelled. So there’s a good chance you will be able to work out where he could be – each form of travel covers up the move on the board like so.
The detectives take a card from the blue pile to find their starting spot – then it’s about tracking down Mister X with limited clues.
When you’re playing the difficult version of the game you can control two other counters which are the police. You discuss with the other player who isn’t Mister X where those counters go.
The other part of the game are the travel tickets. There are a set number per game to use – lots of taxi ones, a few for the bus and even less for the underground. So you’re having to use them wisely as the object of the game is to land where Mister X is.
We enjoyed playing it – at first I thought the game seemed like Cluedo, but if you think that you’re wrong. Scotland Yard is a game that could go really quickly or could take a really long time. There are ways to escape the detectives and police, but you need to think carefully. It’s really good fun!
Scotland Yard is suitable for age 8+ and for up to six players. For more information head here!
The 25th June is National Unplugging Day, when families are encouraged to Go Gadget Free – we’re going to give it a go!
We received Scotland Yard for the purpose of review. All opinions are our own.
