Time to look at a mystery game called
MicroMacro: Crime City is a game designed by Johannes Sich and published Edition Spielweise and Pegasus Spiele. It’s a mystery game where you’re searching for clues to figure things out. The game comes with a giant black and white paper map (75×110 cm, or about 2.5×3.5 feet) and 120 cards. There’s also some case envelopes and a magnifying glass to help you see the itty bitty pictures on the map. There are 16 different cases in the game, and you can put each one in an envelope to help you not accidentally look ahead.
To setup, you just lay out the map and pick a case. You’ll need a big table as you’ll want to be able to see the whole map.
To play, you’ll read the first card of the case. It will give you the story – in the introductory case, some guy has lost his top hat. Then you’ll be directed to complete a task on the next card (which you should not flip over). In this case, the first task is to find the pub. You’re given a general area to look in, and you start searching. As the case proceeds, you’ll find out more information, and once you’ve solved it, you win. That’s it. The 16 cases increase in complexity as you go through them, and you’ll find yourself tracking different people and objects in several places on the map.
Quite honestly, this seems more like a group activity than a game to me. Not that this is a bad thing – I always enjoyed playing Where’s Waldo as a kid, even though everything was static and never changed. But I am impressed by the amount of detail in this huge map, and it does seem like a fun thing to do with family. It’s one of those things that, when you’re done, you’re done. But if you like mysteries, puzzles, escape rooms, etc., this is probably right up your alley. I know it’s one I’d like to check out.
Wow, that was a short one today, wasn’t it? Stay safe out there, and thanks for reading!
