Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Chronicles of Crime: 1900 is coming to retail on April 29th, 2021! The game transports players to Paris, France. The year is 1900 and the times couldn’t be more perfect for being a young, up-and-coming journalist. With the inauguration of the first line of the Métro, the Exposition Universelle, Summer Olympics, new motion pictures being released, and many other leaps and bounds being made in the arts and sciences, there are many events to cover and important people to interview. Toss in a few murders, thefts, and disappearances and it won’t be long before you move up in the ranks at the paper! The race is on to meet your deadline and solve the crime before the paper gets sent off to the presses at midnight while living up to your family legacy as a supersleuth. Will you succeed or will you spend too much time dawdling at the crime scenes and get stuck covering the fluff pieces from now on?

Following in the footsteps of the original Chronicles of Crime game from Lucky Duck Games, 1900 expands the franchise as both a standalone game and a part of the Millennium Series. Chronicles of Crime was designed by David Cicurel and was crowdfunded via a very successful Kickstarter campaign in early 2018. Cicurel is joined by Wojciech Grajkowski for the design of the Millennium Series games (1400, 1900, and 2400) as well as the Millennium Series expansion that not only adds to each of these games but can be used to combine them all! The creative talents of Karolina Jedrzejak, Aleksandra Wojtas, Matijos Gebreselassie, Mateusz Komada, and Katarzyna Kosobucka provided the stunning illustrations for 1900. The Chronicles of Crime: The Millenium Series games were kickstarted in March 2020 as a single campaign.

Though each of the scenarios is drastically different from one another, the basic setup for all of them is the same. 1900 is a game that tends to spread out quite a bit during play so we recommend that players make sure to leave extra space for when new locations are revealed as they will take up more room than just the initial setup. Players will need to start by placing the Evidence Board in the play area and then set up the newspaper office by finding its location card as well as Charlotte’s character card. Charlotte will always start in the office, ready and willing to help with the case! All other Location Boards are placed within easy reach of the players along with the face-down decks of Character Cards, Special Item Cards, and Puzzle Cards. The Evidence Category cards are also placed nearby but are face up as they can be searched freely throughout the game. It is highly recommended that all of these cards are kept in order whether it be alphabetical or numerical as it makes searching through them much easier!

Once the play area is set up, it is time to pull out the app. I know, I know…phones (or other devices) at the gaming table… However, before we get too much further into how to play 1900, I want to talk about the app as there seems to be quite a divide in the gaming community still about app-assisted gaming. In some instances, such as with Sentinels of the Multiverse from Greater Than Games, an app isn’t required but can make bookkeeping much easier and keep the tabletop cleaner. Chronicles of Crime and the new Millennium Series games, however, can not be played without downloading the free app (available for both Android and iOS). This app not only provides the narrative but also allows players to actually interact within the world of the game itself by interviewing characters, searching for clues, traveling from location to location, and eventually solving – or trying to solve – the crime. Additionally, the app also keeps track of any hints used to solve the in-game puzzles and the passage of time, both of which can affect one’s final score. Upon choosing a scenario from the app, players will then progress in the game by scanning the QR codes on the cards. Players should discuss as a group what cards they wish to scan. Scanning a location will move players to that area and allow them to interact with the scene by either scanning and interrogating characters or searching the vicinity for evidence. Any evidence found can also be verified with a scan. Once players confirm that a clue has been found, it gets placed on the Evidence Board in the appropriate area (either red or blue). Occasionally, players will come across a puzzle they will need to solve before progressing. These can be a myriad of things including word puzzles, visual puzzles, or logic puzzles, and are a great addition to the game as they are a nice interjection from the standard searching and interrogating of the game. When players believe they have collected enough evidence to fully solve the crime, they head back to the home office at the newspaper and test their conclusion with the app by answering several questions about the case and being scored. This will conclude the game, but players can try to improve their score by going through the case again or simply move on to the next scenario.

1900 is the first of the Chronicles of Crime games that we’ve played here at The Cardboard Cantina, though we’ve had our eye on them for a while. With my background in journalism and media studies, I was immediately drawn to the story of 1900 since it is a standalone expansion and I wouldn’t feel lost or that I had been left behind. It also allowed me to live out my dreams of working in the media. I was completely blown away by the layers upon layers of intricacies that were presented in the scenarios, weaving different events into one larger story! The game is a bit of a table hog for my current space, though, so I found I needed a pen and paper to keep track of certain things as I constantly shifted the components around on my small table. In a larger space, like at my friendly local game store, this was not an issue, but still something worth mentioning. The immersive experience provided by the app helps drive the adventure forward and causes players to have to be more involved with the story rather than just the cards in front of them. All in all, we are very excited about what Chronicles of Crime brings to the table and we strongly look forward to picking up more of the series in the near future.

All images of Lucky Duck Games product were taken and edited by Krista.