Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
“This might be the best one-shot mystery game we have ever played!”
My wife and I had just finished a three-hour session of Masters of Crime: Shadows (2022, KOSMOS). We had now played the first three releases in the series, and I was nodding heartily in agreement based on this assessment. I’ve reviewed about 20 different titles in the single-play tabletop format (maybe more, because this is a sometimes difficult category to parse in our search system), and even halfway through the scenario presented in MoC: Shadows, I had to admit that KOSMOS had nailed it again.
I’ll share a few spoiler-free notes on this title, but I just want to sit back and marvel at the fact that KOSMOS is crushing this category. I’ll also talk briefly about my main takeaway from this experience: why haven’t more people been talking about these games?
It’s Time for a Heist Flick
Masters of Crime: Shadows is a single-session mystery title that can be played by any number of players. (The box says 1-6 players, but the reality is that you could play it with almost any group cooperatively.) Like the previous two titles I have tried, Masters of Crime: Vendetta and Masters of Crime: Rapture, Masters of Crime: Shadows takes about three hours to work through, with some wiggle time based on how long it takes players to complete each series of minor puzzles included in the storyline.
This time around, you play a nameless heist mastermind who is working with a client on a gallery job in Amsterdam. Unlike the previous two games—or like most other games of this type—there’s nobody dead. There’s no one who needs to be “removed.” Here, the mystery comes down to the job: over a series of visits to various locations, you have to build a crew of professionals who are best suited for the job at hand, then pull off the theft of a painting desired by the client and hustle it off to a getaway location.
The Masters of Crime games use a star scoring system to determine how you did; MoC: Shadows adds an alarm element that can reduce the number of stars earned during the game. Based on a number of end-game scoring tiers, players could end up essentially blowing the mission, or end up looking like the stars of a certain Steven Soderbergh heist film series.
And like in the other titles I’ve seen so far, the game uses (mostly) expert integration of light puzzle experiences, funny dialogue ripped from most of the crime flicks you’ve probably already seen, the use of online tools to look into map locations, and sending dummy e-mails to Gmail accounts that send out automated responses providing clues to players about what’s happening in the game’s story. I am always suspicious when games use the words “immersive crime thriller experience” on the back of the box, but let’s give credit where credit is due. MoC: Shadows really does feel like a breathless crime thriller, right down to a timed exercise during the game’s heist sequence at the end of the game.
The A-Team
When I’m not writing about board games, I manage projects for a professional services company. In a past role, I did the same thing for another company, and I got to learn more about how that company staffs each client engagement. As one would expect, some clients get good teams, while others get great ones.
However, when projects were not going well, this prior company sent in “flying squads”, an internal name for what was essentially a SWAT team of the best consultants at the company, in an attempt to save the work and get back in a client’s good graces. (I’ve since learned that all consulting companies have teams like this.)
After playing three of these Masters of Crime games, I am sure KOSMOS has a “flying squad” of its best puzzle/mystery game makers, who are saved to make their best titles. The authors of this game—Lukas Setzke, Martin Student, and Verena Wiechens—must be a part of that group, because MoC: Shadows does an almost perfect job of mixing the mundane, boilerplate stuff (heist characters from Central Casting, some of the basic locations and dialogue) with the twists and turns of a puzzle game that reward players who are willing to track down the details.
That makes the entire experience sensational, being accessible for players new to this sort of game type, while still being a good challenge for players chasing a perfect score. There are a couple of puzzles that are maybe a four out of 10 on the challenge meter; nothing impossible, but in a couple of cases, puzzles that take just enough brain power or note-taking to take a few extra minutes to solve. Everything here is doable, in a way that leads participants to high-five team members when they come up with the right answer.
And, even if a player gets stuck somewhere, the Masters of Crime website has all the answers. The card system still works (there are 72 in the box, a mix of locations, characters, and finale cards), the art style is solid, and one of the website challenges was interesting.
One of the challenges, though, is clearly broken; there’s an “online test” at one point as players need to answer a series of questions on a mockup site that serves as the players’ introduction to the Bachmman Galerij, the site players must scope out for the heist. Even though the answers to the questions are plainly shown on the right sections of a job application page, the answers were not computing when using the text boxes, and this could serve to break the experience for some players. (It’s clear that my wife and I missed out on the top-tier score because of this issue, but it wasn’t enough to stop us from being able to complete the game.)
This sort of thing can add time to a game that is already a bit on the long side, so it can be disappointing when some of the intended puzzle-solving tools are broken. And I’m not sure fixing these sites is a priority for a game that is nearly four years old.
Still…Buy It!
Masters of Crime: Shadows ended up being the best escape room/mystery/one-shot game we’ve ever worked through. In part, this was because it was such a blast to work through an adventure as the bad guys: building a crew, executing a heist, using technology and the clue drops to build a plan that we got to play out to end the game. The challenge level feels just right: not too easy, but not ridiculously hard, either. All the plot points and logic stretches feel grounded in what might play out if I were really robbing a local gallery. (I’m not saying that I have experience in this area, but still.)
It was also funny to see some of the plot bits from Masters of Crime: Rapture included in Masters of Crime: Shadows. Rewarding players who have seen the other games is a welcome nod to loyalty within the series.
In the end, we missed the top-level scoring tier by a single star. All good. Masters of Crime: Shadows was a thrill ride, and combined with the strong impression made by the previous two games we have tried, I’m already excited for my upcoming play of Masters of Crime: Incognito. Keep ‘em coming, KOSMOS!
Masters of Crime: Shadows details
- Designer: Lukas Setzke, Martin Student, Verena Wiechens
- Artists: Bringmann & Kopetzki GbR
- Publishers: KOSMOS, Noctis Verlag, Thames & Kosmos
- Release Date: 2022
- Player count : 1 - 6
- Age range : 14+
- Time range : 150 - 210 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Connections, Cooperative Game, Deduction, Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game, Storytelling
- BGG Geek Rating: 7.95213 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.0.
- More articles about Masters of Crime: Shadows.
