When I saw the chance to play this game, I snapped it up. I told the OH he would have to play a game with me, a card game, not so enthusiastic over there, because it was 14+. Yet, when the cards plopped through the door, I had a look at the cards and my mini-me, only 6 when we played, got excitable and wanted to play instead. I read through the rules and agreed she could.
The Game
Welcome to Edwardian England. The Lord of the Manor is dead! The servants are our lead suspects and it’s up to you to unearth the evidence, seek out the suspects and catch the culprit in order to scupper the other sleuths, and win this game of murder!
There’s more than one way to catch a killer though. So what’s it gonna be? Good Cop or Bad Cop? These two game versions come with their own set of rules and tactics to crack the case and finger your suspect, but will you use fair play or FOUL PLAY?
The Game is Afoot! Playing as detective, you’ll need to find the three evidence cards that point to a specific suspect in order to catch a killer in this crazy criminal caper. Will you uncover them in the crime scene? Could the other detectives be willing to collaborate and share their findings? Or will you resort to more tricky tactics, and plunder the proof you need to solve this crime?
I have to say I love the drawings on the cards, I think because they reminded me of Cluedo, and they are “seemingly” harmless I let mini-me play. Unfortunately, it did get quite competitive and maybe she didn’t quite like not winning the game!
There are two ways to play this game, Good Cop and Bad Cop. I think Bad Cop was my favourite as you really felt there was a bit more urgency with the game as you try to beat your opponent in getting the evidence to fit your suspect. It made it much more fun to find all the evidence but make sure you have them and the killer’s card in your hand to win this round.
With Good Cop, you have to find the 3 pieces of evidence but to win you need to hold the Killer’s card in your hand.
This really did remind me of Cluedo but with cards. No game was the same for us. Each time we had a different killer which was fun and a race against the clock as I obviously had to beat mini-me.
It took us a couple of rounds before we completely understood the different cards and how to place them and how to use them. To name a few we have a card where you can steal cards from another “Detective”, ones where you swap cards with other “Detectives.” When these cards come, you can hear a groan straight away especially if Mini-me hasn’t kept quiet with what cards she has in her hand!
A Crime scene where you can swap with the initial crime scene layout and the favourite card the mighty BLOCK card! This caused frustration a lot but made it fun to be used in those all-important moments!
Plus one thing we have to do is the dramatic reveal to who the killer is, especially in the dramatic voice too!
The cards are bright and colourful and it is an inventive way to play a game and I love that we can take this away with us and play anytime we want to. Mini-me is definitely a huge fan, even if she hasn’t won yet!
We did lose most of the weekend to this game, plus many days after it. It can be played over and over and still be enjoyable. Each time you do not know who will be the killer until you uncover the evidence. It is a game that I recommend to everyone who wants to play detective and have a laugh doing so. Just try to not take it personally if you lose. I know for a fact when I play with more adults this is going to get heated!
Thanks to Emma at Damppebbles for the tour invite and to After Dark for providing me with the game in return for my honest and unbiased review,
Foul Play is produced by After Dark Murder Mystery and is available to purchase on their website.
History of Foul Play
What’s a Murder Mystery Events Company to do?
With a pandemic sweeping the nation and no sign of being able to perform their confounding criminal cabarets or incredible interactive investigations any time soon, they needed to come up with a plan, another way to provide mystery to the masses (and provide income to keep themselves afloat)!
Well, lockdown does strange things to people, especially actors who can’t go out and perform. So one fateful evening, Ben & Lee Cooper-Muir decided to come up with a whole new way to murder people. Keeping their cards close to their chests they plotted and schemed until Foul Play : The Murder Mystery Card Game was born. So, what to do next? This is where After Dark enters the picture. After all, Ben and Lee were two of the operators of the infamous murder mystery company. Maybe they could collaborate to bring the game to the masses. When Lockdown restrictions were eased a top-secret meeting was held with the other criminal masterminds behind After Dark, Helen Burrows, Sophie Webster & Tom Fisher and a pact was made. The game would be launched and licensed under the After Dark banner. In true After Dark style, the team burst into action and then began the beta testing, design updates, promotional planning, character changes, proofing, proofing and more proofing until finally all the kinks were ironed out, mysteries solved, and FOUL PLAY came to life!
We hope you enjoy playing it, and although we all hope to be back performing soon, WATCH THIS SPACE! Now we know we can create and produce games we’ve got a lot more fun things planned for the future!
damppebbles says
Thanks for being part of the blog tour x
nickimags @ Secret Library Book Blog says
Fab review lovely! I ordered a copy last week after reading a review, just waiting for it to arrive! xx
Zoé says
Oh yay!! Its so much fun!! Xx