Foul Play - Murder Mystery Card Game Review!

 2-5 players - Age 8+ - Playing time 20-40 minutes

What is it?

Foul Play is a murder mystery card game, in which you chase the evidence throughout the deck, by stealing and swapping cards with other players; searching the crime scene and trying to see as many suspects as possible. You also need to be aware once you find the evidence to keep it quiet and then identify the right suspect and make your claim to ultimately solve the case. 

There are two ways of playing Foul Play:

Good Cop - You need to find the Evidence A, B and C (one of each) in the deck and calling out the suspect once you find them too.

Bad Cop - All of the evidence cards are in the deck and as a Bad Cop you need to locate three of them and then find the suspect matching your evidence. 

What I thought

The pace of the game is just right, with everyone doing their best to find the evidence and call out the right suspect. It can be a pretty quick game if you only play two players, but it will get pretty exciting when there's a few of you all looking for the evidence! 

You need to remember all the evidence you find and then use that knowledge to find the murderer. But one of the most tricky parts of the game is actually remembering the evidence you found. It sounds a little silly as there are only 3 pieces of evidence to find, plus the suspect. But when you start analysing the suspect cards, I find it easy to forget..."was it a sword or a person with a gun I should be looking for?" geez...my brain...each of the evidence cards have a different colour back too, so you're after a blue card, a purple card and a green card with the evidence on. So...remember the evidence, and the colour that card was and hopefully you'll have an easier time looking for the cards through the deck.

When I first played this game, I thought I may be able to guess the suspect from just having one or two pieces of evidence, but the suspect cards are so well drawn that they all include multiple elements that are mentioned on the evidence cards, so you MUST have seen all three to solve the case. The REALLY tricky evidence card to look out for is to do with the relationships of the suspects, for example, the maid and butler share the same surname, which you could easily miss!

Along the way though, you and other players are swapping and stealing each others cards, all trying to see as many cards and find as much of the evidence as possible. Once you find some evidence, it's then a trick of getting rid of it by hiding the cards within the crime scene or somewhere in the discard pile. 

The Verdict!

It's a fun game, which will keep you on your toes, keep your mind from falling asleep and I think probably help with memory. 

The only thing which could be improved on this game would be to have the colour of the card somewhere on the face of the evidence cards, as it was quite difficult to keep track of the colours already found.

Adult Rating: A great game. It does require a very good memory (or a pen and paper!) so, as with kids, it may be a challenge for some adults.

 /5

Family Rating: It can get a bit confusing sometimes so younger kids may struggle.  Our older kids (aged 12) insisted on writing down the evidence as they found it because it can be hard to remember it all. 

 /5

So if you want a copy of this fab game, it's made in the UK! Get over to Foulplaygame.co.uk and order a copy; it's only £8.95!