Would you rather watch or play a murder mystery? I have to admit, I am a sucker for the BBC murder mysteries like Midsomer Murders, Sherlock, Death in Paradise, and so many others! As I watch, I am constantly trying to figure out the twist before the end .. sometimes it’s easy (as the show offers up clues), and sometimes it’s hard (as the show hides things until the very end)! Still, it’s always fun to try to solve the mysteries along with Sherlock, Richard, Humphrey, and your favorite Detective Investigators (DIs)!

We originally reviewed the original Suspects: Claire Harper Takes The Stage back in 2022 (see our review here), and we liked it so much it made the #4 position of our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2022! So, we were very excited when “the green box” Suspects: Eternal Detective Claire Harper was available for order! From now on, we’ll just call Suspects: Eternal Detective Claire Harper “the green box” and the original “the orange box”!

Interestingly, “the green box” came out in 2022 (if you believe BGG): I think it was released overseas first in non-English language editions. The English version of Suspects didn’t seem to get released to the USA until very recently: my copy of Suspects “the green box” didn’t arrive until October 2023! So, it’s strictly speaking a 2022 release, but I really don’t think it was available in the USA until 2023! So, that’s why we are reviewing it now. No spoilers are given as we discuss the game, but don’t look too closely at any pictures!

Unboxing

This is pretty much just like the “orange box” in term of contents: a rulebox, some large cards, and three separate decks of cards. See the water bottle for perspective.

The rulebook is barely four pages, but it’s easy to read.

The large cardboard cards are all part of the three different cases that come in the game.

But the core of the game are the the cards for the three cases, each in their own separate deck!

Like the original “orange box” Suspects, when you solve the mysteries, you are done with them forever. It’s kind of like watching a TV show mystery: you can watch the mystery again, but you already know the solution so it maybe less fun. Luckily, you can fully reset the three mysteries and give them to someone else! I originally gave my “orange box” of Suspects to Charlie and Allison after I played all the way through.

The game looks really great! I love the art that comes with the game!

The game has a very high production and looks great.

Gameplay

The mystery is all in the cards  See above!  

As you play, more and more cards come out which give a clearer and clearer picture of the mystery! The tension here is that your score is based on how many cards you look out, so the fewer cards that are revealed, the better your score! Honestly, in all my three games, we generally ignored the score and concentrated on solving the mystery .. because that’s the fun part!

Solo Play: Shakespeare’s Tears (Mystery 1)

So, this game plays great as a solo game: Thank you following Saunders’ Law and having a viable solo mode! The solo mode works without any modifications to the game. It’s just you as the investigative team!

Over the course of an hour and a half, I lived in the world of the S. Elizabeth school and became embroiled in a murder there! I lost track of time as I became immersed in the game play!

I really felt like I had just become directly involved in one of my BBC Murder Mysteries! There was a clear arc, there was exploration, there was thought, there was deduction … there was fun! I had an absolute blast playing the first mystery by myself. It may rank as one of my favorite gaming sessions of the year, as I was so immersed in the mystery!

Fantastic time: 9.5/10 soloing this first mystery!

Cooperative Play: Dead on Arrival (Mystery 2)

Interestingly, Dead on Arrival did not go nearly as well. Was it that it didn’t work for cooperative play? No (as we’ll see below), the real problem was that everyone in the game group was actually quite tired and there is a fair amount of tedious paperwork keeping track of certain movements.

Everyone was still involved as we played, but there was a significant amount of bookkeeping that could be described as tedious.

To help with the tedious bookkeeping, we “borrowed” a clear sheet from the Star Trek: Cryptic Escape Room game: this allowed us to do the bookkeeping without messing up the original sheets in the game (using clear sheet and dry-erase markers).

I ended up getting most of the answer myself, but I couldn’t convince my friends, so they ended spending another 15 minutes trying to double-check the bookkeeping.

In the end, everyone had fun, but the conclusion was “Don’t attempt a Murder Mystery Game when you are really tired!!” I do think the tedious bookkeeping in this Mystery was more than I’ve seen in other mysteries, so that detracted a little from the game. 7.0/10.0

Cooperative Play: The Mystery of the Lady of the Lake (Mystery 3)

Cooperative play in the final mystery went over like gang-busters! As a group of 4, we had so much fun following clues, conjecturing solutions, and playing the game!

The cooperative play really emerged in this mystery: play rotated around the table as we conjectured and explored! We were all engaged the entire time! We honed in on different alibis and why they worked or failed! This was a truly engaging cooperative play!

This experience was a 9.0/10.0. My only complaint was that I think you needed a lot more cards revealed to really get the mystery than previous mysteries: I am not sure you could even hope to get the whole thing and still get a perfect score.

Thoughts

Ignore the scoring system for the most part: just enjoy the mystery. The scoring system gives you a way to keep track of how far you are, but mysteries 2 and 3 both felt like there’s no way you could get a perfect score. Don’t obsess on the score: enjoy the mystery!

One thing to note is that the mystery is constrained by the cards: you can only follow where the cards lead you. Some “purists” might think this makes the Suspects mysteries more “on rails”, as you can only follow where the rails (the cards) lead you. Those of you who want a more “open world” to solve your mystery should consider some of the games on the Top 10 Cooperative Detetctive Games like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective or Mythos Tales. These games have a more open world where you can truly explore, but that does make it easier to get off track. Both the strength and weakness of Suspects is that the mystery is constrained to a 90 – 120 minute adventure.

Conclusion

Why watch a mystery when you can play it? Suspects has the just the right amount of mystery and the right amount of constraint for a 90 minute (solo) or two hour (cooperative) mystery game! If you want an open world mystery, Suspects may not be right for you, but it gives such great mysteries in a constrained format!

We loved Suspects (the green box) both solo and cooperatively: Averaging the scores of 9.5, 7, and 9 gives about an 8.5/10 overall for Suspects (the green box), aka Suspects: Eternal Detective Claire Harper! Fantastic game.