Looking for a board game for little detectives

November 3, 2021 11:47 AM

My kids (9 and 6) love being detectives. What board games can I get for them?

My family are board game geeks, and my kids love solving mysteries. We recently played and LOVED Detective Charlie, where you uncover eight clues and use them to deduce which animal dyed the town's sand red, or took the dino bones from the museum. The game had 6 unique cases, which were fun, but it has no replay value. Can you point me to any other board games for kids that scratch that detective itch?

Notes: We played and initially enjoyed Outfoxed, but that lasted maybe a dozen games or so. We are thinking about Clue, but I suspect there's better games out there.

posted by evadery to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (16 answers total)

It’s got limited replay value, but MicroMacro: Crime City is a detective game where you spot characters on a huge city map and can trace crimes through each stage as they’ve progressed in order to find the culprit. My kids really enjoyed working through the cases.
posted by greycap at 12:13 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

It's been a while since I played it, but you might like Scotland Yard. The manufacturer recommends it for ages 8 and up.
posted by FencingGal at 12:17 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

It's not quite a mystery, but Guess Who might scratch part of that itch. Similarly, the classic Battleship, which is a find-it game rather than a mystery. But it's about uncovering the unknown (better for the 9 year old than the 6 year old though.)

There is also a Clue Junior that might be a better fit than Clue (I haven't played the Jr. version, so I don't know what the gameplay is like).
posted by hydra77 at 12:18 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is 12+, but semi-collaborative: Paranormal Detectives
Scotland Yard/Mister X
posted by ApathyGirl at 12:19 PM on November 3, 2021

We just got the new Unlock Kids for our gang and I thought it was great. They describe it as a board game version of an escape room, which is kind of accurate. You have to put together clues to solve a mystery and works be great for kids who love to play detective.
posted by ohio at 12:33 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also came to recommend Scotland Yard, which I started playing around that age. It is recommended for 3+ players, though, otherwise the non-Mr. X player has to control ALL of the detectives.
posted by hwyengr at 12:36 PM on November 3, 2021

SungWon Cho suggests a couple alternatives to Clue: Search for Planet X and Alchemists.
posted by bruceo at 1:34 PM on November 3, 2021

My kid played a lot of Cat Crimes with a friend around that age--mystery-themed logic puzzles. It looks like it only requires one player, I'm not sure if there are options for more players or if they just made up their own system.
posted by miles per flower at 1:35 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

They're a little young, but if you play as a family Mysterium is a lot of fun and there's no reason they couldn't handle it (there's no reading, and it's collaborative - you'd just want an adult to be the ghost because of all the different pieces, and the setup can be complicated).
posted by Mchelly at 3:43 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

My 9 year old greatly enjoys Search for Planet X (playing on Beginner). My 7 year old can't really handle it even playing on Youth and it isn't the type of game where she can play on a team without driving her teammate crazy.
posted by cmm at 5:49 PM on November 3, 2021

The more modern version of scotland yard is whitehall mystery, which is great
posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:24 AM on November 4, 2021

Spy Club is about solving mysteries. There's also a story-telling aspect, as you're encouraged to come up with creative explanations that link the various elements. It has a campaign aspect and a huge amount of replayability.

It may be a little complicated initially for your 6-year-old, but because it is a cooperative rather than competitive game, everybody works together and I suspect he will get the hang of it pretty quickly.
posted by yankeefog at 3:35 AM on November 4, 2021

Fury of Dracula
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 6:45 AM on November 4, 2021

Mystery of the Abbey is a Clue-alike.
posted by one for the books at 9:55 AM on November 4, 2021

I too was going to suggest Scotland Yard, which I seem recall looooooving at around that age. It's slightly different in that the "mystery" is the location of the nefarious Mr. X on the board, but it involves deductive reasoning of a similar type.
posted by praemunire at 11:36 AM on November 4, 2021

They're a little young, but if you play as a family Mysterium is a lot of fun and there's no reason they couldn't handle it (there's no reading, and it's collaborative - you'd just want an adult to be the ghost because of all the different pieces, and the setup can be complicated).

There's also Mysterium Park, which is a lighter version (the detectives have to discover two clues, not three) set in a carnival.

At GenCon, my kids and I played a demo of a game called Echoes, in which players scan the game's cards with a downloadable phone app to play audio clues; the object is to arrange the audio clips in the correct order to tell a complete story. We wound up taking a copy home, but we haven't played it (or any other board games) since GenCon.
posted by Gelatin at 12:23 PM on November 4, 2021