The Gaze of the Ghost
- What People Say
The Gaze of the Ghost is a unique experience for the player. The ERA team enjoyed the unique game components! The Decktective group has provided a card based game where you have to use the cards to also build the crime scene. The cards have very clear instructions on how to assemble the 3D crime scene and how to navigate the cards for game play. The game play was fluid, made sense and the directions were very clear to follow. The game allows for great collaboration and teamwork as you and the other players need to discuss the story, share your hypotheses, and decide which clues and trails to purse and which clues to abandon. The text is very legible and the pictures are of great quality and capture the player’s interest. There are many fine details that the player needs to notice in the cards, so we would love to see the cards printed out in a larger size to have the details more readily visible. As the game progresses, the table becomes full of the various playing cards. We would love to see some sort of table map provided so players have designated areas to discard and play particular cards. Overall though, the components were highly engaging and the 3D crime scene was thoroughly enjoyable.
The game has a fantastic storyline. As a team, we felt very immersed in the game and felt like we were taking on the role of a police officer investigating a mysterious disappearance. The card game play allows for the story to take many twists and turns. The 3D crime scene evolves as the game progresses, and being responsible to change the crime scene at various points makes the player feel like they are walking into a moving and changing movie set. We appreciated the depth of the story line with a few set characters, rather than focusing on providing many locations and characters that lacked substance. We were hooked with the story line and eager to see what twists and turns came with the story as we flipped over each new card. Part of the game is deciding which card, or clue, do you focus on, and which do you let go of. This makes you feel like a real detective too who has to sift through lots of information and decide which is useful and which is irrelevant.
The puzzles in The Gaze of the Ghost require a lot of attention to detail, as truly fitting of any detective crime scene! There were a variety of logic puzzles that were challenging, yet accomplishable, for the team. The beauty of the Decktective game is that the game play is a puzzle in and of itself. Not every card can be played to solve the mystery, so by using logic, deduction, teamwork, and collaboration, the players need to decide which clues to pursue and which to abandon. Rather than having code-breaking puzzles or number puzzles, the focus for the Gaze of the Ghost is strategy, logic, and deduction.
Overall, we had a lot of fun playing this game! We would suggest that for those playing, they play with someone who is familiar with the Decktective game series, or that they are open to try a unique puzzle experience. When we finished the game, we realized that there were many opportunities we had missed to further deepen our understanding of the game play and the case, so we feel that we are better equipped to play the next Decktective game because we understand the unique experience of strategy-based game play they are providing. We found this game took us an hour to complete and that it is great for 2-3 players. You could play with 4 players, but we would want to see bigger cards if that was the case. The Gaze of the Ghost was a great experience with lots of unique gameplay, excellent storyline, and a good focus on teamwork and collaboration. We look forward to playing the next installment!
Final Verdict: | 7.3/10 |
