Review – MicroMacro: Crime City – Full House
Website Link – https://www.micromacro-game.com/en/index.html (there is a free demo on the website if you want to test the game out!)
Amazon Affiliate Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3NRBvBx
Price – $34.99 (currently on sale on Amazon for $29.50)
Disclaimer: we purchased the game with our own money, this review is not sponsored. All thoughts are our own. If you decide you’d like to purchase the game, we’d love it if you could buy through our Amazon Affiliate link to support our purchase of new games to play and review
Product:
MicroMacro: Crime City – Full House will have players inspecting the details of an enormous city map as they work to solve numerous mysteries hidden in the dangerous and deadly Crime City.
As the second game in the MicroMarco series, Full House continues the mechanics of having players search for culprits, motives, and evidence by closely following the details of the city map. The city map covers an entire day in crime city, allowing players to see the same character in multiple places, representing different activities and details of their days. This allows the static map to tell a story.
Players will use their deductive skills to piece together what they see in order to solve mysteries and to answer the questions presented to them. Each case comes with a mini-deck that will present tasks and work as answer checkers.
There are sixteen official cases to solve. Each case is labeled by level of difficulty and with a rating for how family friendly it is. It should be said though that just because a family friendly case is solved, that doesn’t mean there won’t still be exposure to more mature crimes. Since each case requires players to look over the entire map in detail, it can be hard to avoid noticing less kid-friendly details.
Full House is a game that is easy to learn and jump into, as long as you have the space for the map. Do you have what it takes to break the case and prove that no crime is too small?
Our Thoughts:
Having played and enjoyed the original, MicroMacro: Crime City, we went into this game excited to see what our second trip to the notorious city had in store for us. What we found was a game that stayed very close and true to the mechanics and stylings of the original. Thankfully, when you already know you like something, getting some more of it isn’t a bad thing. The map is different. The mysteries are new. The fun is still the same.
Full House does a good job of creating a dynamic and interesting cityscape full of life, fun details, and interesting characters. A lot of the enjoyment of the game comes simply from exploring the city and marveling at all the tiny details. The artist packs the map with tons of characters living unique lives full of intrigue and general awfulness (since most citizens are either criminals or victims).
As much fun as the details are alone, they are put to great use through the game’s mysteries, which force players to use their deductive reasoning skills. Following characters’ lives forward and backward in time and seeing how their lives mix and mingle with others’ is a fun, if not simple challenge at times that allows players to get a better understanding of just what is happening in Crime City. We were also excited to see a few characters reappear from the first game.
Thankfully, while the game does have cards to help guide you step by step through each case, there is also the option to read the basic premise and then see what you can figure out for yourself before returning to the cards to see if you found everything you need correctly. Without the guide, this does up the difficulty a little and it is our preferred way to play.
With sixteen cases, players will spend a lot of time on the map, so by the end of their time in Crime City, they should know many of its intimate details. This is great because it allows the map to be fully well used. However, this does potentially make some later cases seem easier despite the difficulty level of them going up officially. Once you have a really good understanding of the map and where things are, along with previously noticing plenty of characters unrelated to your current case, it’s much easier to beeline to details since you already kind of know where they are or how certain aspects of the map might work together. This is only a minor issue, but still should be noted.
The Crime City is mostly about getting a chance to use your deductive skills while also getting to piece together mini-narratives. It’s fun with quick, bite-size play sessions. After playing the first two games, we’d be down for whatever comes next.
Official C&C Rating:
Narrative: 3.5/5
Puzzles: 3/5
Overall Fun: 4/5
Final Averaged Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
Chaos & Confetti 