If you love murder mysteries, but have trouble finding ones you can do alone, I would suggest you try the murder mystery released by Beadle & Grimm’s. Murders at Karlov Manor: The Case of the Three Blade Knife is a murder mystery set in Ravnica, and it came out alongside the Murders of Karlov Manor Magic: the Gathering expansion. Critically, you do not need to be familiar with that expansion to play, nor do you need to know or even enjoy Magic: the Gathering as a game. This mystery is completely separate, but those who are familiar with the M:tG story will have a bit more context for the setting overall. Let’s dive into the good, the bad, and the ugly of the game. I will be putting a separate section in spoiler tags for people to read who don’t plan on doing the puzzle themselves, but want to know if it’s a good gift. This section with detail the spoiler-laden issues in the game, and I want to keep the main body free of that so as to preserve the game for those who do want to solve it themselves.
Disclaimer: A sample copy was provided for review purposes.
Quick note: There’s not a lot of text under “Good” because the game is very on-point for its genre, theme, and intended audience overall. The Bad and Ugly here are more nuanced, and got more text, but the game is pretty great, overall!
The Good
I am absolutely thrilled to note that I was able to solve this puzzle without the need for other players. As many gamers can tell you, it’s not always easy to get a crowd of eight, six, or even four players to play a game. Total gameplay was between three and four hours, but I did take a break to eat for about 20 minutes.
The solution was interesting, and I felt rewarded for reading (most of) the documents. The individual documents were well-crafted, with obvious care taken to make each of the props appear realistic as “evidence” in the case. Also, the dialogue and content were masterfully crafted. The story made sense in the end, and I felt like a complete story had been told.
Finally, I was delighted by the details and lore included in the game. There were maps of Ravnica, callbacks to the story of MKM, and various characters to revisit.
The Bad
The primary weakness of this game is it reliance on AR technology to actually play the game. I fundamentally avoid games that require an app, website, or service to play, especially when those details could have been handled without the app. In this case, you need an app and two different websites to complete the game. The app directs you to the two relevant URLs, but if any part of this structure stops being maintained, the game will become instantly, and perhaps permanently, unplayable.
If I had to pick a single criticism of the game’s design, it would be the first flaw I ran into. On the first page of the instructions, you are told to be sure you have your “badge and all of the following documents.” This is followed by a list of 17 bullet points representing 26 individual articles in the game. Sounds great, right? Trouble is, none of the documents are labelled clearly enough to line them up with this list except for the Stage Two envelope. I attempted to match everything up, but gave up after looking for “Crime scene/autopsy reports (3 documents)” and finding four documents which looked to fit that description. Some documents aren’t labelled at all, and only through careful reading of notes can you identify what you’re looking at. If you’ve read the documents thoroughly enough to know which ones are which, you are already well into the game, not the setup stage.
The second notable issue is the Pinfinity badge. The instructions are very simple: Download the app, and then use the app to scan the badge. I downloaded the app, but never could get the scanning feature to work with the actual badge. In the end, I found the troubleshooting instructions which told me to just scan the picture of the badge in the book. This is so much better, it’s a wonder they have anyone try to scan the badge itself. I tried different lighting, different angles, different distances—all the things had also done with the actual badge to try to get it to function—and I couldn’t make the picture of the badge not work. Save yourself the trouble and just scan the rulebook’s image. The only upside to this, I suppose, is that if someone keeps the (admittedly well-crafted) pin as a personal accessory, the game isn’t rendered unplayable for anyone they hand the game off to.
My final criticism is the advertised ability for players unfamiliar with Ravnica to be able to play. This doesn’t work on a couple of fronts. In multiple witness or evidence records, there are references to at least one character who appears to be human but may not be, there’s a crocodelf (which is the most Ravnican detail of the entire game, in my opinion), and there’s even a minotaur. But nowhere does the character who is a crocodelf have a species identification. Things like this mean that players familiar with Ravnica can take a glimpse at the drawing of the relevant suspect and know who it is, while those unfamiliar may need time to sort out that a crocodelf is a person, and that that person is pictured among the characters presented. Because there is a character described as “human?” and a “gray-skinned human” in the texts, it’s very easy for the uninitiated to spend inordinate amounts of time trying to figure out if the weird human is the crocodelf, when those in the know would instantly understand them to be so distinct as to be unable to be confused with each other.
The Ugly
In every game, there are some details that one can take issue with that don’t make the game bad, or unplayable, but do detract from the gameplay itself. These points are in the spoiler box, because they pick at the details of the game, and could spoil the mystery for a reader.
TL;DR:
Murders at Karlov Manor: The Case of the Three Blade Knife is a murder mystery game set in the Ravnican region of the Magic: the Gathering multiverse. It can be solved solo or with friends, but requires the use of a smart phone. It was a pleasure to play, even if I had some criticism, and I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest it to other potential players.
