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Dean Gregory (18 KP) rated Scotland Yard in Tabletop Games

Jun 5, 2019  
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
1983 | Deduction, Travel
7
8.2 (5 Ratings)
Tabletop Game Rating
Clever asymmetrical gameplay (2 more)
Strategic
Beginner rules available for younger players
Can end up hinging on luck and guesswork (0 more)
Catch Me If You Can
Scotland Yard is an asymmetrical game of deduction and deception, depending on which role you take. Mister X must move in secret to stay out of the reach of the law long enough to escape London (22 turns), while the detectives must work together to trap and capture him.

The board is a map of London divided into numbered stations and linked together by coloured lines, depicting routes and different modes of transport - yellow for taxis, blue for buses and red for the underground. There are also a handful of black routes for ferries, which are available only to Mister X under special rules.


The mechanic of a player moving in complete secret on a tabletop game is one I never would have thought was possible, but Scotland Yard manages to pull it off, and make it work well. Mister X plots their movements with the use of a special pad and paper by writing down the station number they occupy, covering it with the ticket they used to make their move. This is the only clue the detectives have as to where X might be. It works extremely well.

Mister X also has access to two special tickets - a X2 ticket allows them to make two moves in one, and a black ticket allows them to use any mode of transport, with the added bonus of showing them to take ferry routes. Smart use of these powers is necessary to get out of scrapes, as they also have to reveal their location every 5 moves, starting with move 3.

Detectives have a limited number of tickets for each mode of transport, so in order to win they need to coordinate their movements so they don't waste tickets unnecessarily. However, if there are less than 4 detective players, each detective not controlled by a player is replaced with a police officer who is universally controlled. The police can move freely without the need for tickets, making them far more versatile than detectives. This is presumably to balance the difficulty for smaller teams, but it ends up making a game with all 4 detectives considerably harder than a game with only 3. The level of care and consideration that must go into each move makes playing the detectives a completely different experience to playing as Mister X.

I came into the game thinking it would be heavily skewed in Mister X's favour. After all, most of the moves they make are in secret, they're completely unhindered by tickets, and they get a couple of special powers to boot. On top of that, the detectives first two moves are complete guesswork, so X gets a head start. In practice though, staying 3 steps ahead of the detectives is vital to survival, and when they work together well it can be ready for X to put themselves in an impossible situation. It takes careful planning to stay ahead of the game.

There is a beginner mode which is aimed at younger players. The differences are that the number of rounds Mister X needs to survive for is 13 instead of 22, red underground routes are unavailable to all players, and most of all, Mister X remains in the board all game, only disappearing on the turns where he would appear in the regular game. I can't really offer an opinion on this version, but I can see the appeal of it, even if it defeats the concept of the game a bit.

This is a bonafide classic, and a solid challenge no matter which role you take on. As long as the game doesn't devolve into a series of guesses and lucky breaks (which, due to the nature of Mister X's movements, can be a regular issue), it offers an evening of smart gameplay with a solid replay value.