University Games 33272 Mystery Case Files Puzzle Murder on The Underground, Dark Shades (Black, Grey, Dark Blue)

Great

Got this as a gift and they enjoyed it so much. The clues included in the set made it a great game to play and get you immersed in your role!

Its a good concept, build the puzzle and then work out the murder. Puzzle took ages to build and had to use a picture from Google to support the main puzzle for some points. The only downfall was that we had two of the same mini puzzles, meaning we had to use the online clues to help and then work out where the trophy was (see picture). In the end I found a picture of the missing puzzle online.

I really enjoyed doing this jigsaw. The jigsaw itself was good to do. The homicide file was fun and I loved the little black notebook with the ‘hand written’ notes. Combining the information in the file with the clues on the jigsaws it was actually quite easy to solve as long as you read everything properly. There are a few red herrings for other suspects but after going through all the information provided there was only one without an alibi. The website link in the file has a page for each suspect, explaining the details provided and tells you who is guilty/not guilty on each page. Choose the one you suspect first to see if you got it right. Lots of fun and doing this jigsaw challenge.

Positives: the puzzle is quite challenging and fun to put together. The included information and clues are really interesting and compelling. Issues: out of the 6 puzzles I received, 2 were duplicates and one was missing. I wrote to the company about this and heard nothing back. The missing puzzle I believe held a minor clue about the mystery. Still after the hours spent putting together the main puzzle and the other puzzle, this was disappointing. As others have mentioned here, solving the murder is a bit of a letdown after putting together the pieces. Firstly, there is no solution given in the pack (that I found) and there is nothing online that tells you who did it. I think I know who did it, but there's definitely not enough evidence to convict and barely enough to have that person arrested. What could be improved: I think the easiest way to improve the issues here would be to create a better website and also a more immediate solution for someone like me who received the wrong puzzle pieces. Honestly an email with a picture of the missing puzzle would have given me a quick way to see what additional clues I was missing. But I also think a more satisfying website where a more fleshed out set of answers were provided would provide for a more satisfying ending for a game that takes quite a long time to work through.

This game kept us going for a few days as we set up all the puzzles and worked our way through the evidence. We really enjoyed trying to work out who the murderer was. However, there were lots of unanswered questions and as the games company is US, there were a few things that didn’t make sense. As a Londoner and a crime writer, I really wanted those things clarified! A fun game but could have been so much better.