Grab your magnifying glass and notebook, we’ve got an awesome list of the best Scotland Yard board games!
Join detectives in the upper ranks of Scotland Yard or head to Hong Kong to solve a murder a little too close to home. Each game has its own unique mysteries and requires a unique set of detective abilities.
Sleuth and crime-solving board games are a fantastic genre as there are pretty much no limits to where the mystery may take place. London in the 19th Century, a 21st Century digital crimes unit, or mythological ancient beings in Arkham. Investigations are underway and deduction, memory, and strategy are needed from the top detectives.
Let’s take a look at Scotland Yard and other top detective games that’ll have you questioning everything around you!
Table of Contents
🏆 Our Top Picks for Best Scotland Yard Board Games
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Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game
Players: 1- 5
Playing time: 120- 180 mins
Sherlock walked so you could run. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game has players take the job of a real detective in a modern-day setting. You’ll need to use every resource you can to break the 4th wall!
Working as an Antares National Investigation Agency team member, you’ll work to solve mysterious crimes in the digital age. There are five different cases you can solve and then find out what connects them all.
Each case is a fictional story set in the real world, so you can access any information on the internet and the Antares Database.
In Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, you can cooperate with other agents or solve the mystery on your own. But, a single game session can last up to 3 or more hours so make sure you take the whole night to enjoy the experience.
BONUS: You can download free cases from the Antares website. More bang for your buck!
Chronicles of Crime
Players: 1- 4
Playing time: 60- 90 mins
Chronicles of Crime fully embraces technology by combining game board components with a mobile app, and even a touch of Virtual Reality.
All the cards have QR codes that can be scanned to interrogate a perpetrator. Scanning QR codes can also help your character identify an object and travel from location to location.
The aim of the game is to catch the killer. The game includes many different scenarios and crime stories for you and your fellow detectives to solve. You’ll experience different characters and the more you explore, the more clues are activated.
If you want the full VR experience, you don’t need a headset, but you’ll need to buy VR glasses compatible with your phone.
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
Players: 4- 12
Playing time: 20 mins
As if murder wasn’t bad enough, there’s a traitor in your group, and they’re the killer. Could it get much worse?
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong sets players in a scenario of murder, intrigue, deduction, and deception. One player is secretly the murderer. That player chooses their weapon and the evidence they will leave behind.
Another player is the forensic scientist who knows all the information but can only communicate their knowledge through analysis of the scene. The rest are investigators, searching for the truth by interpreting clues to hopefully solve the crime and convict the killer.
There’s a reason why this game has become so popular. The roles become so crucial to the element of social deduction. If you’re chosen as the forensic scientist, you’re essentially the leader and help carry the game. But, each role brings a dynamic and the game moves very differently depending on how people play their given roles.
If you get a big enough group together you can add the Witness to give detectives a huge advantage, and the Accomplice who helps throw detectives off the killer’s trail.
If you love detective board games, especially social deduction ones, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is a great investment!
Mortum: Medieval Detective
Players: 1- 6
Playing time: 120- 180 mins
Mortum: Medieval Detective takes you back in time, to a grim medieval fantasy world where legends, superstitions, and fears come to life.
In the game, players take on the roles of secret organization agents and set out to investigate mysterious events that have occurred.
If you’re not one for reading a bunch of complex rules beforehand, Mortum is perfect for you! You can simply open the game and start your first case. Each case is a fully cooperative story-driven adventure and each case builds off the previous. You become more and more tangled in the mystery as you search for answers.
Mortum: Medieval Detective brings in fascinating characters and an exciting element of fantasy to the world of detective board games that’s well worth a play!
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective
Players: 1- 8
Playing time: 60- 120 mins
No Scotland Yard board games list would be complete without the iconic master of sleuths himself, Sherlock Holmes.
While Sherlock Holmes may find solving crimes “elementary”, this board game can be a sure challenge!
Bring out your inner Sherlock, or Watson if you’re still warming up to criminal investigations, and jump into the streets of London to solve crimes! You’ll be carefully inspecting clues and tracking down leads in 10 different cases.
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective comes with an old-timey map, a unique casebook, and newspapers which make the experience feel quite authentic. As you comb through the information, searching for clues you’ll need to be highly perceptive as each decision you make shapes the direction of the case.
Detective: City of Angels
Players: 1- 5
Playing time: 30- 150 mins
Set in the dark, mysterious, and quite often violent world of 1940s Los Angeles, Detective: City of Angels is a game of deception, mystery, and murder.
Players take on the roles of LAPD homicide detectives who are willing to do anything for glory and success. Intimidating suspects, hiring snitches, and even concealing evidence are all considered fair play to get the conviction wanted.
One player takes on the role of The Chisel, who works to stall and misdirect detectives as often as possible. The Chisel has some innovative game systems up its sleeve to mislead detectives. They can even gain leverage over detectives to make it that much harder.
If you’re looking for a game of dirty detectives, Detective: City of Angels will make you feel as though you’re mob bound!
Scotland Yard
Players: 3- 6
Playing time: 45 mins
We’re back on the streets of London, where criminal mastermind Mister X has escaped Scotland Yard. But fortunately, Scotland Yard’s finest are on the job and already looking to catch him!
Using travel tickets, players will chase Mister X by taxi, bus, and underground, hopefully trying to catch him before he makes his next move, or worse, disappears into the London fog forever…
If you’re looking for an introductory detective board game or one for the whole family, Scotland Yard is great for a family game night as it’s easy to learn and keeps all players engaged.
Mythos Tales
Players: 1- 10
Playing time: 60- 120 mins
We travel to H.P. Lovecraft’s Arkham in the 1920s for the next detective adventure.
Mythos Tales takes place in the famous mysterious Lovecraftian world of terror where your investigative skills will be tested, as well as your sanity.
With each scenario, players who take on the role of brave investigators, look through newspapers, the directory of Arkham residents, and a map of the town to try and connect clues and unravel the mystery.
Like all Arkham board games, the added element of risks to your character’s psyche adds another layer to the game that really sets it apart!
MicroMacro: Crime City
Players: 1- 4
Playing time: 15- 45 mins
MicroMacro: Crime City is something quite different from others on the list. It’s an illustration on a poster-size piece of paper, where you’ll have to carefully look for clues across an enormous map. It’s filled with black and white cartoons with little detail which only adds to the challenge!
It’s a cooperative game where you’ll solve 16 tricky criminal cases by looking at the motives, and evidence, hopefully convicting the perpetrators.
Crime is lurking around every corner so you’ll need to sharpen your deductive skills as well as have a good pair of eyes to unravel everything riddled into the illustration.
Detective Club
Players: 4-8
Playing time: 45 mins
Detective Club is another unique game on the list. It’s aimed at being a party game with hidden clues and subtle conspiracies.
Detective Club is a social deduction party game where each round, one player secretly writes a word in all but one of the other players’ notebooks. The person without a word is called the Conspirator.
Each player then chooses a card they feel best represents the word and explains why they choose it to the group. The Conspirator will have to think on their toes to come up with a reason as to what they think the word prompt might have been.
This is a really fun, light-hearted take on a detective game that’s perfect for parties!
Wrap-Up
Did you analyze all the evidence we’ve brought to you? We hope you enjoyed our list of the best Scotland Yard board games! Which board game is guilty of taking the top spot of best detective board game? Let us know in the comments below! We’d love to hear from you.
Ready Player Christine. Since my first D&D game, which took a turn for the weird and wacky (probably my influence), the world of board and tabletop games came alive. Now today, I get to write about these fantastical, fictional, and downright fun worlds.