Flashback Lucy

• Designers: Baptiste Derrez, Marc-Antoine Doyon, Gabriel Durnerin
• Publisher: Scorpion Masque
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 7+
• Time: 30 min per chapter, 4 chapters
• Played with review copy provided by Hachette USA

Flashback is back in a scary universe that will give you chills. Take on the role of Lucy, a young woman with strange powers, who inherits a mysterious mansion in which dark and disturbing events have taken place. Explore this eerie place and learn more about Lucy, her power, her family, and her role in this grand story.

Using the Flashback mechanism, travel into the past through Lucy’s visions, and meet the shadow that haunts the mansion. Put yourself in the shoes of the characters and discover their points of view, collect clues, solve mysteries, and answer the questions you’ve been asked.

In Flashback: Lucy, you will be travelling from era to era, discovering the mansion at different moments in time. Before and after each of Lucy’s visions, explore the mansion with her cat, Gredin, in an interactive comic strip. And, of course, discover even more original and immersive gadgets!

In the game, you’ll play though a number of chapters, each using its own deck of cards.  You’ll also learn about the story via a beautifully illustrated comic book.  The backstory for the chapter is outlined in the book, and you will start with a single card on the table.  The goal of your team (if I haven’t mentioned it yet, it’s a cooperative game) is to figure out what happened and correctly answer some questions about each scenario.

Most of the cards have numbers on them, and there are almost always near the head of a character or thing visible on the card.  Whenever you see a number, you can fish out the matching card from that episode’s deck and place it on the table as well.

The cool thing about each card is that it provides a snapshot of the scene from the viewpoint of that character.  So, as you look at the different cards, you’ll see what each person is seeing – and you’ll end up seeing some things from multiple viewpoints.   As you discover new things, you’ll also be prompted to reveal some cards which will ask you questions about what happened.  Again, your goal is to be able to answer the questions correctly.

I suppose that you could just dump out all of the cards at once and look at them all – because in the end of each scenario, you’ll have access to everything. But… this is one of those games where the process of discovering the cards one by one will help you figure out the story, and in certain chapters, to tell the story.

For our group, this was definitely part of the enjoyment of the experience; working with one card to start the story, looking at a second and then, as a group, building that story up.  Looking at more cards and then possibly revising the story.  Whenever you feel that you’ve seen everything, you can try to come up with the answers to the questions and then check your answers.

Speaking of the answers – this is my one and only complaint about the game.  The answers are printed in plain text on a single page of the rulebook.  Sure, the rules tell you not to look at this page (the back cover) unless you’re answering questions – but seriously, it’s hard sometimes to look at a page and not accidentally glance at other information.  I would have liked the answers to maybe be on separate pages or perhaps hidden with that text that you need a red filter to read…

After you have answered the questions, you’ll likely have a few more cards that you had set aside which will help clear up a bit more of the story.  By the end of the box, you’ll have discovered a lot about Lucy and powers.

Oh wait, I lied, there is another small complaint.  Some of the cards are identified by runes on the back, and umm, some of them are un-necessarily similar to each other.  We ended up getting a card earlier than we should have because of this.  In a game where you’re going to see all the cards at some point, why make the runes so similar?

We ended up playing through the whole box in one sitting, and it took us about 90 minutes from start to finish.  It was definitely an engrossing adventure, and I think the story was more memorable because we got it all at once rather than trying to remember things from week to week.  Note: you do not really need to carry any information from chapter to chapter; I am talking more about the overall narrative that is being told in the game.

I have played a lot of games in this genre in the past 5 years, and I’ll admit that some of them have a lot of “same-y”-ness to them.  To start, I really loved the original game mechanism used here in Flashback Lucy.  The idea of seeing the story through multiple viewpoints was new to me, and the artwork is fantastic and really helped tell the story.  There was also a great use of the cards along the way that really blew me away – but I promised no spoilers!    I’m not the only one who thinks that the game is great as it was the winner of the prestigious As d’Or (France) in 2023.

If your group likes cooperative adventures/stories, this would be a great one to try.  As with many games in the genre, it is probably only playable once because once you know the story, you’ll not likely forget it!  On the bright side, nothing is destroyed while playing the game, and you can pass it on to someone else to spread the love of the game.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…