Kronologic: Paris 1920

• Designers: Fabien Gridel, Yoann Levet
• Publisher: Super Meeple / Origames
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 20-30 minutes per case
• Played with review copy provided by Hachette USA
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3ABOMwO

Investigators, embark on an unprecedented voyage with Kronologic and play in an era of your choosing!

Unravel a series of unexplained affairs at the Paris Opera to reestablish the truth. Collect clues about the movements of the implicated characters by determining where they were at the time of the incident: on your turn, align a suspect’s card with a special perforated tile and get two pieces of information about their movements. The first piece is for your eyes only, but the second one must be shared with other players!

So do you think you have what it takes to be the first to solve the mystery?

To set up the game, choose a Scenario (3 in this box) and then an Investigation (5 per Scenario).  The difficulty of a particular Investigation is rated by a number of stars (1 to 5).  For reasons I’ll get into later, I’d strongly recommend you just go in order from #1 to #5. Each player gets a note sheet, a screen and a writing instrument.  .  Pull out the set of location cards for the chosen investigation and place them face down on the table.  Players should never look at the back side..  

Read the short paragraph outlining the case and then make sure everyone knows the questions that are to be answered to solve the case.  The rules will also specify which characters and time cards are used, and the starting positions for each character for time period #1In the game, characters will move from room to room over the six different time periods- and they must always traverse through rooms that are connected with a doorway.  They are also slow movers and only move one room per time period but they are also constantly in motion, always moving to a different room for the next time period.

Then, each player gets to take a turn – where they get to ask a question, and then they will get a broad answer which must be shared with all players as well as a more focused answer that only they get to see.  There are two types of questions that can be asked:  1) Location + Time or 2) Location + Character.  The cards all have a rounded upper right corner so you can tell by feel that you have the cards lined up correctly,.

Location + Time – choose a room and a time period.  Pick up the card for your chosen Time, then find the Location card, flip it over without looking at it, and then tuck the Location behind the time card.  In the “All player” box, the number here will tell you how many characters were in that location during the chosen time period.  Announce the value to the table.  In the other box, you will get the identity of one of the characters that was there – only you get to know this information.

Location + Character – choose a room and a character. Pick up the card for your chosen Character, then find the Location card, flip it over without looking at it, and then tuck the Location behind the time card.  In the “All player” box, the number here will tell you how times the Character was in the particular location over the course of the night.  Announce the value to the table.  In the other box, you will learn one time period that the Character was definitely there – only you get to know this information.

Mark this information on your note sheet however you see fit.  

For either question you’ll occasionally get a “go again” symbol instead of private information.  If this happens, announce this and then immediately take another turn! Otherwise, once everyone has had enough time to digest the information given and made deductions on their sheet – the next player gets to go.

At any point, a player can say that they have solved the case (by being able to answer the questions outlined in the introduction) – they do NOT state the answer out loud, but rather write it down on their sheet.  They then check the answer booklet to see the answer.  If they are right, they win. If they are wrong, they are eliminated from the game.

My thoughts on the game

After I recognized Yoann Levet as one of the designers, I already had a good guess at what this game would be; namely a puzzle game that uses some sort of widget or device to flawlessly dole out the pieces of information needed for a logic puzzle.  In fact, this particular team has already worked together on a similar game, Turing Machine.  Levet also did Archeologic by himself, another similar widget reliant design.

The widget here is a simple pairing of cards, one with a grid full of answers and one that lays on top of it with holes in to dole out the right information.  It is pleasingly old school, and the way that the cards are cut with one of the corners being rounded makes it nearly impossible to screw up.  The only shortcoming of the system is that it does give some possibility of seeing information by accident were a location card back be revealed by accident.  The scenario books also weirdly have no protection from the answers of a previous case – that is the answer for case 1 is on the left hand side of the split where the setup for case #2 is on the right.  For that reason, I’d recommend ONLY playing the scenarios in order.  Sure, you might not remember an answer you saw a few weeks ago, but why risk it?

I like the way that players are constantly involved in the game.  Even when they are not asking the question, they are generally getting some public information.  If possible, I also try to track who has asked what question… as the asker often gets private information, and I might make hunches on what they have learned by looking at the pattern of the questions they have asked.  

The puzzles here can be tough, and the difficulty is determined both by the movements of the characters as well as the information doled out from the cards.  The most complex case I’ve played so far is a 4-star case, and I’ll admit to not being entirely sure at all about what had transpired when someone else solved the case.

The rules overhead for the game is fairly low, and the whole thing is summarized on the inside of the player screen.  As with many of the recent deduction games, the key here is trying to ask questions where you gain information that others don’t.   On your first turn, this is a hard thing to do – but once you have at least one piece of private information, you can hopefully leverage this extra knowledge to squeeze more information out of a public answer than everyone else. As I have learned with Turing Machine and Archeologic, I do not really possess this skill!

As many of the information gains are small and incremental, it usually feels like players are moving towards the answer at the same speed, and for me, this often means that I have to take a risk when I am only somewhat certain of the answer – and make a stab at it.  Sure, it may not be the highest percentage play, but I’m pretty sure that I’m always going to be behind in the information gathering race of at least two of the other three gamers in my regular group!

If you have played any of the other recent similar games (Turing Machine, Archeologic, etc), you’ll probably already know if you like this or not – because to me, they all feel similar – just variations on the logic game theme.  There are a fixed 15 cases here, but it does appear that more cases will be provided online soon – not sure how that will work (will I have to print out my own cards?) – but it’s good to see that the game will be supported going forward.  If you haven’t played this type of game before, just ask yourself, do I enjoy doing regular logic puzzles?  If so, I’d definitely give this one a try.  You have to figure out who is where at what time, and do it faster than everyone else.

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3ABOMwO

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor