New and Most Certainly Not Improved

For many years, one of my favorite games in my collection has been a little card game called Sleuth, first introduced to me by FKL. It's an easy one to explain to someone only familiar with more mainstream games, because it's in the "Clue genre" of game -- players must deduce the identity of a card taken from the deck.

The idea is that a jewel has been stolen. It has three characteristics: it's either red, yellow, green, or blue; it's a diamond, pearl, or opal; and it is set as a solitaire, pair, or cluster. Because this matrix of characteristics overlaps, the deduction is a good deal more sophisticated than Clue. And no fickle dice either. (Though there is a small random element introduced by way of a second deck of cards, which constrains the questions you are allowed to ask about the gems in other players' hands.)

This game is several decades old, and mine came from eBay. I didn't force it out to play very often, as I was under the mistaken notion that my friends didn't like it very much. It turns out that Sangediver at least likes it a great deal. But I wasn't wrong that I was picking up on some frustration on the rare occasions we played the game.

See, that sophisticated deduction matrix requires an equally sophisticated method of actually tracking the information you're gathering on your little answer sheet. You can easily spend the majority of your first game working out how to do that, and by that point, you may have made a mistake or omission that hurts your chances in the game. And if you don't play the game but once a year? Well, then you basically have to devise your system all over again from scratch.

Sangediver came up with a most elegant solution to this dilemma. He bought his own copy of the game, so that he could bring it out more regularly on game nights at his place -- frequently enough to perfect and remember a note taking system.

There's one problem, though. He picked up a new printing of the game (the one pictured at the top of this entry). At first I was enthused to hear the game was back in print. But then we all saw how the art department at the publishers completely ruined the playability of the game.

Now don't get me wrong... the first edition of the game wasn't much to look at. Identities of gems, and characteristics of questions, were written in plain blocky text on an otherwise simple white background. We're talking maybe one cut above "do it yourself." The new edition tries to "pretty things up" by showing artwork of the gems in an actual setting of some kind. The problem is, here's what they look like:



Note the confusing frame around each gem, which shows all three gem types. And worse, note that the pearls look almost exactly like the diamonds! They're both small, round, white dots. Our first game was shot to hell with this set of cards. Despite everyone's efforts to be extra careful, at least two players misidentified gems during the game... and of course in a game like this, that scuttles the whole thing. Worse, you don't even find out that things have gone wrong until much later down the road. Immediately following this game, my friend took out a Sharpie and wrote the "suits" of each gem on every card in his set.

So, my message is this. Sleuth is an awesome game. If you like logic problems, you will love this game. But if you buy it, look for a used copy somewhere. Avoid this new printing like the steaming mess it is.