Mandi was off singing, “I don’t want a pickle; I just want to ride my motor-sickle,”
so Chris and I had Compulsory Merriment to ourselves last week. We played 5-Minute Mystery.
It’s a deceptively simple game. You find the shapes in a picture–square, triangle, circle, etc. Then you match the Codex to the shapes. If you’re right, you get a clue that helps you eliminate suspects like, “All of the suspects have glasses,” or “none of the suspects are wearing a necklace.” Everything was going fine until Chris downloaded the free timer app…wherein I discovered it takes me about 7 minutes to solve a 5 minute mystery. Timers just make me panic!
There are several mysteries of varying lengths. The Codex is fun. The artwork is super cute. You can play it with 2 but, if you happen to have a panic-prone player in the group, you might want to play with 3 or more so you can delegate reading clues, flipping symbols and eliminating suspects. The timer makes it all go so fast!
5-30 minutes playtime, 1-6 players, ages 6+