MY RAMBLING INTRODUCTION

"... has it occurred to youuuu that there are tooooo many cluuu-ues in this roommmm?"

I've never actually seen the movie, though I always have a hankering to track it down when I see the boxcover to this game. Murder mysteries and trains just go hand in hand, if you ask me (what's that movie with Gene Hackman?). I did, though, read Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (on my honeymoon, no less ... oh what a romantic I am). I'm aware of two versions to the board game: the recent Jumbo version, a more colourful affair; and the older one that I own, by Just Games. What's nice is that the game can handle anything from solitaire up to six players. I've played both solitaire and with four players, and both were satisfying setups.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX



The game comes with six pawns, representing each detective, and a board representing, on the exterior, train stations from France to Bulgaria, and, on the interior, train compartments on the Orient Express.



The original version of the game doesn't have quite the same visual splendour as the later version. Suspect counters are just names, and not images, as are train personnel. The train is a flat counter, unlike the little model train in the Jumbo version. But it's all functional and the lack of images didn't really bother me.



Mysteries are numbered from 1 to 10, with no names, but as I under stand it, there are case names in the Jumbo version. A pad of "detective notes" is provided, and each player gets one sheet. Although the image below is actually for one of the supplements, you can see what the deduction grid looks like. Several columns are pre-printed, but there are blank ones so that you can customize your own portion of the clue matrix.



GAMEPLAY

Once you learn the basic rules to the game, everything is quite simple, and all the information you need is either on the board or in the clue matrix. Detectives all begin in the same hallway close to the drawing room. Suspects, like the actress, the diplomat, and the gambler, to name a few, are placed in certain compartments, like the dining room, the smoking lounge, and berth 4, as are the crew, like the conductor, the doctor, and the porter. Every player, in turn,

- throws a die and moves his pawn a variable number of spaces. Depending on the roll, there's a chance the train will advance toward its destination. And if the train crosses a border, the crew and suspects may move around to different compartments. If a detective lands on the same space as another detective, another die roll opens up some options, like stealing clues. The player can then question people or search compartments, and this determines which clue will be read (in secrecy).

Each case has 30 clues that can be obtained, depending on whether you question suspects and personnel, search compartments, or rush onto train platforms to send off a telegram for information on the victim or a suspect. You must read clues literally, and carefully apply deductive logic. Clues like this made-up one, "If the diplomat was in the dining car between 2pm and 4pm, then the entrepreneur was not with him, and the murderer's motive would not have been espionage" ... call for a smattering of Boolean mental processing to help out with your sleuthing (the clues aren't typically so convoluted as that one). But some of the cases I've tackled have called for a "leap in logic" to get the job done. And sometimes, well, the clues are red herrings.

Limited secrecy tokens are allotted to make it harder for other detectives to follow-up on the clues you've already uncovered, sometimes postponing their discovery for two or three turns.

Solitaire play is nearly identical to regular play, but, obviously, no secrecy tokens are necessary.

The train sometimes does advance quickly to its destination, so no pussy-footing around is allowed. I think I only solved a mystery once in time. I suppose I'm as little like Hercule Poirot as I am like Sherlock Holmes (where in the Consulting Detective I come no where close to successful solutions).

DENOUEMENT
So, I would say that if you like murder and mystery and deduction, in the vein of Clue, but with more time pressure and more requirement for logical thinking and, in my opinion, a nicer milieu (night train ride through Europe), I would highly suggest Orient Express. The game doesn't overstay its welcome, but instead offers a good hour or hour and a half entertainment.

"... when I began to question them, the light, as Macbeth would have said, thickened."