A game of Detective Club plays in several rounds. On each round, players will play two cards. The game ends after each player has been Active Player once (with 6-8 players) or twice (with less than 6 players). Note: Players must keep their notebook secret at all times! No one knows who is the Conspirator... except himself. Before the first round, players choose a topic. When the active player chooses a word on his turn he must make sure that this word matches the topic that was decided at the beginning of the game.

Once everyone has had a chance to give their explanation, players will vote on who they believe the conspirator—the player who never saw the word—is. Then the conspirator reveals themselves and everyone who voted for that person scores three points. If the conspirator had no votes or only a single vote, they score five points and the active player scores four. Ultimately, Detective Club is a fun experience. While comparing it to other games may not be entirely fair, I think there is probably only room for so many similar games in any person’s collection. It just feels a bit more relaxed. If you don’t like the stress of being put on the spot, that can certainly be a good thing. The discussion about why you chose the cards can be hilarious and is really where Detective Club shines. Whether people believe your statement that you chose this card that has a goldfish on because it fits with the theme of youth is entirely unpredictable. You might have known what the theme was, you might have thought that this was a fantastic card. However, if people aren't buying what you're selling, then you could be falsely accused of being the conspirator. Example: Bill is a Detective. He can see that Mike wrote "nature" in his notebook, so he plays a card that displays the sea. That should be enough. The books that the active player will write the word on, are thematic in design. But also a bit of a hassle. I think the game would have benefited from some white boards and marker pens. Instead of small pads of paper. This would help with game speed. When the active player is writing in all the books, and help with shuffling, before passing them out to the players. The rest of the components are great though. With each player having a small wooden magnifying glass, used for voting.

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If there are 2 or more Tokens on the Conspirator's Player Marker, then the Conspirator and the Active Player do not score any VP. Analyze all the evidence, listen to the witnesses and try to to find out who is lying among your group. Only the most observant and the most cunning will be able to succeed and achieve victory! Welcome to the Club. The game comes in a tin, which many people don’t like. I personally don’t mind tins. However, the artwork on the lid doesn’t really suggest the fun, party-game style of play that you get from the game. This may deter people. If anything the artwork and title would lead you to believe the game is more of a crime solving co-op.

After secretly coming up with the clue, the “informer” writes that down on all of the “?” notebooks except for one. They then shuffle up the books and give one to every player. This means one person does not know the clue and nobody knows who that person is. The goal will be to expose that person.

Players will then talk about how the cards they chose relate to the word. If you didn’t know the word to begin with, you’ll have to think on your feet and try to justify it somehow. It’s certainly possible you did know the word and, because you are limited to the six cards in your hand, just didn’t have anything plainly obvious to use so the descriptions can get pretty creative. Turning Dixit into a social deduction game was an amazing decision. Artistic theory is based on subjectivity; not everyone is going to agree with your opinion on an illustration. Using that as a jumping-off point for a game where people have to talk their way out of suspicion is genius and proves that Dixit-esque titles are always better when given stronger gameplay hooks. Once all players have played a card, the Active Player plays a second card, and so on until everyone played two cards. The fun of Detective Club comes from the explanation step of the round. It’s where you, as a person who knew the word but had terrible cards to go with it, have to really sell your friends on why you played their card with a hot air balloon on it when the word was “boat”. (Obviously, the answer was the balloon is someone like a parachute and you can parasail behind a boat.) Player’s vote on who they believe is the conspirator. If it is a topic that has not yet been covered, you can most likely find more information here on your topic of choice. From official Detective Club useful links to very unofficial ones.