We bought Mysterium a couple of years ago from a games shop in Cardiff, after the shop assistant recommended it. This is a cooperative mystery game.
mysterium – photo by juliamaud 
mysterium – photo by Juliamaud
Someone has been murdered at the manor house and their ghost needs their death solved to move on. Most players take the part of a medium, trying to solve the crime. However, one player takes the role of a ghost, telling the assembled visitors of their death.
To solve the crime, the ghost tries to recall the suspects present on the night of the murder, their location and the murder weapon. The ghost randomly assigns a card for each of these in secret to a medium. They give vision cards face up to each medium to hint to the answers.
Each medium needs to deduce which suspect corresponds to the vision cards received and place their token on a suspect card. The ghost then reveals whether the guesses were correct or not. Mediums who guessed correctly move on to guess the location of the crime (and then the murder weapon), while those who didn’t keep their vision cards and receive new ones corresponding to the same suspect.
The aim is to correctly guessed the suspect, location and weapon while there is still time on the clock.
Mediums then group their suspect, location and weapon cards on the table and place a number by each group. The ghost selects one group, places the matching culprit number face down on the epilogue board, picks three vision cards – one for the suspect, one for the location, and one for the weapon and the mediums have to vote on who they suspect is guilty.
You can play the game multiple times, as the cards can be used for lots of different clues and no two games are the same.
We found that playing the “Ghost” for the first time was difficult. Trying to find something on the cards to give as a clue requires effort but seeing how your clue is interpreted is great fun. Also the more you play it, the easier it gets.
Overall a fun game, highly recommended.
Product Description
In the 1920s, Mr. MacDowell, a gifted astrologist, immediately detected a supernatural being upon entering his new house in Scotland. He gathered eminent mediums of his time for an extraordinary seance, and they have seven hours to contact the ghost and investigate any clues that it can provide to unlock an old mystery. Unable to talk, the amnesic ghost communicates with the mediums through visions, which are represented in the game by illustrated cards. The mediums must decipher the images to help the ghost remember how he was murdered: Who did the crime? Where did it take place? Which weapon caused the death? The more the mediums cooperate and guess well, the easier it is to catch the right culprit.