Review Details

Mr. Jack

Product Rating:

Product Review (submitted on December 9, 2008):

The makers of this game also run a free online version of the game. And why not? They are confident that people will love the game and buy a physical version. I have been playing this game online for a while now and would definitely get myself this game and the expansion, if only I could find someone who would play it with me.

The game is for two players only. One plays Mr. Jack (as in Jack the Ripper) and the other plays the "Inspector". Jack draws one of the 8 character alibi cards at the beginning of the game and plays through the game impersonating that character on the board. His goal is to escape or to avoid accusation for 8 rounds. The inspector's goal is to narrow down the suspects and correctly accuse one of the 8 characters on the board as Jack. However, the inspector only gets one chance, if he's wrong, then he loses.

The way the inspector narrows down suspects makes the core of the gameplay. At the end of each turn, each of the 8 characters on the board are either "in the light" or "in the shadows." Being in the light includes standing next to another character, standing next to a lit lamppost, or standing in the view of Watson's lantern. Being in the dark is simply all other cases. At the end of each turn, Jack announces if he is in the light or in the dark and, thus the characters that are in the opposite state are eliminated from suspicion. Each of the 8 characters have special abilities that can help the players. For example, after using Sherlock Holmes, the player can draw one of the remaining alibi cards and eliminate another suspect (or, if it is Jack, withhold a card from the inspector).

The components of the game are absolutely wonderful. The board is well designed and keeps track of everything perfectly. Personally, I feel the light/dark card is unnecessary, but the character tokens are brilliant. Each have a coloured side and a black and white side. When a character is eliminated from suspicion, the Inspector can turn the token over to visually let himself know that the character has been cleared. Do note that the alibi cards have been misprinted somewhat. Each character has a specific colour assigned to them and that colour can be seen when viewing the stack of remaining alibi cards from the side. Thus, when playing, be sure to place the cards somewhere where the Inspector player cannot see the edge of the cards.

The game definitely takes a few playthroughs to learn, as there are many aspects to the rules and gameplay that needs to be figured out. Overall, the game is an excellent two-player game. Part of the reason that is the case, is the fact that it is fairly heavy in strategy. This, however, makes it so that it is very difficult for new players to play against experienced players and is the reason why no one will play this game with me. However, the game is beautiful, almost like a chess ballet and, for players of equal strength, the game has unlimited replayability, especially with the expansion.

I would definitely recommend this game for gaming couples who love board games. If there is a well-designed travel version of this game, I definitely pick it up.