Scotland Yard
CTIN488
Justin Perez
I played the detective game, Scotland Yard, with two of my roommates. Scotland Yard plays like a board game version of the Steven Spielberg movie Catch Me If You Can. The premise of the game is a group of detectives are chasing after a criminal, named Mr. X, throughout London. The game is an example of unilateral competition as one player plays the role of Mr. X and all other players in the game are working together to catch him. The detectives win the game if at any time they move to the same spot as Mr. X. If they run out of possible moves (Mr. X takes turns moving as well, but never runs out of moves. The detectives have a finite amount of mobility) then Mr. X wins the game.
There are three types of transportation all the players can use to move about the map: bus, tube and taxi. Again, the detectives have a finite number of times to use each type while Mr. X can move around on whichever type of transport is available to his point on the map.
In order to level the playing field for Mr. X, his game piece is not seen moving on the board like the detectives. The player representing Mr. X makes all his moves in secret which are recorded in his logbook. Mr. X only reveals his position on the map following specific turns during the game (3, 8, 13, and 18). The detectives have to use these four times Mr. X surfaces to chase him, and they can see what type of transportation he is taking each turn.
Scotland Yard is a fairly simple game to understand and start playing. However because the rules and the board are so well designed there is a lot of strategy to be found by all players. Mr. X has two special double moves he can make during the game. During our test, using the double moves at the same time Mr. X had to reveal his position became a popular strategy for Mr. X. He would use a double move card, make the first move, show his position, then make the second move so that he’s back in hiding right away. Also during our test, at the beginning of the game there wasn’t much cooperation going on between the two detectives. Each player was moving his two detectives (because we were playing with only three people, each of the detective players actually got to control two detectives on the game board) on their own. After a few turns, the two detective players began to communicate and strategize their moves together. Eventually the detectives were able to work together and guard key choke points on the board to swarm and capture Mr. X.
