True-crime gaming
the true crime that's worth your time
I’ve come across a lot of hilarrible ‘70s true-crime board games in my shop-acquisition travels of late. The hilar- part comes primarily from the fonts, and from the manufacturers’ evident (and probably correct) belief that Doing A Computer in any form would move units; some of the adaptations for foreign markets are real head-scratchers, too. (Did adding a character named “Inspector PuZZle” really speak to French families?)
The -rible is the ethnic stereotyping going on with some of the “usual suspects” cards, and that the player is basically always a cop. (I remember a similar problem with the text-RPG Perry Mason game I used to play on our Apple IIc (kids, ask your grandparents), i.e. success in the game depended on brow-beating witnesses.) And sometimes the games use real cases, which gets squeamy fast if it’s not a nice fizzy art heist.
But these games speak to something in American culture, partly because, you know, they’re games, but perhaps also for the same reasons some of us consume true crime — to try to control a chaotic evil with information or superior puzzling skill.
Do y’all play any true-crime-adjacent games — Hunt A Killer, the CSI or SVU games, or the Watergate game a friend got me a few years ago? Have they evolved since we were kids, or are they all basically Clue with some kind of contemporary twist? And if true crime is suited to a particular style of gameplay that doesn’t seem to exist, what’s your pitch? — SDB