Perspectives Blue Review – Solving Murders Without the Homework

Disclaimer: Perspectives Blue was provided for free by VR Distribution, although the writing and opinions of this article are my own.

You wake up in a forest, with no memory of who you are or how you got there. Oh, and things are a little different. You’re now in Great Britain, Circa A.D.485.

What would you do?

This is the opening premise of the first case in Perspectives Blue, a game that invites you to piece together fragments of a mystery over its 90-minute runtime.

How to play

Perspectives Blue is an investigation game in the same vein as Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. Except where Sherlock’s stack of newspaper clippings is a workplace health and safety violation, Perspectives uses artwork on its cards to tell a story.

Within the box, you get three Cases to solve, with four Acts in each.

Each Act takes 10-25 minutes to complete, and at the end, you’re awarded victory points based on how thoroughly you unravelled the mystery. However, there’s a catch: since the cases never change, once you’ve discovered a solution, the game cannot be replayed. Unless, of course, you wake up in Great Britain, Circa A.D.485. with no memory of who you are or that you’ve already played Perspectives Blue!

Beginning with Case 1, Shared Memories, you open up the first Act and divide the twelve picture cards facedown equally between all players.

Together, these cards tell a complete story. However, being so divided, you see just one perspective. To complete the picture, you must share your side of the story with the other players.

Only then can you answer the Act’s central question.

Along with the cards, each Act provides a short narrative and overarching question to get your brain fluids flowing. When your team feels confident, or just tired of debating every little detail, you’ll flip the cards face-down and answer four additional questions found on the back of the Act folder.

These questions test your team’s reasoning and investigative skills, awarding one victory point for each correct answer.

So once you’re ready, open the Act folder to reveal the answers and how well you did!

The smartest game I’ve played

We’ll talk about how Perspectives Blue captures your investigative mind in a bit but what stuck out to me about this game was how it played with its theme. The concept of perspectives is entwined with its gameplay and other aspects of the game.

For instance, without spoilers, the stories told through the cards aren’t always through the eyes of one character or in the right chronological order. As a result, these stories change their perspective, increasing the challenge for you to piece it together while also tying back to the central theme.

Going deeper into the game, the characters within these stories and your relationship with them also change through the four Acts. Where initially in Act 1, you might think you know who’s a hero and who’s a villain, by the time you get to Act 4 you’ll feel the same way people did once they learned the world was not the center of the galaxy.

Mind blown.

Again, this shows that Perspectives Blue doesn’t think about perspectives one-dimensionally. Instead, it incorporates the theme wherever it can and as a result, it might be the smartest game I’ve played.

After completing each case and seeing the concept of perspectives used in so many creative ways, I was left with the same feeling I get after watching a thought-provoking indie film or art-house production. Where my brain has to chew through all the thoughts the film produced.

One question left us scratching our heads

It’s no secret I detested Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. Playing with someone else and having to read out large paragraphs of text to each other while Sherlock has already solved the case and is smugly playing the violin, just rubbed me wrong.

So it’s been a hot minute since I last played an investigation board game. But it turns out, the genre has evolved significantly since 1982, and Perspectives Blue is solid proof of just how far it has come.

Off the bat, I appreciated the artwork cards letting us dive straight into the first Case within seconds of opening the box.

From there, by asking each other questions about what each could see and analysing my pictures for clues we pieced together the story using the breadcrumbs left on the cards.

Playing Perspectives Blue was one of the most collaborative board game experiences I’ve ever had. Sharing your ‘Aha!’ moments with your friends, where one clue would lead to another, or someone’s insight would steer our investigation in an entirely new direction, was so much fun.

Of course, it sometimes got frustrating when a crucial clue was missing or communication broke down. Even though that’s part of the challenge, as a software developer whose life is based on logic it still left a sour taste in my mouth.

The quality of puzzles across the three Cases ranged from okay to great, leaning more towards great overall. Only one question left us scratching our heads, wondering how they came up with the answer.

If you’re considering buying Perspectives Blue to play with many friends, I wouldn’t recommend it. The side of the box says you can play up to six, but I wouldn’t play it with more than four.

Even that’s pushing it.

I thought it worked really well as a two or three-player game. But as you gain more players, you increase the number of opinions while reducing the amount of facts you know to be true. As evidenced by Twitter, this is a recipe for disaster.

Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed working through the Cases Perspectives Blue offered and came away thinking it’s a great investigation and cooperative game.

As for whether you’ll enjoy it… well, that’s a matter of perspective. Don’t you think?