Year: 2021 | Players: 1-4 | Minutes: 60+ | Ages: 14+
This Chronicles of Crime: 1900 review was made after playing through the tutorial and the first three cases. We were sent a copy of this game by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
What is Chronicles of Crime: 1900?
Chronicles of Crime: 1900 is an app-driven cooperative crime-solving game in which you play as a young French journalist who investigates crimes for his newspaper. The game takes place in 1900 during the Belle Époque period.
This is a standalone Chronicles of Crime game and the second game in the Millennium Series, following Chronicles of Crime: 1400.
Chronicles of Crime: 1900 was designed by David Cicurel and Wojciech Grajkowski, and it is published by Lucky Duck Games.
Gameplay Overview
If you’ve never played a Chronicles of Crime game, check out our Chronicles of Crime review to learn more about the series’ core mechanics.
In Chronicles of Crime: 1900, you play as Victor Lavel, a young investigative journalist in Paris in 1900. Your job is to solve each case within 24 hours so you can get the story printed in the next day’s newspaper. There is a tutorial and four full cases to play through. Just like in the other Chronicles of Crime games, you’ll use the app to interact with people, locations, and items as you move through each case.
The main new addition in Chronicles of Crime: 1900 is the puzzle cards. A lot of the puzzles are similar to the ones you’ll find in escape room games, but most of them have QR codes just like the other cards in the game. You can ask people about them and you can also get some clues for them by talking to your colleague, Charlotte, back at the office.
After you finish each case, you’ll answer questions and get a final score. The puzzles do change the scoring a little bit, though: you’ll get a 10-point deduction for each hint that Charlotte gives you.
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Pros and Cons
Pros
- I think Chronicles of Crime: 1900 has the best dialogue of all of the Chronicles of Crime games so far. The characters’ personalities really come through, making them a bit more memorable than characters from the other games.
- I really like how they connected two of the cases. They are distinct cases, but you go into the second case knowing some of the characters you run into, and moments from the first case are brought back up in the second. I’d like to see more of these two-parters in the future.
- The puzzles are well done and do add something new to the series. They give you more to think about since you not only have to ask characters about items and other people, you also now have to figure out which characters will help you with the puzzles.
- The location art is great. The cards look amazing and the detailed illustrations make it easy to remember where you’ve been during a case. That’s pretty important because you do have to jump around a lot.
- This is probably the best tutorial that they’ve made for the series so far. It explains the old and the new rules while also giving you a quick and fun case to play through.
- Another excellent Chronicles of Crime insert.
Cons
- To me, the 1900 setting isn’t as interesting as 1400 (or 2400). The cases themselves are good, but it felt like the stories could have easily been tweaked to be set in 2021.
- I still don’t like that they use the same character cards to represent multiple people. It kills the immersion a little bit when a face we knew as Sam in one case is all of a sudden Chris in another.
- There was some repeated text and a few typos in the app, but I’m sure that stuff will be fixed in future updates.
Final Thoughts
Chronicles of Crime: 1900 is yet another great game in the Chronicles of Crime series. I don’t like it quite as much as the base game, the Noir expansion, and 1400, but I still enjoyed the first three cases and I’m looking forward to playing through the fourth one (it was just added to the app the other day). The cases were challenging, the dialogue was excellent, and the puzzles were a cool new addition. I just really dig the Chronicles of Crime system and as long as they continue to come up with cool new cases, my group will want to play them.
If you’re already a Chronicles of Crime fan, you’ll definitely want to check out Chronicles of Crime: 1900. If you also happen to be a huge fan of escape room style puzzles, this could end up being your favorite Chronicles of Crime game.
Chronicles of Crime: 1900 Links
BGG | Amazon | Miniature Market
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