Year: 2024 | Players: 2-6 | Min: 90 | Ages: 12+
This spoiler-free Perspectives Blue review was made after playing through all three cases. The publisher sent us a copy of this game in exchange for an honest review.
What is Perspectives Blue?
Perspectives Blue is a cooperative detective game where you play through three four-act cases by splitting up clues and working together to solve each mystery. This is the second standalone game in the series after Perspectives Orange.
This game was designed by Matthew Dunstan and Dave Neale, and published by Space Cowboys.
Rules Overview
In Perspectives: Blue, you and your group work through a series of crime scenarios. Each case is divided into four acts, and each act presents a situation that you need to understand by examining visual clues and talking it through.
The key feature of the game is that no one gets the full picture. Clue cards are split up between everyone, and you are not allowed to share them directly. Instead, you’ll describe what’s on your cards and rely on each other to piece things together.
Game Flow
At the start of each act, you open a folder that contains a short bit of story and one main question. This question helps focus the group on what to look for during the investigation.
You then deal out the 12 clue cards from that act as evenly as possible. Everyone spends a few minutes reviewing their own cards, then begins discussing what they see. You can describe images, text, or anything you notice, and others can ask questions or offer theories. The group is allowed to reveal one card at any time without losing points. Any additional cards revealed after that will each cost one point from your final score.
Once you think you’ve figured out the main question, you flip to the next part of the folder. It will ask several follow-up questions that test how well you understood what happened. At this point, all clue cards are set aside, and you’ll have to rely on memory and group discussion to answer.
Scoring
You earn points for each correct answer at the end of an act.
Once all four acts in a case are complete, you add up your scores from each act to get your final score.
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Pros and Cons
Pros
- It’s a lot of fun doing the back-and-forth deciphering. You describe what’s on your cards, someone else does the same, and you work together to stitch it all into something that makes sense. It’s a fun co-op puzzle exercise.
- The memory component makes Perspectives extra challenging in a good way. Since you can’t see other players’ cards, it pushes everyone to listen and remember what’s been said. That makes every player feel like they directly impact the outcome of each case.
- Each case felt unique and had a distinct look. Not only are they set in different time periods, but the types of cases/puzzles you have to solve change too, so nothing felt repetitive.
- I think all of the cards look great. The artists did a fantastic job making the locations and characters feel alive and visually distinct, which helped make each case feel unique.
- The cases are challenging (one in particular gave us a real workout), but they’re all solvable. We quickly learned that every detail matters, which made us pay closer attention and feel more rewarded when we figured things out.
- It only takes a couple of minutes to teach Perspectives. Once you know the basics, you can dive right in.
- It’s refreshing to play a modern crime-solving board game that doesn’t require an app or any extra tech. Everything you need is in the box.
Cons
- A couple of the case questions made us wonder if any groups actually got them right. They asked about minor details that didn’t feel super important to the cases themselves.
- There was at least one error in one of the cases. It confused us for a few minutes, but it didn’t prevent us from answering the questions or enjoying the game.
- I played Perspectives at three and four players, and I think four is the highest I’d go. The more players you have, the fewer cards you get to look at, and it’d probably get really tough to communicate everything clearly with five or six players.
Final Thoughts
I had a great time playing through the cases in Perspectives Blue. They were definitely tough (we got average scores), but they were always fun to work through as a group. No spoilers, but the second case in this box is one of the best detective cases I’ve ever played in a board game, even though it was the one where we got our lowest score.
I’ve played a lot of deduction and crime-solving games over the years, and Perspectives stands out thanks to its split-information system, strong puzzle variety, and the unique challenge of relying on memory and communication to get the full picture. We all felt like we were actively contributing, and it was always satisfying when we were able to piece together all the details we observed to answer the questions correctly.
I wouldn’t recommend playing Perspectives with more than four, but if you’ve got the right group and you’re into these kinds of investigative puzzles, you’ll probably have a great time playing this one. This system offers something a bit different and creates some great “aha!” moments along the way.
Perspectives Blue Links
BGG | Amazon | Miniature Market
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