Mysterium Park is basically a haunted amusement park that you will be investigating.  You are a physic who is going to communicate with the ghost to solve the mystery of their murder.  I’m not quite sure if this is considered a sequel to Mysterium but it is more streamlined and compact. For people who like games like Clue or Dixit, this is definitely a game for you. I love bringing this one out, especially with non gamers. It’s fast, it’s cooperative and a great way to start a games night. I found it really interesting to have everyone interpret the clues together from the Ghost. We are really trying to get into that players head and their line of thinking. Dixit is similar look and feel except you are on your own trying to figure it out, whereas this is a full discussion with the others players while that person is listening. Although I like Dixit, I liked the vibe of this better. We were really engaged the entire time, the artwork is amazing and I love that spooky carnival theme. Let’s dive to the game.

This is a 30 minute, 2 to 6 player game for ages 10 and up.

Components 

• 84 Vision Cards
• 60 Plot Cards
• 60 Plot Cards
• 1 Card Holder
• Game Board
• 1 Turn Marker
• 20 Character Cards
• 20 Location Cards
• 5 Innocent Tokens
• 5 Intuition Pawns
• 1 Witness Token

This is a cooperative game, the investigators work with the ghost, if you can solve the murder everyone wins but if you can’t you all lose. Decide before you start who the ghost will be and get ready to set up the game.  The ghost will play a different role in the game than everyone else. If you are familiar with the game you should probably be the ghost. For whatever reason, being the ghost makes me nervous so I tend to throw that role to someone else.

The Ghost will guide the Psychics throughout their investigation by sending vision cards. In the first two rounds, the Psychics must each clear a suspect and eliminate a location; to make it to the final round. Psychics can work together and help each other with the clues.

To set up the game, have the ghost sit across from the psychics. The Ghost will draw one plot card for round 1 and place it in the card holder. No one else is allowed to see the plot cards. The ghost will also have the deck of vision cards and the 3 ticket tokens in front of them. The ghost will draw 7 vision cards.

Place the board in the middle of the table.  The turn marker will be placed at #1 space.  Each player chooses a color and takes the matching Pawn and Innocent Token.  For now the Witness token is placed next to the board.  For Round 1, nine character cards are drawn randomly and placed on the board.  Keep the location deck near by, that will be used in the next round. 

How to Play:

To win the game the psychics must find the suspect and location in the third round.  In the 1st round you will eliminate suspects and the second round you will eliminate locations.  This will leave you with three options for round 3.

Round #1 – Find innocent suspects

Each Psychic must find the Character card linked to their color on the plot card.  The Ghost is the only one who knows where everything is located the board from the plot card.  A new plot card will be used each round.  Each plot card also has a witness space and three empty spaces. Those three cards will be kept at the end of each round to make up round 3.

In round 3, the Ghost will use the roman numerals from the plot card to know who the final suspect is and the correct location.

The Ghost will choose cards from their hand to create a vision that the psychic can use as clues to find their square on the board.  The ghost may use one or more cards from their hand to make up the vision.  Once the Ghost has created the vision, they will give the cards to the psychic who will share with the others.  The psychics can discuss and give their opinion but that psychic will be the one with the final say for their turn.  The ghost will draw new cards up to 7.

If the ghost struggles to create a vision, they can use one of their ticket tokens to redraw up to seven of their cards.  Visions are very important since this is the only way the ghost is allowed to communicate.

Once all players have received their vision cards, they can discus and start to place their intuition pawns on the card they choose.  Once these choices are confirmed, the ghost gets to let the psychics know if they are correct. Comparing to the plot card the ghost will reveal the witness space first.  That character card will be discarded and any pawn on that card can be placed on a different card and then other pawns can be moved as well.  It’s sort of just a free guess. Once confirmed again the ghost will continue to reveal who is right and who is wrong.

If a psychic chose the correct card they take back their pawn, discard the character card and place an innocent token on the space. 

If a psychic chose the wrong card, they take back their Intuition pawn and the card stays on the board.

If, as a Psychic, you chose the correct card, take back your Intuition Pawn, place it in front of you and discard your Character Card. Then, place your Innocent Token on the space previously occupied by this Character Card to mark that you have cleared your Character for this round. Then discard your Vision Cards.

If any of the guesses were incorrect. move the turn marker to 2 and keep going.  The ghost can give additional vision cards to psychics who were wrong in the first round. Go through and guess again the same way as round one.  If it is still incorrect move the turn marker to 3 and try again.  Keep repeating this process until the correct guesses are made.

If everyone was correct move the turn marker up one space and replace the character cards with location cards. The Ghost recovers the three Characters from the free spots on the plot card and sets them aside.

Round 2 is the same process as the first round except now it is with locations.  We found the locations to be a bit harder with the clues but it also could have been the vision cards we were working with. This round plays the same way as round 1.

Keep in mind if you take too many turns and the turn marker runs past 6 tries you all automatically lose. If you still have a turn left you get to move onto Round three.

For the final round, the Ghost will take the three characters and three locations he picked up after each round and places the characters on the second line and the locations on the third line to create three sets.  The Ghost picks up a new plot card and uses the Roman numeral to see which set is correct.  The psychics only get one chance to pick the right suspect and location.

For the final vision the ghost may only pick two vision cards. One for the suspect and one for the location. Once decided the ghost will shuffle the two cards then hand to the psychics. The psychics only get one chance to guess the correct Roman Numeral for the set. If they guess incorrectly everyone loses but if they are correct everyone including the Ghost wins.

The gameplay isn’t hard and since its cooperative you can help people as they go so this is a fun one to teach. With everyone working together it really opens up communication in the group. The discussions are the best part of the game, there’s nothing else to really say other it’s a fun experience and it helps to set the tone for the evening. I highly recommend.

If you like Mysterium Park try:

Mysterium

Dixit

Golden Girl’s Clue