Whitehall Mystery is a hidden movement game that is 1 vs all, up to a total of 4 players. The consistent part of the match up is the player who takes on the role of Jack the Ripper as he visits locations around Whitehall. The rest of the players control investigators or a single investigator depending on the player count. Whichever it is they are working together to arrest Jack. Can they pull it off, surround him, follow the clues he leaves behind or will he manage to elude them all? That is what Whitehall Mystery is all about.
The game board is a map of London’s Whitehall district from 1888. Split into four sections, the four quadrants of the game board itself, the player controlling Jack must visit a location in each. Starting on one of the circles Jack will be journeying along the black dotted roads. He must move each turn and can move normally from one circle to the next along a road, as long as this road isn’t blocked by an investigator.
Investigators use the same roads but instead of stopping on the circles use the square crossroads. Unlike the player controlling Jack, investigators can choose to move 0, 1 or 2 squares at a time. This results in two interesting events. Firstly, the ability to be stationary can disrupt the movement of Jack especially if he was planning to use a road an investigator is blocking. At the other end of the spectrum, moving two squares can see the investigators bound across sections of the map. As soon as a clue is found, of what route is being taken, the investigators can swiftly close the net on their illusive opponent.
To discover clues of where Jack is or has been the investigators, after all movement, get to actually investigate. If they think they know they could even go for the arrest. To investigate the investigators call out the circles connected to the crossroad they are on in any order they wish. As soon as one of the circles called out has been visited by Jack, in the latest section of his venture, a yellow clue token is added to the map and the investigation ends. If no numbers turn out to be clues the game continues. Whenever investigators go for an arrest they get to say only one number of a connected circle and then must pray they are right.
Jack has three unique powers which he can use twice within a game. These are normally played face up but if Jack keeps getting caught placing them upside-down adds to the mystery for the investigators. Powers allow players to break the normal movement rules slightly. The first is Coach. This power allows Jack to move two points but still costs two turns. This can be used to throw the investigators off especially as you are able to move past them.
Next up is Boat, which as the name suggests enables Jack to move across a body of water. This has one rule that, despite being in the rulebook, can be overlooked. You are able to move across water but it is, like the rest of the map, split by roads. This means you are not able to travel the length of the section of Thames, a slightly unintuitive mechanic. The last special ability is Alley and can be the most effective at getting away from investigators or ninjaing through the middle of some. Using Alley Jack can move to any other circle connected across a block: a block being an area of the map surrounded by the roads players normally move along.
The three investigators aren’t completely powerless against Jack but they are rather limited. They each can use their special power only once. First up we have Sergeant Arthur Ferris of the Metropolitan Police, whom can make one boat movement similar to Jack. The second investigator is Dr Thomas Bond, part of the A Division at the Metropolitan Police. He can do a single Alley movement. Both of these powers once used in a turn see the investigator lose the ability to look for clues or arrest that turn. Last but not least is Journalist Jasper T.C. Waring, whom can move another investigator to an adjacent crossing. Unlike the others this stops the moved investigator from moving, looking for clues or executing an arrest that turn.
If players find that Jack is winning more and more regularly than the investigators then they can call in the help of Smoker. In their time of need the investigators turn to man’s best friend a dog. The yellow coloured investigator Jasper gets control of Smoker and offers that player a choice of two additional powers. Both being one-time use powers they each give a slight advantage. Either the yellow player can move an additional crossing on a turn or continue guessing circles after a clue has been found.
This is a very streamlined hidden movement game. Movement is kept simple and straight forward, which is great for those new to the game, whilst the limited player powers add enough depth to the game to keep players hooked. This massively helps keep the time down, limiting the thought processes of the players to avoid analysis paralysis for both the Jack player and the investigators.
This is how the game is playable in an hour or less. The less being emphasised as the game will only reach that hour if players take a normal amount of time over turns and Jack uses most of his moves in each section to get all 3 objective markers onto the board. Catching Jack early naturally ends the game and can see a game over in only a matter of minutes, if a cocky play gets caught out by witty detectives. I would, however, never recommend starting a game unless you have an hour just in case the game runs for the full time.
Despite the lore in the rulebook and the concepts being the game Whitehall Mystery is very clean. Clean in a way that is free of the blood and murder the time Jack the Ripper ran riot in. Instead the artwork depicts an old city map that investigators will be hunting around. It works to keep the game more acceptable for younger audiences, as well as allowing the map in front of players to be clear and obvious. This and the streamlined nature of the game helps those new to hidden movement games to pick the game up and lose the confusion that plagues other titles of the genre.
Whitehall Mystery is a brilliantly paced hidden movement game. Despite new players coming into the game thinking it must be impossible from either the investigators or Jack the Ripper’s side they soon find out it isn’t. From here everyone seems to be hooked at finding illusive murderer or slipping the net of the pecky investigators. Unlike other notable titles of the genre, such as Letters of Whitechapel or Fury of Dracula, Whitehall Mystery doesn’t outstay its welcome on the table which can allow it to hit the table more often, something which will definitely happen from my gaming shelf!
[Editor’s Note: Whitehall Mystery was provided to us for review purposes by Fantasy Flight Games.]
