Death by Design

Agree with all of you, it is a very good case. I liked the style, the writing, the mystery.

Can't add much to what has already been said. It is brilliant.

Really enjoyed Death by Design! Was it written by an amateur author?? It honestly felt very professional!

The 1930s New York setting is great, with lots of period details and references to the technology of the time that make it feel believable and immersive. The mystery has a clever setup and I loved how the title Death by Design ends up fitting the plot so well. It was so clever!

The noir writing is especially good—atmospheric without overdoing it and a pleasure to follow throughout the investigation. I watched the second stream live and later caught up with the third and final stream and it was fun seeing different approaches to the case by everyone in the chat.

The solution was satisfying and felt earned, tying everything together nicely. Overall, a really enjoyable mystery! Congratulations to the author and to Jesse for having beed able to add such a clever game to the system.

Lots of historical detail, very well crafted documents, and some nicely crafted puzzles that combine different pieces of information in creative ways, will really pull you into the story. Also a very nice behind the scenes postscript for those who are interested in mystery writing and game design. Looking forward to seeing what new puzzles the author has cooking up in future cases.

Disclosure: Joined for the livestream playtest of the case and am a fellow case writer myself.

We played this on youtube over the course of 3 days and about 15 hours in total. Absolutely outstanding use of the New York Noir system. The foundational stuff, the core mechanical deductive elements, are done really well here. But you also get a whole bunch of new innovative fun mechanical ideas, a compelling mystery with details that had us debating even at the end. Everything we want in a New York Noir case is here -- tough moral choices, a great epilogue ending, humor, history, etc. Could not ask for more. And through it all some of the very best noir writing that we've seen. Amazing. -jesse

I played this game after having seen the beginning of the live playthrough on Friday morning (29/05). I was intrigued and decided to play it on my own at a later time. This case begins with an employee who doesn't show up for work and the office secretary who decides to contact the police. As sir Teddy has never been absent, not even a single day in 15 years. I do feel that this was something that needed explanation, because we never do find out how this phone call ended up becoming a matter the police decided to look into. The case plays out over 3 days. When you feel you have investigated enough for one day or when your time for the day runs out you visit an end of the day location. I think this was very cleverly done. When reading the end of the day entry you would be asked 'do you have markers x,y,z ...? If you don't come back at a later time.'. This way you can't really miss essential information. I usually avoid using hints, but I did venture to the hints section a few times during the game. When the game says you are missing one marker, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack without a clue as to what you have missed. So I did go to the clues section to get an idea of where to even look. Because of the multi day set-up and the markers you could also revisit places once you had additional information or documents. It reminded me of The Baker Street Irregulars and also brought to mind my favourite board game, which also uses this mechanic. This meant you could talk to the same people as the 'days' progressed. This really ensured a nice progression as you would visit a person on day one and return on day two once a certain document / information had been acquired. This was true for several locations. As with a SHCD case you will go to an end section with questions, but after answering the questions there is an ending which depends on you markers, but also on some final choices you make, I felt like that was a nice touch. There wasn't just an ending for the main plot, but also for other criminal activity that is discovered along the way. This case was very well written with a good mystery behind it. I liked the little historic details like when you visited the Yorkville Casino Club or ETL having really existed and the link it has to Edison or the Horn & Hardart automat which apparently used to be an existing chain and reminded me somewhat of a Dutch snack wall. One minor critique: I do think it is more difficult than a 4/5 difficulty rating. There are other games that use this scale and for me I always feel like 4/5 and even 4.5/5 usually means ‘attention to detail required, but there is little chance you will need the hints at any point’. For this game the hints were a necessity, especially since some entries in the detective research guide were dead ends, making you believe there wasn’t anything to be found. In SHCD when you go to the central carriages for example there will be an entry to either tell you there is nothing, or to tell you there is something or to redirect you. Some of the entries in the detective’s research guide were dead ends when in reality you were supposed to get the information elsewhere. Which as a player you won’t realise until you are at the end of the day missing a marker. I also felt like some locations should have had an entry, if only to tell you there was nothing there, like the Consulate of Germany or the Consulate of Denmark. Final thoughts: A really enjoyable game. I would play other games by this author.