London 1892 is part of a growing series of card-driven Crime Scene puzzle games from Tactic Games. The game is designed by Richard Heayes, Markku Heljakka and Petter Ilander, with art by Stevan Antonijevic, and the story that the game follows is authored by Finnish crime writer Arttu Tuominen.
Crime Scene: London 1892 is played using four discrete decks of cards. These include Evidence cards, Reputation cards, Crime Files and Hints. You may also need to refer to the street map printed on the inside of the box lid. You start off with story, which sets the scene before moving you on to the Evidence cards, which you work through, following the connections they offer and solving the puzzles they set you. If you're flummoxed by any of the puzzles - as you quite possibly will be because some are pretty tough - you can refer to the Hints but that'll be at the cost of Reputation. When you think you have a puzzle solved, you check the corresponding Crime File card. When you look at a Crime File card, you'll see they give you what look like codes. These actually refer you back to the story - specifically a paragraph, line and word...
The Crime Scene games work well as solitaire puzzlers but they are even better when played as a cooperative game with two, three or four players, debating the evidence and arguing together over the solution to the puzzles. The game is designated as 18+ because the crime you're solving is a Jack the Ripper-style murder. We haven't found anything overly graphic on any of the cards and tho' the story describes the murder victim's wounds, there's not much here that older children won't already have seen more graphically portrayed in an average pre-Watershed evening of TV drama; so you should probably treat the 18+ on the box as a mild content warning to parents rather than an indication of suitability. We would have few qualms about playing Crime Scene: London 1892 with teenage children.