I am usually the first to grumble when a board game asks me to pull out my phone, so it surprised me how completely Chronicles of Crime won me over. It wires a classic mystery board game to a free app, and the result feels less like solving a puzzle and more like running a real investigation, complete with crime scenes I half expected to leave footprints in.

You play a team of investigators tackling a case, and the app is your partner the whole way. You scan location cards to explore crime scenes, scan character cards to interview suspects and witnesses, and use the app to examine a scene for clues you might have missed. As you piece together what happened, you travel around the board following leads, then return to accuse a suspect and answer for your reasoning. The better and faster your deduction, the better your score.

What I love is how seamlessly the technology disappears into the story. It is not a gimmick, it is the engine that lets the cases twist and breathe, hiding evidence in plain sight and rewarding the group that actually pays attention. Everyone huddles around, debating who is lying and which thread to chase next, and somebody always notices the one detail the rest of us walked right past.

It plays cooperatively, teaches quickly, and the base game and its many scenarios give you a stack of mysteries to work through. Like most story driven games, a solved case stays solved, but the journey is a real treat.

Are you a question every suspect player or a rush to the accusation player? Tell me below, and tell me the case that fooled your whole team.

If you decide to purchase this game, consider using our affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4voMBUd