A killer terrorized the country 20 years ago. He turned himself in and was locked away for life. Yet, the killings have started again. Matching the modus operandi of the serial killer locked away you are agents tasked with finding out if this is a copycat killer or worse, the wrong man has been locked up.
Welcome to The Night Hunter Game!
Gameplay Overview:
The Night Hunter game consists of 5 chapters that must be played in order. Each chapter is split into three sections. At the beginning of each chapter, you will be advised of your objective and will be given a handful of evidence to look over.
The tools at your disposal that you will carry from mission to mission are a black light and a field guide consisting of bite mark patterns, elemental tables, and poison identifiers.
The game itself is mostly not timed as you and your team search through evidence to meet your current objective. Once you meet the first objective you get to open the folder containing the next section of evidence for the mission. Once you complete all three sections the mission is fully accomplished.
Game Experience:
The story follows a serial killer who had a very particular way of killing his victims. Once a man confessed to the killings, he was locked behind bars. After 20 years the killings start up again, the problem is it matches certain details that weren’t released with the initial case investigation. You and your team are charged with completing each case/ mission in order, until the killer is caught, hopefully stopping him from claiming any more victims.
For my experience, I’ll do my best not to spoil any details. My partner and I were very trepidatious about The Night Hunter game since we have played a variety of puzzle/deduction board games and more have been misses than hits. The Night Hunter we found was enjoyable and approachable for newer puzzle/deduction gamers.
The puzzles themselves had a good pace and scaled well with our progress during the game. We only had one puzzle in this game that we ended up being frustrated with, but they were mostly intuitive. We loved that there were multiple ways to solve some puzzles and arrive at the same conclusion, something we don’t find very often in these games.
The story itself is okay. We found one aspect particularly comical and seemed to be added just for additional puzzles, but otherwise, the evidence you look through and use had a quality feel to it and generally was unique enough to give each chapter its own feel.
Final Thoughts:
The Night Hunter is a solid puzzle/deduction game that almost anyone can approach and enjoy over a couple of evenings. The story is paced well, and the puzzles feel intuitive and reward you with realizations that move the story along. If you are a veteran puzzle/deduction gamer, then you may not be heavily challenged until the last couple of chapters in the game. The one thing that the Night Hunter lacks, which isn’t due to its design but its genre, is replay value. Any sort of game like this you will more than likely only play once. But if you enjoy puzzles and trying to catch serial killers then you should give The Night Hunter a try.
Final Score: 4.5 – A puzzle/ murder mystery game with moderate challenges and approachable puzzles.
Hits:
• Evidence has great quality.
• Puzzles are approachable for newer players and enjoyable for seasoned players.
• Rewards keep the story moving and puzzles scale well with pacing.
Misses:
• Limited replay value.
• 1 puzzle completely stumped us and wasn’t intuitive to solve.
Source: Board Game Quest
