The Van Hout Story is a murder mystery game from Detective Mystery Masters. When Lennard Van Hout, a prominent figure in the business world, is murdered – your help is enlisted to bring the killer to justice. Can you find out who murdered Lennard and why?
Players: 1-8 // Age: 14+ // Playtime: 2-4 hours
What you need: A pencil/pen and paper. An internet-connected device.
First impressions
I played The Van Hout Story on a cold December night with my partner. We really enjoy mystery/detective games, so have a few under our belt. This review includes our shared thoughts on the whole experience.
The game arrives in a manilla folder filled with everything you need to solve the case. It contains over 40 paper components including witness statements, a floorplan, business cards, crime scene photos and suspect profiles. There are also five numbered envelopes which act as the different chapters of the game. Each envelope holds a new assignment and should only be opened when you have completed the previous one. Unfortunately, you can’t verify your answer at the end of each assignment. So if you get it wrong, you risk spoiling the answer by opening the next envelope.
The quality of the components is generally fine but given the price, we expected them to be more premium. We liked that the interrogation reports, suspect profiles, and pictures all came paper-clipped together. This makes it feel like an actual case file. There are variations in paper stock and design, however, the use of clip art as watermarks seemed a little excessive and detracted from document authenticity. Aesthetic niggles aside, everything functions well in terms of conveying the necessary information.
Story
“Uncover the truth behind Mr. Lennard Van Hout’s mysterious death and the robbery of the family safe. Hired by Mr. Pierre Leclerc, the trusted butler, you must delve into the motives and secrets of the suspects. Venture into Zurich’s heart in a tale of wealth, enigma, and shocking murder. With a trail of suspects left by Mr. Van Hout’s demise, it’s your job to catch the killer.”
The story follows a fairly standard murder mystery setup. A rich businessman is murdered and there are multiple people with motives for killing him. When it comes to the suspects, I’d expect them to all have convincing motives for the crime, but to be exonerated based on alibis and finer details. As it was, we felt that some characters were missing a strong motive and could therefore be discounted very quickly. The lack of twists and turns did mean that the story didn’t feel as thrilling as it could have. We questioned a few times whether we were missing something as the solutions seemed too obvious. There is the foundation of a quality case here, we just felt that it needed a bit more depth/some false leads to debunk to make the investigation more interesting.
Gameplay
Overall the flow of gameplay worked well. There was plenty of evidence and more of this becomes available as you progress. It is certainly possible to split components out between a bigger group. We enjoyed the variety of documents to explore and took turns to read them out loud.
We were a little confused at the start, as the objective of the first assignment was to discover who opened the safe in Lennard’s study. Weirdly, before this question there had been no mention of a robbery, just a murder. This was the first of a few inconsistencies throughout our gameplay. For example, one document stated that a last will had been signed and the other stated that it hadn’t. These may appear to be seemingly small mistakes, but the details are more important when forensically investigating a case. I will say that none of these issues broke the game and we were still able to solve the case.
There are some multimedia elements to the game. We had to go online for part of our investigation. The websites were nicely designed but both followed the same formatting which felt a bit lazy. An audio recording also came into play towards the end of the game. I do like audio/visual content in mystery games, partly to break up the reading. This one was well done and we would have liked to have seen more of these elements.
Difficulty & Hints
We didn’t find this case particularly taxing, so I would classify it as easy. It would serve as a good introduction to mystery games. As someone who has played quite a few, I did miss having to dig deep for clues and inconsistencies.
The hint system is accessed via a QR code. It includes a few hints for each assignment, but no solutions.
Value for Money
I do want to touch on the price. It retails at $90 USD, which is eye-wateringly high. Even at its current sale price of $44.95, it is massively overpriced for what you get. The game is available in a range of bundles that bring the price per game down to $17-$20. This feels like a much more reasonable price point.
Verdict
The Van Hout Story
Summary
The Van Hout Story is a fun but ultimately straightforward murder mystery. There is a good selection of evidence to explore, with some online and audio content. It would serve as a fine introduction to sleuthing for new detectives but will be too simple a case for more experienced players.
This was the first case Detective Mystery Masters released, so the quality and complexity of cases may have evolved since then. I do believe that the price of the game is far too high, with comparable experiences available at a much much lower price point.
About Detective Mystery Masters
Detective Mystery Masters is a company based in Lithuania that specialises in murder mystery and detective games. They have released over 10 murder mysteries so far, multiple escape room games and some print-and-play products.
Disclaimer: Detective Mystery Masters kindly sent me a copy of this game in exchange for an honest review. This in no way influences the content of my review.
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