Mysterium

Mysterium, a game with a supernatural atmosphere

Mr. MacDowell, a gifted astrologer, detected the presence of a supernatural being upon entering his new home in Scotland. He brought together eminent psychics for an extraordinary session. They have seven hours to contact the ghost and investigate his murder. Unfortunately, the ghost is amnesiac and can communicate with the mediums only through visions, which are represented in the game by illustrated cards. Psychics must decipher the images to help the ghost remember the tragedy: Who committed the crime? Where did it take place? What weapon caused the death? The more the psychics cooperate and guess well, the easier it is to catch the right culprit.

Mysterium, a cooperative but asymmetrical game

In Mysterium, players must cooperate together but have different levels of knowledge. One player plays the role of the ghost while all the others play psychics. To solve the crime, the ghost must first remember all the suspects present on the night of the murder. Each psychic will have to find a suspect, a place and a weapon. Each hour, representing a turn of play, the ghost gives the psychics one or more face-up vision cards to help them guess. These maps show dreamlike images giving way to several possible interpretations. Once a psychic has identified the right suspect, he passes to the place and then to the weapon. Mediums also have the opportunity to retrieve foresight tokens by deciding on the assumptions made by other participants.

Mysterium, a game with an uncertain outcome

If one or more psychics fail to identify their suspect, location and weapon before the end of the seventh hour, the ghost has failed and dissipates, leaving the mystery unsolved.

If, on the contrary, the psychics have all succeeded, then the ghost has recovered enough from his memory to identify the culprit.

The psychics then group their suspicious cards, places and weapons on the table and place one number per group. The ghost then selects a group, places the culprit's number face down on the epilogue board and selects three vision cards corresponding to each element of the crime. Players each vote according to the far-sightedness points collected in the first phase.

If the majority of psychics have identified the appropriate suspect, then the killer has been identified and the ghost can rest in peace.