Mr. Jack is a two-player game designed by Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc, published by Hurrican and distributed in the U.S. by Asmodee. In the game, players take on the role of either the inspector, who is trying to deduce the identity of Jack the Ripper (think Clue), or of Mr. Jack, who tries to escape or remain hidden long enough for the inspector to lose. Imagine if Clue was a duel.
Here's a reminder of my scoring categories:
Components - Does the game look nice? Are the bits worth the money? Do they add to the game?
Accessibility - How easy is the game to teach, or to feel like you know what you are doing?
Depth - Does the gameplay allow for deeper strategies, or does the game play itself?
Theme - Does the game give a sense of immersion? Can you imagine the setting described in the game?
Fun - Is the game actually enjoyable? Do you find yourself smiling, laughing, or having some sense of satisfaction when it's over?
Components: Mr. Jack is played on a beautiful hex-based board depicting Whitechapel, with some nice cardboard tokens for lighthouses, sewer lids, and police cordons that move throughout the game. The characters are depicted on the board using wooden tokens with nice-looking stickers that you apply yourself. I would have preferred miniatures, but the tokens do well enough to add to the theme without upping the price of the game. The cards in the game are very thick, hard cardboard that are easily shuffled simply because there are only a few (2 decks of 8 each), and they work well for their purpose. My only complaints are small typos and poor grammar in the manual (though the designers nor the publishers have English as a first language so that's forgivable). One of my favorite things about the game is that really does invoke the feeling of a 1800's chase through London. However, at $42.99, they could have been just a touch nicer, or had the price a bit lower. 4.5/5
Accessibility: Anyone who's ever played Clue is going to understand the basic premise of the game. One of the best aspects of this game's accessibility is that many of the rules are listed symbolically on the board and cards, and they do an outstanding job. Often when we are playing, we say "What's that person do?... Oh, never mind, it's on the card." That being said, the trickiest part with learning the game is remembering all of the special powers of the available characters. Once you've got that down, the game plays very smoothly. As a 2-player game, it's a little easier also, because you don't have several players who need reminders of the rules. The only other annoyance is the ambiguity of Goodley's ability and what constitutes moving "closer" to him in some weird situations. Overall though, the game was very quick to learn for my wife and I both. 4.5/5
Depth: First, let me give a caveat. I rarely play as the inspector, and my wife rarely plays as Mr. Jack. I bought this game because my wife's favorite game is Clue, and now we can play something similar with just the two of us and I get to do something besides deduction (I don't really care for Clue myself). That being said, this game adds a whole new layer beyond the deduction (and whatever you could call the opposite of that for Mr. Jack - misdirection?) because of the importance of the character abilities as well as simply the movement on the board. You see, to narrow down who Mr. Jack actually is, at the end of each round, Mr. Jack must state whether he is seen or unseen, and the characters not matching that description are easily eliminated. Characters are seen if they are by lanterns or near one another. So the movement on the board becomes an integral part of the deduction, and those are two aspects of gameplay in Clue that were completely unrelated (other than being forced to use the room you landed in, but you were rarely able to control that). Although the cards available each turn have a random element, this game overall is one of very little luck, and will often come down to a miscalculation in tactics one way or the other. I've lost many games by forgetting about sewer movement, leaving myself wide open. We have played this game about 20 times and I'm positive we've barely scratched the surface of the strategies available. 5/5
Theme: As I mentioned above in the Components section, this game does a fantastic job of evoking the feel of London in the 1800's. The characters are well-drawn and have appropriate names and abilities that make them come a bit more alive. The premise of the game is that Mr. Jack is impersonating one of the detectives at the scene, and the others must figure out which person is not really who (s)he seems. However, from that point of view having both players move all the characters around doesn't really make sense, but it's a minor quibble. The game isn't as immersive as an epic game like Shadows over Camelot or Cyclades, but it does what it does very well. 4/5
Fun: Though I've played as the inspector a few times, I can't really say much other than how fun it is to play as Mr. Jack, trying to fool your adversary into suspecting someone else. It's great fun indeed, and more fun than I've ever had during a game of Clue. 5/5
Average: 4.2/5
Bias: 4.5/5
This is a great 2-player game, and you don't have to like Clue to like this. If you enjoy the theme, or simply enjoy the feeling of a chess match and wouldn't mind putting a psychological twist on it, then you would probably enjoy Mr. Jack.
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