Unsolved Case Files:Jane Doe review — Plain Jane

By Nick Dubs

Posted on May 3, 2024

There’s a ritual I undergo before I play a mystery game. You need the proper weather- some sort of gloom, a reason you’re stuck inside. Brew your heated caffeinated beverage of choice, clear off your coffee table, grab some paper to take notes on, and you’re ready. I’ll try not to be too rough on Unsolved, but after doing all that a couple weeks ago, it provided a mostly competent but underwhelming afternoon to me and my wife.

Unsolved: Jane Doe has you solving a fictional 90’s cold case of a charred corpse discovered after a fire on an island resort rehab outside of LA that pandered to the rich and famous. The titular case file contains a suspect dossier on each of the major players, several relevant missing persons reports, a picture envelope with some headshots, a few other pictures and a magnifier, and a few other loose sheets. It attempts to organize itself into a three-act structure, with three successive questions the game asks its players: how did Jane Doe get to the island, who is Jane Doe, and who is the murderer? Each of which open an envelope with clues to the next or the murderer’s confession, which is the right way to approach this. The problems with that are that a questionable production decision makes the first question a shoo-in and the second question is extremely dependent upon players’ outside knowledge. That question worked out fine for me as a player but left a bad taste in my mouth as a reviewer. I knew the right answer, so for the sake of thoroughness, I checked the hint, and it all but lit up the answer with flashing neon lights. I personally prefer starting with obscure hints and escalating, but the binary “get it or don’t” nature of the mysteries here meant they kinda had to go hard with the hints. By the time we got to the finale, there was no workup to an actual suspect in the first two acts’ envelopes so while we figured it out, we were left just looking at each other saying okay? Yay us? There are other pitfalls, like multiple instances of what I’d assume is unintentional hilarity in the horrible poem Fire King, and the interrogation where the detective shouts “I think you’re the fire king!” Which took us out of the game a bit, but nothing as bad as the sheer volume of stuff in this box that goes totally unused due to how it plays out.

Nick Dubs

Tabletop Editor | [email protected]

Nick grew up reading fantasy novels and board game rules for fun, so he accepted he was a dork at an early age. When he's not busy researching the intricacies of a hobby he'll never pick up, Nick can be caught attempting to either cook an edible meal or befriend local crows.

55

Mediocre