Archive for the 'Letters From Whitechapel' Category

Letters From Whitechapel is a game about Jack The Ripper.  If you’ve played Scotland Yard, then you’ll get a good idea about it if I say it’s like an advanced Scotland Yard; however, in case you haven’t, I’ll review this assuming no previous knowledge of Scotland Yard.

One player is Jack the Ripper who needs to perform a series of murders and the other players are the police trying to catch him before he has completed his grizzly activities and escaped.  Jack takes turns moving invisibly around the board (which shows many connected, numbered spaces) whilst the other players take turns working together as the police to move around and catch him.  The police do have some clues though – first, they know where the murder takes place so they know Jack’s starting point; second, Jack must say if he’s moving normally or using one of his special moves each turn; and, third, the police can detect if Jack has been through a space they investigate (next to their current position) so they can detect his trail.  Each night, Jack must get back to his hideout – the location of which is unknown to the police – before each night ends. Read the rest of this entry »

I like Scotland Yard and think it’s a great game for both new and experienced players so Letters From Whitechapel is very intriguing as it sounds like Scotland Yard with more meat.

One player is Jack the Ripper who needs to perform a series of murders and the other players are the police trying to catch him before he has completed his grizzly activities and escaped.  As with Scotland Yard, Jack moves invisibly on the board so the police need to find his trail and get ahead of Jack.  The core element of the game is trying to read the other opponent(s) and predict where they will go next.

First, Jack places tokens representing his targets on the special murder sites but some of them are bluffs.  Next, the police place their men but some of these are bluffs.  The targets are then revealed (bluffs are removed) and Jack can choose to strike immediately or wait; if he waits, the targets wander the streets but Jack gets to reveal police tokens to find and remove police bluffs.  However, Jack can only wait so long and must strike soon.  As soon as he murders a victim, the clock is running – he starts at the murder location and must make it back to his hideout before dawn (15 turns) and without getting caught by the police who start moving as soon as the murder is announced.  An extra twist is that Jack returns to the same hideout after each murder so the police can start to deducting this location as the game progresses. Read the rest of this entry »