I love a good detective game! With so many crime novel reads under my belt, it’s thrilling to get the chance to put my knowledge to the test and crack some cases myself! 

So when Micro Macro Crime City showed up on our doorstep, I couldn’t have been more excited to get it to the table. What I found inside was a unique twist on my favorite genre and I think you’re really going to like it, too!

How Do You Play Micro Macro Crime City?

To understand how to play Micro Macro Crime City (Micro Macro) all you have to do is think about how to play Where’s Waldo and then imagine that instead of just finding Waldo once on the page, you’re trying to figure out what he’s been up to all day and retrace his steps.

Micro Macro comes with a large illustrated city map, a magnifying glass, and 16 cases for players to solve. Each case has a number of cards, each with a different question you the detectives have to be able to answer such as “Where is the murder weapon” or “where did the victim live?” Or “How did the killer flee?”

Players must use the map to locate the suspects and victims on the map to answer the questions on the cards. Characters appear multiple times on the map, going about their daily lives until they fell into trouble. You’ll retrace their steps or follow leads to discover tidbits about their day to answer the questions of the case. 

It’s really as simple as that!

What Do We Think?

I don’t want to bury the lead here, we had a complete blast playing Micro Macro! I want more! 

This is a perfect game to play for a relaxed date night together. You can work through a few cases in a single sitting easily or binge the whole game one night like a Netflix show! 

The whole game is played out on the giant (and I do mean giant) map.

What is so cool about this is that as you play, you start to remember where things were, people that you noticed looking a bit shady before while solving a case are them brought up in a different case later on! 

There’s not set order to solve the cases in, either. They list a general starting order and I agree to start with the Top Hat as your first case as suggested in the book, but after that, choose whichever sounds most interesting to you and go for it! There is a difficulty marker on the front of each case, but we didn’t really notice any particular one being more hard than another. Some will have more questions to answer but that’s about it. 

We recommend playing the advanced version after one or two cases. In the advanced version, you simply read the start card and then try to solve the case without using any of the subsequent cards. Once you think you have the case solved, then you use the cards to see if you can answer all the questions.

This is the best way to play in our opinion – it both ratchets up the difficulty and makes the discoveries more exciting. You can always choose to read a card to help direct your search if you get lost. 

Tips for Playing

-Make sure you have good lighting! The drawings are small and when you are all crowding over the map you’ll need a lot of light to see. 

-Grab a real magnifying glass! The magnifying glass they include isn’t the best so if you have a real one lying around, you’ll want to grab it! Or use your phone’s zoom like we did!

-Double check then TRIPLE CHECK your table to make sure it is squeaky clean and dry. You’ll be laying the paper map down on it and if you miss a water spot, it will soak that sucker up right before your eyes. (Go for the triple check – learn from my mistakes.)

Is a Game About Murder a Good Choice for Families?

This is my one, very large, moment of pause for anyone who read the above and thought, “Oh! This would be so fun to play as a family!” I thought the same too! The characters are cartoon doodles after all — how bad could the game be? 

The answer? It’s complicated. 

The game says 8+ and as parents, we decided that this was not appropriate for our children. Which we are bummed about, because they’d love it. Our kids are all obsessed with hidden picture books (these Highlights books are the absolute best) and they’d have gone bananas for this game. 

The theme of the game is murder and yes, the theme is very strongly represented. There are a bunch of doodles that depict characters engaged in all sorts of awful things. Some of the themes may be triggering for audiences young or old. Murder, suicide, adultery — violence of all types is present on the map.

See images below for examples:

While the scenes aren’t gory per say, they do present a whole host of situations we’d rather not discuss and have live in their heads. This is our personal decision as a family and you’re free to make a different call for yours, but I’d feel awful if you were caught of guard by this.

Because as you read above, I love this game. 

So consider this my official request of designer Johannes Sich to make a kid friendly version. How about some cases about stolen ice creams or runaway zoo animals and we have to figure out who let them out of the cages! Call me! We can come up with something! 

Easily Share with Friends

Micro Macro is easily shared with friends! You don’t really need to teach this game, you just kind of start playing. That’s my favorite kind of game to have on hand for when friends come over. Obviously once you’ve played through all 16 cases you won’t be able to play them again — you already know how to solve them! But the game itself is still perfectly intact making this an excellent choice to loan out as well. 

Expanded World

You’ll definitely want to make sure that they bring the game back though because word on the street is that this is only just one part of the crime city map. That’s right, in the future there could be expansions where more giant maps are added to this one making an even bigger city filled with even more crime cases to solve. 

I am ready for it!

Summary

We give two thumbs way up for Micro Macro Crime City! This is some of the most fun we’ve had playing a game in a while. It’s light, (though the subject is not) relaxed, and just a unique experience to enjoy alone, as a date, or with friends. I can’t think of another game like this. While the subject matter is something that may not be a great fit for all players, I find the game is done tactfully enough that most any teen or adult will have a blast playing this.

If you want to try out a case for yourself, you can do so online! 

Bring home a copy of Micro Macro Crime City for your home here!
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A special thank you to our friends at Pegasus Spiele for sending us a copy of Micro Macro Crime City for review. As always our thoughts and opinions are our own.

Game Info:
Title: Micro Macro Crime City
1-4 players Ages 8+ (mature themes)
Designer: Johannes Sich
Publisher: Pegasus Spiele

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