Tabletop games
Mysterium
LibelludOleksandr Nevskiy, Oleg Sidorenko2015
- players
- 2–7
- minutes
- 45
- years
- 10+
In the box
Illustrated Vision cards · Character, Location and Item cards · 1 ghost screen and 1 sand timer · Psychic pawns and Clairvoyance tokens · 1 clock
Official rules (PDF, publisher's site)
Box details
- Designers
- Oleksandr Nevskiy, Oleg Sidorenko
- Artwork
- Igor Burlakov, Xavier Collette
- Publisher
- Libellud
- Mechanics
- CooperativeCommunication LimitsDeductionMatchingVoting
- Expansions
- Mysterium: Hidden Signs · 2016
- Mysterium: Secrets & Lies · 2017
Where to buy it
Near you and online
In a shop
Within 50 km.
Online
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The basics
A cooperative game: one player is the ghost, the others are psychics who must each find a character, a location and an object, then identify the real culprit together. Each hour, the ghost silently sends vision cards to each psychic, who places their token on the card they think is meant, while the others bet on their choices. If everyone finds their set before the end of the seventh hour, a shared vision points to the culprit: the team wins if the majority votes right, otherwise everyone loses.
The rules, step by step
Setup
1 ghost, Psychics, 1 secret set per psychic
- One player is the ghost, the others are the psychics.
- Lay out the characters, locations and objects; the ghost secretly assigns a set of three to each psychic.
- Set the difficulty: the number of cards on display and of vision cards in the ghost's hand.
How to play
7 hours, 7 turns, Visions, no talking, The others bet
- The game lasts seven hours, that is seven turns.
- Each hour, the ghost sends each psychic one or more vision cards, without ever speaking.
- Each psychic places their token on the card they think is meant. The others bet with their clairvoyance tokens.
- The ghost reveals who is right: a psychic who guessed correctly moves on to the next stage (character, then location, then object).
Scoring
Correct bets, Clairvoyance track
- Correct bets move you up the clairvoyance track, which decides how many cards of the final vision each player will see.
End of the game
Sets before 7th hour, Final vote, Correct majority wins
- If every psychic has found their set before the end of the seventh hour, the game moves on to the shared vision: the ghost points to the real culprit with three cards, and the psychics vote.
- The team wins if the majority votes for the right set; otherwise, or if time runs out, everyone loses.
Going further
Frequently asked questions · In the same family
Frequently asked questions
Can the ghost react to the discussions?
No: the ghost does not speak and makes no signs. Only the vision cards communicate, and that is the whole point of the game.