In short

The best detective board game for most groups is Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases, ten cooperative Victorian cases scored against Holmes himself. Pick Chronicles of Crime for an app-driven investigation, MicroMacro: Crime City – Showdown for short map-searching cases, and Junior Detective for children aged 8 and up.

Detective board game — A tabletop game in which players investigate an invented case by choosing leads, questioning witnesses or searching an illustrated scene, then answer questions about who did it and why, usually scored on how efficiently they reached the solution.

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At a glance

GamePlayersPlaying timeAgeDifficultyFormat
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases1–890 min per case14+—Cooperative casebook game, 10 cases
Chronicles of Crime1–460–90 min per case12+—Cooperative, app-driven (QR scanning), tutorial plus 5 cases
MicroMacro: Crime City – Showdown1–415–45 min per case12+Graded per case, from level 2 to 5, plus one extra-hard caseCooperative hidden-clue city map, 16 cases
Junior Detective2–6About 20 min8+—Roll-and-move deduction game, 40 cases

Our picks

Best overall

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases

Ten Victorian cases solved by reading a directory, a map and period newspapers, then scored against the number of leads Holmes needed. It suits one to eight patient readers aged 14 and up. Groups that dislike reading aloud for 90 minutes will struggle.

Best with an app

Chronicles of Crime

A free app reads QR codes on locations, people and evidence, so the same cards tell many stories, and every action costs in-game time. One to four players aged 12 and up, about 60 to 90 minutes per case. You need a charged phone or tablet, and the game cannot be played without it.

Best quick cases

MicroMacro: Crime City – Showdown

Sixteen cases played on one giant black-and-white city map with a magnifying glass, at 15 to 45 minutes each. It works for one to four players aged 12 and up and needs almost no rules. Players who want interrogations and written testimony will find it closer to a search-and-find puzzle.

Best for kids

Junior Detective

Forty short cases in which children question witnesses and read hidden clues with a red lens, a mirror or the warmth of their hand. Two to six players aged 8 and up, about 20 minutes a game. It is a race with dice and take-that cards, so adults looking for deep deduction should pick another box.

Three ways to investigate at the table

Every game on this page asks the same question at the end, who did it and why, but each one makes you work for the answer in a different way. Choosing the way you want to investigate matters more than choosing the theme.

  • Casebook and directory. In Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective you read an opening statement, then pick addresses from a London directory and read the matching paragraph in the casebook. Newspapers dated the day of the case hide extra clues. Nothing tells you which leads matter: you decide where to go.
  • App and cards. Chronicles of Crime puts the case in a free app. You scan the QR code on a location card to travel there, then scan a character or an evidence card to question someone about it. Every action costs time on the clock, and the final score depends partly on how fast you closed the case.
  • Illustrated map. MicroMacro: Crime City – Showdown hands you a single huge black-and-white drawing of a city in which the clues to every case are already drawn. Each case card asks a question, and you answer it by following people across the map with the magnifying glass.

If you want to understand why these all count as deduction games, and how they differ from hidden-role games, our guide on what a deduction game is sets out the families.

The four games side by side

GameHow you investigatePlayersTime per caseCases in the box
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames MurdersCasebook, directory, map, newspapers1 to 8About 90 minutes10
Chronicles of CrimeQR codes read by a free app1 to 460 to 90 minutesTutorial plus 5, more in the app
MicroMacro: Crime City – ShowdownSearching a giant drawn map1 to 415 to 45 minutes16
Junior DetectiveDice, witnesses and decoder tools2 to 6About 20 minutes40

How Consulting Detective scores you against Holmes

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective was first published in the early 1980s, and its German edition won the 1985 Spiel des Jahres. The scoring is what makes it last. When you think you have solved the case, you answer a set of questions, some about the main crime and some about side matters you may have uncovered. Then you compare the number of leads you followed with the number Holmes followed. Each extra lead costs points, so a team that visits every address in London scores badly even with the right answer.

That rule changes how a group plays. You stop and argue before every visit, you reread the newspaper, and you check the map for who lives near whom. It is slower than a modern game, and much of the evening is spent reading aloud, but the reward is the moment Holmes’s own solution shows a shortcut you missed.

Space Cowboys sells the series as several standalone boxes of ten cases each. The Thames Murders & Other Cases holds the original ten, revised and retranslated. Jack the Ripper & West End Adventures, Carlton House & Queen’s Park and The Baker Street Irregulars each add ten more. If you are unsure which box to start with, our guide to choosing a Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective box compares them.

How Chronicles of Crime closes a case

Chronicles of Crime ends differently. When your team thinks it knows the answer, the app asks a series of questions about the case, such as who committed the crime, and you answer by scanning the cards that support each answer. Your score then depends on how many answers are right and on how much in-game time you spent getting there. That makes the clock the game’s version of Holmes’s lead count: the same pressure to think before you act, built into the app.

How to pick between them

  • A group of readers who want the classic: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. Plan on about 90 minutes per case and someone happy to read aloud.
  • A group that likes a screen in the middle of the table: Chronicles of Crime. The app handles the bookkeeping, tells the story on screen, and offers an optional VR mode that lets you look around a crime scene on your phone.
  • Short sessions or mixed ages from 12: MicroMacro: Crime City – Showdown. Cases run 15 to 45 minutes and each case card shows its difficulty, from easy entries up to one extra-hard challenge.
  • Children aged 8 to 12: Junior Detective. The decoder tools turn each witness into a small puzzle, and a game is over in about 20 minutes.
  • Someone who already owns Clue: any of the first three. Clue is a lighter, replayable elimination game, covered in our ranking of the best murder mystery board games.

What about Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game?

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, published by Portal Games in 2018, is the title most people meet when they search for a detective board game. It is a campaign of five cases played in order, for 1 to 5 players aged 16 and up, at 120 to 180 minutes per case, and it uses an online database of suspects, witnesses and court records alongside the cards. We could not confirm a new copy in stock on Amazon.com on October 25, 2026, so it is not ranked here. If you find one, it suits experienced groups who want a long, serious investigation and do not mind a laptop at the table.

What comes in the box

  • Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: a map of London, a directory of addresses, ten casebooks, ten newspapers and a rulebook. There are no pieces to move.
  • Chronicles of Crime: location boards, character cards, evidence cards and item cards, each carrying a QR code, plus a free app that holds the scenarios.
  • MicroMacro: Crime City – Showdown: one city map of about 29.5 by 43.3 inches, 120 case cards, a rulebook and a magnifying glass. The case cards for each investigation form a small deck that walks you forward and backward in time.
  • Junior Detective: a town board, witness cards, suspect boards, hiding tokens, notepads and the decoder tools: a red spyglass, a mirror and heat-reveal cards.

Getting a first case right

Detective board games reward method more than speed. A few habits help every group:

  1. Write down every name, address and time. Cases often turn on a detail mentioned only once.
  2. Agree before each lead. In Consulting Detective and Chronicles of Crime, every visit has a cost. Say out loud what you expect to learn before you go.
  3. Read the newspaper early. Consulting Detective hides clues in articles that seem unrelated.
  4. Separate facts from theories. Keep one list of what you know and another of what you suspect.

For a fuller method, from building a timeline to testing a theory, see our guide on how to think like a detective.

Tone and age ratings

These are crime games, so cases involve thefts, disappearances and murders. They focus on testimony, alibis and evidence rather than on what happened to the victim. In MicroMacro, an ICv2 reviewer notes that the crimes themselves are not shown, only the clues, in a cartoon style he calls surprisingly cheerful for the subject. Consulting Detective is rated 14 and up mostly for the reading load. Chronicles of Crime and MicroMacro list 12 and up, and Junior Detective 8 and up, with cases about finding a culprit and their hiding place in town.

One box, then a series

Each of these games is the entry point to a family of boxes. Consulting Detective has several ten-case volumes, Chronicles of Crime has standalone boxes set in 1400, 1900 and 2400, and MicroMacro: Crime City runs to four standalone maps plus a bonus box. Start with one, and only buy the next once you know your group enjoys that way of investigating. For the rest of this topic, including deduction guides and other formats, visit the detective and deduction games hub.

Key facts

How we selected these games

We started from detective board games sold on Amazon.com and in stock on October 25, 2026, and kept only games in which players investigate a case through leads, testimony, evidence or an illustrated scene and then answer for it. We left out hidden-role games with no investigation, dinner party kits, paper cold case files and Clue, which already sits in our murder mystery board game ranking. Each pick had to state its player count, age rating and playing time, and we checked those figures and the way each game works against publisher pages, rulebook summaries and published reviews. We kept one game per way of investigating, and one box per series. We have not played every game on this page: the descriptions come from publishers' information, reviews and player reports. Affiliate commissions do not decide which games appear or their order.

FAQ

What is the best detective board game for two players?

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective and Chronicles of Crime both work well with two, because the whole table shares one investigation. With two, one person can read testimony while the other keeps notes. MicroMacro: Crime City – Showdown is the lighter choice for a couple with only half an hour.

Can you play a detective board game solo?

Yes. Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, Chronicles of Crime and MicroMacro: Crime City – Showdown all list one player as the minimum, since nothing depends on hidden information between players. Junior Detective needs at least two.

Is Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective hard?

It is demanding rather than complicated. The rules fit on a few pages, but each case asks you to read a long casebook, follow addresses in a directory and connect details from newspapers. Holmes's score is the benchmark, and matching it takes practice.

Can you replay a detective board game?

Story cases are played once, because the solution does not change. A box of Consulting Detective holds ten cases and Chronicles of Crime can download more in its app, so one box lasts many evenings. Junior Detective, with 40 short cases, is the most replayable here.

Sources

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