I’ve been really big into mystery board games lately, specifically the Suspects series. There’s something about being presented with a mystery, knowing that everything that you need to solve it is presented right in front of you. You simply need to know what’s important and where to look. Flashback: Lucy is no exception, offering a contained 4-part story that requires your detective expertise to uncover the truth.
Flashback: Lucy is designed by the trio of Baptiste Derrez, Marc-Antoine Doyon, and Gabriel Durnerin, and lets us see through the eyes of Lucy, who has the rare gift of being able to see through the viewpoints of others using her strange and mysterious powers. By analyzing these viewpoints, you begin to see a greater story being told by the collective points of view of the people involved, allowing you to make educated inferences and guesses to figure out the story being told.
How does the Flashback: Lucy board game stack up against other mystery games? Let’s dive in and find out!
Flashback: Lucy Gameplay and Review
After an incredibly brief introduction in the rulebook, you’re thrown almost immediately into a graphic-novel style production that kicks off the beginning of each chapter. You will generally flip over a single Vision card to start, which will reference other cards that reference other cards – and so on – until eventually you have laid out an entire tableau of cards to analyze. Remember that Lucy’s power shows the perspective of her subjects, giving you multiple angles that show varying levels of detail that will be important to the story.
As you continue revealing cards in the Flashback: Lucy board game, you’ll also be uncovering question cards. This is where the game comes in, as you will be striving to correctly answer each of these questions using the clues and details from the Visions. Additionally, there may be some eye icons on the cards that will allow you to take another card that zooms in on a particular detail that might be helpful in your investigation.
The last bit of important information on the cards comes in the form of rune symbols. Sometimes you’ll be presented with complete rune, which means you can take that card from the deck. However, if it has a cat’s paw on it, then you save that detail for the end of the Chapter. Usually these offer extra background detail and introduce the next Chapter as well.
Other times, you may see only half of a rune symbol. Hopefully you’ll be savvy enough to encounter its missing half, at which point you can put the two together to form the complete symbol, taking the card in the process.
A lot of people are going to want to just tear through the deck, shouting out numbers on the cards and flipping them all over right away to create this massive spread of cards on the table. That’s definitely one way to play the game, although I would say that it might be harder to notice some of the finer details if you do this. Alternatively, consider trying to pick out the entirety of what each card is trying to convey before flipping over more cards; you may find that by narrowing your focus like this, you’ll be able to notice things that might otherwise have been missed.
I rarely found myself in a situation where I couldn’t correctly answer the questions presented, although you have to keep in mind that sometimes the answers are going to be more vague than you think they should be. There are tons of little details that help give things away, even if you initially read a question and ask, “What does this have to do with anything?”
The story itself – without divulging any spoilers – can be a bit dark. The age advisory on the box says 8+, but if some kids get easily creeped out I could see how that might be a little bit young for them. Overall, the subject matter isn’t necessarily carefree, and there are ghosts, runic symbols, and even a ouija board at play here. Keep that in mind before just assuming that this is solely presented as a kids’ game.
Another feature of the game that I really liked was that there are little slots cut out within the rulebook that allow you to ‘pin’ cards to the interior. This is really nice for keeping track of those cards and information that persist through the overarching story, and helps make you feel like you’re actually cataloguing and documenting important bits of the investigation as you go along.
There’s also an implementation on the components that was completely unexpected to me that is revealed in Chapter 2. Again, I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but I will say that even though it didn’t work as well as I think it should have, it was still a really clever component that earns my applause. I wouldn’t be surprised to see similar things in the board game industry in the future to help add some variety to the cards.
Overall, the story in the Flashback: Lucy board game was one that kept me engaged and can be played through very quickly. I’d estimate that you could get through all 4 Chapters in about 2 hours, give or take, and still feel fulfilled in the total experience. Keep in mind that once you’ve played through this once, you really aren’t going to be playing through it again, at least not anytime soon lest you simply remember all of the answers. In all actuality, this is a one-time play, so I’d recommend trying to play through all of the Chapters with your group all at once.
Flashback Lucy: Uncovering the Truth
The Flashback: Lucy board game offers some exceptional storytelling through multiple viewpoints that will keep you invested in the overarching story. It’s a healthy balance between requiring deductive reasoning and drawing likely conclusions based on what you see, and I’m really looking forward to playing other games in the Flashback series. And honestly, when it comes to replayability, so many games these days are played during their time in the limelight and then gather dust on the shelf, so please don’t let that deter you from picking this one up. The ghostly juice is worth the squeeze.
You can find the Flashback: Lucy board game in the USA through Hachette Boardgames, or try to find it at your FLGS!
Disclaimer: Nerds on Earth was provided a copy of Flashback: Lucy from Hachette Boardgames in exchange for an honest review.
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