Murder Cubed

My dad, Mo, and sister Heather are currently over from the U.S. and last night I managed to engineer Mo away from the Scrabble board and convince Heather and Sally to play another game. I did think about Stone Age, or Tinner's Trail, or Alhambra, but in the end I bottled it and went for Mord Im Arosa, the game that trivializes both death and morality.

For the uninitiated this is a game of listening - putting my half-deaf dad at a disadvantage - for clues (cubes) as they tumble down through the cardboard floors of the Arosa Hotel. Then it's a simple matter of finding the murder victims, and trying to implicate your fellow players whilst keeping your own name in the clear.

In the first game Mo found himself serially on the wrong floors, like a killer scrabbling unsuccessfully for the exit door whilst smothered in butter. While I made abortive attempts to Clear My Name (and remove my clues from the implicatory Investigation Sheet) Sally and Heather kept their names relatively unsullied:

1 Sally

2 Heather

3 Sam

4 Mo

The game only took 15 minutes so everyone was amenable to another go at it before we all collapsed in a wine-induced stupor. This time - though I don't remember the exact scores - it was more even between 2nd/3rd/4th, but I somehow managed to finish with only one clue on the Investigation Sheet - all my clues throwing in their lot together on the uninvestigated first floor.

1 Sam

2 Heather

3 Mo

4 Sally

Nice to squeeze in a couple of games on a non-GNN week (there is poker on Friday, if anyone's tempted) but a shame that no-one took up the mantle of saying "shloppy investigation" in a faux-Swedish accent from me.

I thought that was pretty much the game's main attraction, but apparently not.