Lady Alice

About this board game

Lady Alice is a deduction and bluffing game for 3–5 players, played in around 30 minutes. As the Baker Street Kids under Sherlock Holmes’s tutelage, you must uncover who kidnapped Henry Morton Stanley, where and when it happened, and which object was stolen.

At the start, Holmes gives each player secret information about one category of the case. On your turn, voice a complete suspicion by naming a possible culprit, place, time, and object. Everyone secretly indicates whether they hold evidence for one of the named details, after which the answers are shuffled and revealed to hide who responded in which way.

• Make suspicions using eight possibilities in each category.
• Use deduction tokens to mark and evaluate clues.
• Attempt an accusation when you think you have identified the full solution.

If all four parts of a suspicion are false, those guesses are covered on the board with Holmes’s business cards. Otherwise, players must interpret how many details were correct and work out which ones they might be. The deduction round then lets players place a token, pass, or make an accusation.

Each player has tokens worth 0, 1, or 2 points. Tokens are placed face-down beside clues, with hidden tokens revealed as new ones are added. A successful accusation solves the case, but solving it does not automatically win: players score their tokens, with bonuses for covering every piece of evidence or making a correct suspicion or accusation.

False accusations carry a cost, removing the accuser’s tokens, while tokens on incorrect clues are also removed. In Lady Alice, careful reasoning, concealed information, and calculated bluffing all matter as players compete to earn the highest score.