Paranormal Detectives

About this board game

Paranormal Detectives is a deduction party game for 2–6 players, with games lasting about 50 minutes. One player becomes a Ghost, while the other players take the roles of Paranormal Detectives investigating the victim’s death.

The Ghost receives a story card containing the full details of the murder. The Detectives must discover who the killer was, where the crime happened, the motive, how the victim died, and what weapon was used. To uncover the truth, they ask the Ghost open questions and use unusual paranormal abilities to receive answers.

Each Detective has an asymmetrical, pre-constructed set of interaction cards, along with an investigation sheet and player screen. On a turn, a Detective asks any open question and plays one interaction card, determining how the Ghost may respond. The Ghost might arrange a hangman’s knot, select tarot cards, create a word puzzle on a talking board, draw while holding a Detective’s hand, or use one of the other available methods.

• Explore a murder mystery through open-ended questions.
• Use nine different paranormal interactions to communicate with the Ghost.
• Make up to two attempts to identify the complete story.
• Compete individually, or use the fully cooperative variant included in the rulebook.

Most interactions provide information to all Detectives, so every question can help shape the investigation. The flexible questions and varied communication methods create plenty of room for creative reasoning from both sides.

The game ends when a Detective correctly identifies every detail, allowing that player and the Ghost to win together. If all Detectives run out of interaction cards first, the player who has correctly identified the most information becomes the sole winner. In Paranormal Detectives, every strange answer could be the clue that reveals the truth.