I love a good whodunit movie or book. I also like deductive board games with that whodunit element because those really help scratch that itch, like Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective series, Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, and Mr. Jack. These games work because you’re working through clues to find the guilty party. I enjoy other deductive board games with elements like hidden traitor or puzzle solving, but those scratch that whodunit itch a little less for me.

That brings us to today’s review, Alibis from Allplay Games. This cooperative deduction, word association game where players take turns providing one-word clues, and other players try to guess which suspects have alibis and which is the real culprit. Alibis is for 2-6 players and takes about 20 minutes.

Game Overview:

Alibis is played over 3 rounds, and each round includes 3 phases:

You must rid yourself of heat to score well.

1. Create Alibis: players will look at their two suspects and write a one-word clue on their alibi tile to connect the 2 suspects. Any proper nouns, abbreviations, or acronyms are allowed, but the word must relate to the meaning and not sound, length, spelling, or suspect artwork or position.

2. Share and Guess: starting with the first player, they will reveal their alibi tile, and each player will try and guess which suspect this word connects to by secretly writing the symbol of that alibi tile next to the suspect on their deduction board. Play will pass to the next player until everyone has taken a turn, and all players by the end of the phase write P on the suspect that they think is the perpetrator on the perpetrator board.

3. Reveal and Score: once all players have completed their guesses, they will reveal connected suspects and the perpetrator. If at least 1 player guessed your suspects, remove 1 heat (total) and remove 3 heat for each player who successfully guessed the perpetrator.

Then begin the next round. After round 3, the game ends, or if all heat is removed and players then reference the Heat Left chart to see how they scored.

A 4-player game is underway which will only use 9 of the 13 total supervillain suspects to find alibis for.

Game Experience:

Alibis is a very easy game to learn, teach, and master, making this one very fast to the table for new or existing players. The setup is straightforward and varies by player count, so it can start and play fast as well. I do prefer Alibis’ player count at 4 and above because when you only 2-3 players will receive only 2 Alibi cards, which can make your brain hurt trying to come up with two different one-word connections.

I made my guesses and lets hope I got them right.

It’s become apparent to me that, like other Allplay games I own, such as Sail or Lure, Alibis has great production values. It has fabulous art design for each of the supervillains that appear on the suspect boards, suspect cards, and deduction board. The dry-erase alibi tiles and deduction boards are made well, and dual-sided sided making these heavily interactive components able to stand the test of time. Overall, everything about this game looks great, and it’s made well.

What I love most about Alibis is that this is a cooperative word association game. Now, it’s light on deduction and has a little whodunit, but it’s a great family and party game, nonetheless. It’s a fun and challenging game because your one-word connection alibi needs to work with your two suspects, and you must make sure that your alibi cannot be linked to other suspect words. So, you need to choose a solid word to not trip up your fellow players and get rid of those dreaded heat tokens.

I must think of a one-word alibi linking my suspects that have the words “pyramid” and “clean”. Ok?!

Now, where I think Alibi is weak is its theme. The theme is that players are trying to give one-word alibis to the innocent supervillains while trying to find the actual perpetrator. You really don’t get that sense when you’re playing. You’re trying to match the suspect words to remove heat tokens and, through a process of elimination, identify the perpetrator to again remove heat tokens. So, Alibis is real light on its intended deduction theme and, unfortunately, weak on the whodunit element for me.

Honestly, the best part of Alibis is that it’s a social game. You’re constantly chatting about between rounds, the Reveal and Score phase, and after about the connections you got or missed, and especially the “what did you mean?!” chats. But if you must coerce someone to play, then play something else because it will probably lessen the experience if they’re not into it, especially since this is a cooperative game. Play with those who are willing and hopefully excited to, and it should be a good time.

Final Thoughts:

Alibis does not scratch that whodunnit itch, but it’s a fast-playing and easy game to learn and master. It has excellent production values and a fun word-association game with a cooperative goal that all players are trying to achieve by removing heat. Alibis has a weak theme, and I would caution players who are looking for a more thematic experience from getting this one.

Final Score: 4 Stars – this is an excellent and fun cooperative word association game with light deduction elements.

Hits:
• Easy to learn and fast to the table
• Great production values
• Cooperative goal

Misses:
• Weak theme
• Need the “right” players to play