Scotland Yard (game)
| Scotland Yard | |
|---|---|
 Game board (bottom right movement cards) |
|
| Game data | |
| author | Author group |
| graphic | E. Felix Harnickell, (2013) |
| publishing company |
Ravensburger (1983, 1996, 2003, 2013), Milton Bradley (1985), and others. a. |
| Publishing year | 1983, 1985, 1996, 2003 |
| Art | Cooperation game |
| Teammates | 2 to 6 |
| Duration | 45 minutes |
| Age | from 8 years
|
| Awards | |
|
|
Scotland Yard is a board game with strategic and cooperative elements for two to six players. It was originally published by Ravensburger Verlag without naming the authors ; in the meantime the group of authors Werner Schlegel, Dorothy Garrels, Fritz Ifland, Manfred Burggraf, Werner Scheerer and Wolf Hoermann has been confirmed. In 1983 Scotland Yard was named Game of the Year . A million copies had been sold by 1985. There were new editions of Ravensburger with new graphics in 1996, 2003 and 2013. In 2013, there were also major changes in the course of the game and for the first time a game variant for two players was published. By 2003, 4 million games had been sold. Milton Bradley Company published an English edition in 1985.
Game objective
A player plays the volatile criminals Mister X . The other players take on the role of detectives. The number of moves is set to a maximum of 24 from the outset. The goal of Mister X is to move around the board in such a way that he doesn't get caught by the detectives. The aim of the other players, however, is to catch Mister X during these 24 moves, i.e. to place one of their pawns on the space on which Mister X is currently located, or to surround him so that he cannot make another move can.
Game flow
The game mechanism is unusual in that Mister X plays for himself, while the other players cooperate as detectives and must discuss or otherwise coordinate their strategy for a successful game. The game board shows the city map of central London with taxi , bus , subway and ferry connections with associated stations, on which the detectives move with their playing figures. Movement on the game board is regulated by the fact that each player only has a limited number of tickets for each mode of transport. Mister X has only a small number of these tickets right from the start, but receives the tickets used by the detectives, so that his ticket supply is usually unlimited in practice. Mister X only notes his moves for himself and tells the other players the means of transport used, but has to show himself to the detectives at set intervals, which gives them the chance to re-coordinate the pursuit.
In 2013, for the 30th anniversary of the game, a new edition was released for the first time with numerous changes in the game sequence: The starting lines for the detectives and Mister X are now drawn from separate stacks of cards. At the beginning Mister X does not get any more tickets, but takes them directly from the general supply and is therefore no longer dependent on the tickets used by the detectives. If there are fewer than 4 players on the side of the detectives, the missing number of players is replaced by so-called "bobbies". These figures can be moved by all detectives in the course of the game and, like Mister X, have unlimited access to the tickets. As a result, these figures can be moved freely until the end of the game, in contrast to the detectives, who are increasingly restricted in their movement options due to the surrender of their limited ticket stocks. The game ends after 22 rounds.
In 2013, a game variant for two players was published for the first time: one player takes on Mister X and another player takes on 2 detectives and 2 bobbies. For the 2 detectives, the player receives a predetermined number of tickets that he can use variably for both characters. Otherwise, the same rules apply as for the multiplayer setting.
strategy
It has turned out to be sensible for Mister X to be on a subway station at the time of his appearance, so that he can make a clear change of location in the first following hidden play. It is particularly advantageous to combine this tactic with a 2-ticket, so that Mister X can continue with his concealed move. This makes the area to be covered by the detectives particularly large. Another tactic is to use the so-called Black Ticket , which can be used for any means of transport , exactly in the move in which Mister X could be on a subway station according to the detectives' knowledge . The detectives then cannot know whether Mister X has changed his location decisively using the subway or not. This also applies to the ferry landing stages, which can only be used with Black Ticket and only by Mister X.
In addition, driving exclusively with Taxis allows Mister X to irritate his opponents and to move around in circles unnoticed - albeit in small steps, since every field has a taxi connection.
Inaccuracies in the city map
Scotland Yard works with a simplified road network from London, which accordingly contains some inaccuracies, for example in the distances between individual known and drawn buildings such as between Madame Tussauds and King's Cross station . The city map also contains an error: The Hungerford Bridge at Charing Cross station can be crossed in the game by taxi, but the original is only a railway and pedestrian bridge.
Game variants
The concept of Scotland Yard was taken up in the following years in the game The Fury of Dracula , which was published in 1987 by Games Workshop Ltd. was published and in 2005 in a second and in 2015 in a third, each clearly revised version. In 1999, the game variant NY Chase appeared , which uses the city map of New York instead of London . In the meantime, other, unofficial city maps are also circulating, for example of Bern and Potsdam.
Since 2008 there has been a variant for Nintendo DS in which you can play in five cities, each with three different levels of difficulty. The game in London runs as known from the board game. In Berlin, the detectives also have a roadblock at their disposal, and there are also pedestrian zones as a further "means of transport" that every participant can use with any ticket. In Paris the detectives have two roadblocks, the same in Amsterdam, where there are bicycles instead of taxis and the train instead of the subway. It will be much more difficult for Mr. X in New York, where the detectives have three roadblocks at their disposal and can fall back on a shared ticket pool. Three helicopter flights (each designed as a double pull) bring a distant detective to the center of the action. Mr. X only has a limited number of tickets in New York (see NY Chase ).
In 2009 a sequel to the game was released under the title Mister X - Escape through Europe . The hunt here has been extended to all of Europe, and the game also has significantly more tactical elements that Mister X and the agents can use.
In 2011 the Swiss version appeared: Scotland Yard - Escape through Switzerland . The pursuit takes place by train, postbus or plane. In addition, Mister X can cause avalanches or escape on skis.
In 2012 Ravensburger Digital GmbH published Scotland Yard as a universal app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad in the App Store.
In 2012 Ravensburger published a compact travel version of the original game under the name Mister X - Escape through London . The author is Gunter Baars, the number of players is limited to four. At the start of the game, the reduced game board is put together from four small cardboard pieces that interlock like puzzle pieces, which enables a cardboard size that corresponds to a typical travel game. There are also modified rules of the game. The most important is that Mister X is usually always visible (exception: when playing the Black Ticket). This eliminates the need for a ticket board and noting Mister X's trains. There are also no “2x” cards for him. This makes it much more difficult for Mister X to escape the detectives, even though the game only runs eight turns. Usually he is caught. However, a different winning rule also applies here: each player in turn plays the role of Mister X once, and the winner is the one who has lasted the most rounds of a sub-game until he was caught. The game even gets a little more competitive character than the original. Due to the simplified way of playing and the elimination of the move notation, children who cannot write yet or are overwhelmed with imagining the (possible) moves without a visible Mister X figure can also play in this variant. In 2014 this game was reissued under the title Scotland Yard - The Hunt for Mister X. In 2018, under the title Scotland Yard Duell - The Hunt for Mister X, a significantly reduced new edition of this game for only two to three players appeared. While the original travel variant contains 28 tickets and 113 travel destinations, the duel variant has shortened this to 17 tickets and 83 travel destinations. The game plan itself also shows only a central section of the original city map of London. In addition, compared to the original edition, the numbering of the travel destinations on the game plan has been partially reorganized, and in some cases individual numbers have simply been left out, creating gaps in the sequence of the numbering of the travel destinations. While the characters were graphically realigned and now as simple plastic discs with a "D" for detective and "X" for "Mr. X ”are available, no changes have been made to the rest of the design of the game elements or to the game itself.
In 2013 Scotland Yard Masters was published. In addition to the same rule changes as in the newly published basic version from 2013, the game is expanded in the Masters version with augmented reality elements. A free Scotland Yard app gives detectives a choice of four additional special offers on a smartphone or tablet , which they can use to search for Mister X on the game plan. Mister X, on the other hand, gets additional destinations during the course of the game, of which he has to reach at least one, otherwise he loses the game, even if the detectives couldn't catch him until the end. However, if Mister X reaches two destinations, he wins immediately. The app replaces the ticket board from the basic game. In addition to the Black Tickets and double train tickets, Mister X in the Masters Edition will receive the helicopter tickets already known from NY Chase , which further extends its radius of action.
In 2015, Ravensburger launched Scotland Yard Junior, a new and at the same time greatly simplified game variant specifically for children aged six and over. As in Mister X - Escape through London , with this variant Mister X is visible to every player at all times, accordingly the ticket board and the noting of the trains of Mister X are also omitted here. In contrast to the previous variants, however, Mister X takes a ticket face down in his hand while the other players try to guess his move and reposition their detectives on the board accordingly. If at the end of a turn a detective shares a space with Mister X, the detectives receive one point, otherwise Mister X receives one point. The detectives win if they have scored three points and thus caught Mister X three times, Mister X needs nine points to win.
In 2017, Ravensburger brought out a pure card game variant of the classic game for the first time based on the Scotland Yard game principle with Scotland Yard - Das Kartenspiel . The course of the game is divided into two main phases: After each player has first drawn eight cards face down from a limited pool of cards, the players must first find out which of them has the Mr. X card. Each player in his turn first draws a card from the card pool and then has to discard one of his hand cards between these numbers after a sequence of numbers laid out at the beginning. For this purpose, each card has a defined number between 1 and 90 printed on it, in addition to the well-known bus, taxi, subway and black ticket symbols. If a player cannot display a card, one card is discarded from the hand and three new cards from the limited pool of cards are laid out, which form a new sequence of numbers. If the other player can successfully discard a card, certain events are subsequently triggered, from the possibility of drawing cards from the pool of cards to the fact that a player has to show his entire hand of cards to the respective player. As soon as it is known which player is Mr. X, the detectives try to take his cards away from him, which gradually restricts his ability to move in the form of cards to be discarded. If a detective pulls the Mr. X card from his hand as part of a triggered action, Mr. X automatically loses and the game is over. Mr. X, however, wins if either no detective has a card in his hand or the last card has been drawn from the card pool.
Scotland Yard as a terrain game
Scotland Yard is also played in "real terrain". According to the BUND , which wants to use the game to popularize public transport as an alternative to the car, the first Scotland Yard terrain game took place in 1992. Cities with a sufficiently large public transport network come into question. Several detectives or groups of detective try to catch a Mister X (or a Mister X group), with all groups traveling by underground, suburban train and bus. According to certain rules, Mister X regularly passes on his position by telephone either directly to the pursuers or to a control center. There are different game variants that differ in the organization (with or without headquarters), the technology used (with or without GPS ) and the rules for communication, and are adapted to the conditions of the local public transport network in the respective city. The games were played in Dresden (organized by the student council of the Faculty of Transport Sciences at the TU Dresden ), Vienna (organized by Wiener Linien ), and in Stuttgart (organized by the AStA of the University of Stuttgart ). as well as repeated times in Munich . Under the project name Scotland Yard - to go! A working group at the University of Bonn has been developing a mobile game application for GPS-enabled cell phones since 2007, which was tested in cooperation with Telekom in 2009 in Berlin. In 2010, Deutsche Telekom developed a Scotland Yard version as an iPhone app and Android app under the name Mister X Mobile .
Radio plays and books
 |
|
|---|---|
| Radio play from Germany | |
| Year of production | 1986-1989 |
| publication | 1986, 2000, 2011 |
| genre | Youth thriller |
| consequences | 29 of 60 min |
| production | Hans-Joachim Herwald |
| Publisher / label | carousel |
| Contributors | |
| author | Wolfgang Pauls |
| Director | Lothar Zibell , Hans-Joachim Herwald |
| music | Alexander Ester |
| speaker | |
|
|
Ravensburger Verlag, together with Karussell, also brought out a radio play series entitled Scotland Yard , based on the board game. In this series, triplets Betty, Benny and Buck Buff hunt down criminals in the streets of London. To do this, they use a coded city map similar to the one in the game. They pursue the wanted, whom they refer to as Mr. X, by taxi, bus and subway. The series had 29 episodes and was produced from 1986 to 1989. The episodes 1-12 were released again in 2000 on CD and MC. In 2011 the first episodes were remastered and republished, but only as MP3 downloads.
consequences
- Episode 1: The wax figure gangsters
- Episode 2: The Voice from the Underground
- Episode 3: Sharp shots at James Bond
- Episode 4: Deadly Tea
- Episode 5: Dead rats in the sewer
- Episode 6: blood revenge
- Episode 7: The Diamond Peas
- Episode 8: The dog man from Hyde Park
- Episode 9: The Crown Jewel Coup
- Episode 10: The Cannon Villa
- Episode 11: Alarm in the airport
- Episode 12: Stars in danger
- Episode 13: The Westminster Million
- Episode 14: Driving license with death threat
- Episode 15: The City Eagle Owl
- Episode 16: The self-service poison
- Episode 17: Rice for Manila
- Episode 18: In the leopard tunnel
- Episode 19: False Ghosts
- Episode 20: Computer Games
- Episode 21: In the Zapfenstreich tower
- Episode 22: The Aliens
- Episode 23: The Escape
- Episode 24: Terror in the nuclear power plant
- Episode 25: The Tower Ravens
- Episode 26: Dangerous Game
- Episode 27: The Walkman Trio
- Episode 28: The big hit
- Episode 29: Tooth for Tooth
Furthermore, some episodes were also published in book form, the author of which is Wolfgang Pauls . The books also contain stories that do not exist as radio play versions:
- Volume 1: The Voice from the Underground / Hot Goods
- Volume 2: The Cannon Villa / Help, the helpers are coming!
- Volume 3: Rice for Manila / The Bagpipe Thieves
- Volume 4: The Aliens / The Fall of Crows' Foot
- Volume 5: Dead rats in the sewer / Dangerous game
- Volume 6: Deadly Tea / The Great Throwing
- Volume 7: The Dog Man from Hyde Park / The Walkman Trio
literature
- Erwin Glonnegger : The game book: board and placement games from all over the world; Origin, rules and history . Uehlfeld: Drei-Magier-Verlag, 1999. ISBN 3-9806792-0-9 .
Web links
- Scotland Yard (1983) in the Luding games database
- Scotland Yard (2003) in the Luding games database
- Scotland Yard in the game database BoardGameGeek (English)
- Schedule for the game Scotland Yard in Potsdam
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Scotland Yard celebrates 25 years at Game of the Year , accessed May 26, 2017
- ^ Scotland Yard on iTunes
- ↑ Scotland Yard Duel: Happy Meal Edition. Retrieved November 5, 2018 .
- ↑ Review of Scotland Yard Junior on reich-der-spiele.de, accessed on January 7, 2016.
- ↑ Scotland Yard Card Game - Inka Markus Brand Ravensburger 2017 - Brettspielblog.net. Retrieved February 24, 2017 .
- ↑ "Scotland Yard" in buses and trains (PDF file; 378 kB) at BUND Schleswig-Holstein.
- ↑ FSR Verkehr: The Hunt for Mr. X ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Georg Renner: "The Hunt for Mr. X": The City as a Game Board ( Memento from October 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) . In: “Die Presse” from March 8, 2009.
- ^ Scotland Yard live . Second Scotland Yard tour of the UStA / AStA on November 12, 2009
- ↑ Real Life Scotland Yard on the website of the Mathematics-Physics-Informatics student body at the Technical University of Munich
- ↑ Scotland Yard on the website of the Kolping Youth Munich (2010)
- ↑ Scotland Yard 2017 on the website of the Munich section of the German Alpine Club
- ↑ Scotland Yard live on the website of the University of Applied Sciences Munich (2018)
- ↑ Adaptive Mobile Gaming - Scotland Yard - to go! ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Software Architecture and Middleware (SAM), Institute for Computer Science III - University of Bonn, Prof. Dr. Armin B. Cremers.
- ↑ Mister X manages to escape at Gendarmenmarkt . In: “Die Welt” from December 4, 2009.
- ^ Mister X Mobile . iTunes App Store page from Mister X Mobile
- ↑ Mister X Mobile - Android app . gamesload site from Mister X Mobile
- ↑ hoerspielland.de - Scotland Yard
- ^ Highscore Music - Re-release of the radio plays
