Think: Memo Crime
Think: Memo Crime Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
- 1 double-sided game board
- 6 playing pieces
- 6 career markers
- 1 die
- 128 clue cards
- 36 event cards
What is it about?
Whoever wants to progress in the police force needs their little grey cells. Whoever keeps all the criminal cases in their head climbs the career ladder to the very top, finally becomes Chief of Police and thus winner of the game.
Preparing the Game
The game board shows six or four different desks, connected by walking spaces. If more than four people are playing, you should choose the board with the six desks. With up to four players you are free to choose which board to play on.
The clue cards are placed in two loose piles on either side of the game board, face down.
The event cards are shuffled and placed face down in the middle of the game board.
Each player chooses one of the six colours and receives a matching playing piece and a career marker.
Each player places their playing piece on any desk.
The career ladder runs along the edge of the game board. All players begin as "Kriminalmeister" (Criminal Master): the career markers are placed on the start space with the telephone.
Tip: For a fast game, especially with 5 or 6 players, everyone may already begin as "Kriminalkommissar" (Criminal Commissioner) and place their career marker on the next corner space (large, yellow space).
The players roll the die to determine who begins. The highest hand counts.
The Game Proceeds
The first player begins by dealing with a criminal case. To do so, they draw two clue cards of their choice and lay them face up on top of each other on the file tray of their desk. The player can choose which card lies below and which lies on top.
(Illustration: the cards "SACK" below and "BERTA BAUMANN" on top.)
The cards contain the first clues to the criminal case, which the player now begins to construct and tell the other players imaginatively.
Example: if the first file drawn is "Berta Baumann" and the second "Sack" ("sack"), the case could begin like this: "Recently Berta Baumann was found in an old sack...". It is important that the clues are named in the same order in which they were laid on the desk.
All players must remember the story that has been begun!
Then, in turn, the other players open their first cases in the same way.
In the following course of play the players move from desk to desk and put together further clues to the various cases one after another. In doing so, the case stories that one must remember become longer and longer...
It Goes Round
When every player has opened a criminal case, the first player rolls the die and moves their piece according to the number of pips. Walking spaces and desks each count as one step. After them, the other players follow clockwise.
The hand on the die means that one immediately moves to the next free desk - that is, one not occupied by any other playing piece. If all desks are already occupied, the player moves to the next possible one clockwise.
Whoever lands on a desk on which no files lie yet opens a new case there in the manner already described.
Rise or Fall, That Is the Question
If the player arrives with their piece at a desk on which a stack of files already lies, they must first report the case there. It is important that the clues of the file stack are named in the correct order - from bottom to top. Helpfully, of course, the respective last clue is visible face up.
Small changes in the story are allowed. Incoherent rattling off of the facts is not enough, however, so not just "Berta Baumann - Sack!".
To check the correctness of the case account, another player lifts the file stack and leafs through it visibly for all the other players. If the player has a small blackout and nothing occurs to them, the file stack is leafed through anyway - in this way all the players can recall the story to mind.
(Illustration: stack of cards BRIEF, KELLNER, KERZE and others.)
If the details were right, the player advances their career marker. The number of steps corresponds to the number of clue cards in the stack. If the details were faulty (e.g. a first name is missing or terms were swapped), the career marker must be moved backwards by the number of clue cards.
Afterwards the player adds a new clue to the case. They turn over a new clue card, lay it face up on the stack and thereby continue the story of the criminal case. They draw, for example, "Mond" ("moon"): "Berta Baumann was found in an old sack when the moon was shining...".
(Illustration: cards BERTA BAUMANN, SACK, MOND.)
Thinking Time
If a player cannot think of the case story within about half a minute, the task counts as not solved. Small variations of the story are allowed, as long as the clues keep their order.
The Special Spaces
Exclamation mark: Draw an event card.
Pointing hand: Move forward to the next free, unoccupied desk.
Smiley (one face): You may secretly lift the top card of any file stack and look at the card lying beneath it. If you decline, you may instead advance one step on the career ladder.
Two smileys: You may secretly leaf completely through any file stack. If you decline, you may instead advance two steps on the career ladder.
Question mark: You point at any stack and determine a fellow player who has to present the case there. Depending on whether their report was right or wrong, their career marker moves forward or backward by the height of the file stack. Your playing piece and your career marker remain unchanged.
End of the Game
As soon as someone has become Chief of Police (Polizeipräsident) or has to go to the archive as a duster (Staubwischer), the game is over. The winner is the player who has got furthest in the career.
In contests with several rounds, points are noted. These count:
| Rank (German title) | Points |
|---|---|
| Staubputzer im Archiv (duster in the archive) | 0 |
| Hilfspolizist (auxiliary policeman) | 10 |
| Kriminalmeister | 20 |
| Kriminalobermeister | 30 |
| Kriminalhauptmeister | 40 |
| Kriminalkommissar | 50 |
| Kriminaloberkommissar | 60 |
| Kriminalhauptkommissar | 70 |
| Kriminalrat | 80 |
| Kriminaloberrat | 90 |
| Kriminaldirektor | 100 |
| Polizeipräsident (Chief of Police) |
Double Fun with MEMO CRIME
In this game you and your fellow players have not only fun and entertainment - you also train your memory and your creativity at the same time.
We are used to learning a lot by mere repetition. But that is boring, tiring and not particularly effective. We are equally used to keeping the unavoidable learning material as brief as possible. But that is only apparently economical.
In MEMO CRIME you learn two tricks that make memorising easier:
-
You picture every term vividly. The persons become "alive" and show character. The objects become tangible; they are coloured, show signs of use, etc.
-
You bring the different things into a scenic context. It does not need to be realistic at all. Precisely the "craziest" situations are especially memorable.
Suppose the sequence is, for example, "Waiter - Letter opener - Wall clock - Letter - Window". By the conventional method we would read this sequence a few times and would probably have forgotten it again after a short time.
But suppose we make a story of it: "The waiter stabbed the letter opener into the wall clock, then speared the letter open and threw everything out of the window." We only need to picture the whole thing once (!), and will find that we may still remember it after months (!).
Besides memory training, MEMO CRIME also offers, like hardly any other game, free scope for the imagination. Inventing stories, witty communication and mutual inspiration - it is astonishing what wealth of invention this game draws out of the participants. The game promotes pure creativity - for it is the most unusual stories that are best remembered.