Murder, Mystery & Intrigue in 27th Passenger: A Hunt on Rails

August 9, 2014 by deltagamegirl22

If you have ever played the game Clue and enjoyed it, then this is totally a game for you! 27th Passenger: A Hunt on Rails, by Purple Games, is on Kickstarter right now. I think you could best describe it as Clue plus, as it takes that kind of deductive logic to the next level.

27th Passenger is a card game for 3-6 players that can be played in 30-60 minutes and revolves around a murderous plot on a train. You and your opponents are assassins on the train, and your primary objective is to be the last assassin standing at the end of the trip. Through slick recon and deductive logic (and without violence, mind you), you must eliminate innocent passengers from your suspect list. If you mistakenly take out an innocent passenger, you are out of the game. You do, however, need to determine which characters your opponents are and assassinate them by the end of the trip.

To help you deduce the difference between innocents and assassins, each character has 3 main characteristics: Looks, Scent (don't laugh, you know how key this can be from riding in elevators), and Voice. As you narrow down the characteristics, you narrow down your choices. Because you are on a train, people are constantly getting on and off the train, which keeps the game very dynamic and the hunt more complex. You do get to see which characters exit the train at the stops, which helps to thin the list. Being the assassins are all "professionals," you also get to use skill cards from your hand to help protect you from your opponent's snooping and to shield your identity as much as possible.