Scotland Yard (board game)
Scotland Yard (board game)
- Scotland Yard*** is a board game in which a team of players controlling different detectives cooperate to track down a player controlling a criminal as they move around a board representing the streets of London. It was first published in 1983 by Ravensburger and is named after Scotland Yard which is the headquarters of London's Metropolitan Police Service in real-life. *Scotland Yard* is an [[symmetric-game|asymmetric]] board game, during which the detective players cooperatively solve a variant of the [[pursuit–evasion]] problem.
The game is published by Ravensburger in most of Europe and Canada and by Milton Bradley in the United States. It received the Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) award in 1983, the same year that it was published.
Gameplay One player controls 'Mr. X': a criminal whose location is only revealed periodically throughout gameplay. The other players each control at least one detective, all of which are always present on the board. In the Milton Bradley version, there are always five detectives on the board, so with less than six players, one player can control two or three detectives.
Setup
Each player draws one card for each piece under their control to determine their starting location(s), with Mr. X drawing first.
Movement Movement is governed by using transportation tokens ("tickets"), which allow passage between spaces according to the following modes: * Taxis, which allow the player to move only one space per turn, but can be used anywhere. * Buses, which are spaced further apart and allow a player to cover more distance in a single trip. * The Underground, whose stations are spaced even further apart than the bus stops and allow long-distance travel. * Ferries, which only Mr. X can use with a black ticket, allowing him to follow routes along the River Thames between Greenwich and Whitehall.
Each detective begins with a finite mix of taxi, bus, and underground tickets. 1 game board (a map of Central London) 6 colored playing pieces 130 transportation tickets 1 label sheet 29 start cards 3 double-move tokens 1 travel log and paper inserts 1 storage tray to be used to store tickets, start cards and playing pieces
{|class="wikitable floatright" style="width:10em;font-size:85%;text-align:center;" |+Renumbered spaces ! R and 200 missing from the Ravensburger boards. Aside from the numbering differences, some of the routes have been revised since the initial publication. For instance, stations 198 and 199 are connected by a bus line in earlier boards,
- NY Chase* is a version based on New York City. In this version, detectives do not hand their used tokens over, and they have access to roadblocks and a helicopter, tilting the game more in favour of those playing as detectives.
A faster travel version called Die Jagd Nach Mister X exists that functions quite differently. In this version, Mr. X's location is only hidden when a black travel token is used, and the game is essentially an open chase around London. Evasion is accomplished with black tokens and using the fastest travel to distant locations. In this version, each player takes turns as Mr. X, and points collected (in the form of the detectives' used travel tokens) determine the overall winner.
Alternative rules In 1986, Alain Munoz and Serge Laget posted an article in the French magazine **' suggesting alternative rules to balance and expand the game.
Spanish company Cefa published Alerta Roja (Red Alert) in 1986, which is generally a remake of Scotland Yard with minor variations to the rules and a different theme (secret agents chase a nuclear terrorist though the sewers of a futuristic city).