There were eight of us this week so we split into two groups, with Nige uttering the words I would never have thought would come from his lips: "Can we play a co-operative game?" Those weren't the exact words but he did want to try out Mysterium. The game is a cross between Cluedo and Dixit with one player being the ghost of a murder victim trying to give clues to the other players, the investigators, as to who committed the dastardly deed. However, the ghost can't speak and can only visit the investigators through dreams, which are represented by beautifully illustrated and detailed cards. Over the course of 7 rounds, the investigators must whittle down the suspects, locations and items so that they are left with one of each for each investigator (with three investigators, three suspects, locations and items). Having done that, the ghost then has to guide the investigators to which one of the suspects was the murderer.

It is tough for the ghost as they only ever have a choice of six picture cards from which to give their clues and the pictures rarely give obvious pointers as to which target suspect, location or item the ghost wants the investigators to choose. And, as the investigators are free to discuss what the clues mean, different people can draw different conclusions as to what the clue means. In our game, Nige was the ghost - for which we were all thankful as it meant he had to keep quiet for the duration of the game. Guy, Mark G and I were the investigators and we started off really well with all of us guessing the correct items on the first day. By the third day, Mark G was the only one not to have guessed his location correctly and we started to think that this was going to be too easy. However, by day six, although Mark G had recovered and identified his location and suspect, Guy and I were still stuck on our suspects. In the last chance saloon, Nige gave us each a further clue and Guy's suspect was by then obvious but I had a choice of two and the final clue pointed me towards the explorer rather than the policeman who had been my previous favourite. So I guessed wrongly and we then didn't have enough time left to corner the true culprit, so we lost. Great fun though and Nige's clues for the policeman were trying to give a link to things French as the policeman's badge was French. Anyway, better luck next time when we ought to try and step up from the Easy level we failed on this time.