I used to review mystery video games quite often, though I have to admit I have fallen behind schedule the last two years, and even those reviews have become somewhat of a rarity here. Even rarer here however are posts on non-digital games, i.e., tabletop (board games). I have probably only reviewed a handful of them. Four years ago, I reviewed the tabletop game MicroMacro: Crime City, and that one has remained a favorite of mine since. So imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when I learned only a few months ago, an app version had been released!
MicroMacro: Downtown Detective (2025) plays in essence the same as the physical tabletop game. The player is presented a map of a lively where a lot of crime happens at the same time. The map is a delight to behold, as so many interesting (and often funny) things are happening in various beautifilly designed districts like a busy beach, a bustling market and a city center full of shops. Take a closer look however and you'll soon notice all kinds of crimes being committed: a dead body lying in an alley, a shoplifter in action, a thief on his way to sneak into an apartment... What is interesting about the map of MicroMacro however is that it is not a snapshot of one single moment: it simultaneously shows multiple moments of the same sequence. Imagine a crime being like a comic, with several panels used to depict how the crime happened and what happened next. In MicroMacro, all these "panels" are plotted on the same map, so you might see the thief entering the apartment, but if you look down at the street you'll see the thief preparing to climb up the wall, and if you're attentive enough, you might even trace him all the way back across the city map to when he first left his home. This is the core gameplay of MicroMacro, and this works exactly the same in MicroMacro: Downtown Detective.
Just like in the board game, Downtown Detective consists of several missions, that vary in difficulty. The earliest missions will be easy, requiring you only to follow certain characters across the map, with many "moments" plotted on the map, making the pursuit simple. Missions are also divided in submissions or checkpoints, guiding you to what you should do next. Later missions will require you to pay more attention and may provide less guidance. You might be required to track several suspects as they all move around the map and find out which of them is the culprit for example, or the game expects you to make certain deductions based on what you see to guess where a character might also appear in a completely different place of the map. Downtown Detective in this regard feels generally similar to the board game, but with a caveat: Downtown Detective is a lot easier than the board game. As of now 25 missions are available (the first three being playable for free as a demo), but even the last few missions don't really match the mid-game missions of the board game. That is because Downtown Detective gives the player much more often confirmation about what they should do, or what they are doing correctly. The game for example clearly marks important scenes if you touch them, which confirms to the player that they are on the right track. This is not only true for the "major scenes" of a case, as the game will also mark minor relevant events, each time confirming for you you're doing it right. The board game doesn't confirm you're on the right track as regularly as the app version, making it a more difficult game. For example, if a character for example would put on a disguise halfway through, causing you to lose sight of them as they walk across city, Downtown Detective will always draw you attention to that fact ("Hey, he's gone. Perhaps he's put on a disguise?"), while the board game basically doesn't do that, allowing you to check the map yourself and noticing that small scene inside a house where you can just make out someone changing their clothes. These were the best moments of the board game, rewarding you for a keen attention for detail, but Downtown Detective really guides you along these moments, even if the core gameplay and mechanics remain the same across both versions.
Downtown Detective however does use some mechanics that aren't available in the board game, making use of the digital format. In Downtown Detective, you can freely in and out on the map (which of course isn't quite the same as just looking more closely at a physical map) and some details are only visible if you zoom in enough. That allows for some variety in the mysteries not seen in the board game, for example, in one missions where you are tracing a certain common object, that can only be differentiated from other lookalikes by noticing a small detail only noticable when zoomed in. The zoom in function is also really good for people with bad eyesight, which is probably great for people who have been interested in MicroMacro, but couldn't play it because the physical game does require you to squint your eyes at the map.
As far as I know, Downtown Detective contains a completely original city map. At least, I have only played the original MicroMacro: Crime City, and that featured a different map from Downtown Detective, though I haven't played the sequel board games to Crime City. The city in Downtown Detective starts out quite small, but it opens up in segments as you complete more missions. As of now, there are 25 missions, but there is a post-game message that says more content is to follow: something already foreshadowed by the fact you can see the silhouette of even more parts of the city that are waiting to open up in the future. The map is now smaller than it would be in the physical game, so I hope that with the future full map, the difficulty of the game will also be on par with the board game.
I might sound a bit negative, but I did really enjoy playing MicroMacro: Downtown Detective. If you haven´t played the board game yet, it provides a fairly good idea of how the board game works, which remains a great concept executed perfectly. Downtown Detective is a bit easy if you have already played the board game, as none of the missions match the later missions of the board game, but nonetheless, it's still a game I'd recommend if you're interested in MicroMacro, whether you´re a first-time player or a veteran, as the gameplay remains addictive.
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