Outfoxed! — Pie Crimes

It was a fox who stole the pie, this much we know. The rest is up to our crack (cluck?) team of chicken detectives. We race across the town revealing clues — the thief had gloves, but didn’t have a cape — and gathering a growing list of suspects. Meanwhile, the foxy thief sneaks their way closer to the underworld, and a delicious escape.

Outfoxed! uses a unique set of thief cards and a clever decoder to match clues with one of 16 suspects. It’s an exercise in deduction that creates these wonderful A-ha! moments for young detectives. There’s a gentle tension here, but nothing sinister. Outfoxed! is cooperative too, so everyone gets to solve the case together... even if (for us at least) the randomly chosen thief is nearly always Harold. Keep an eye on him.

The details:

Outfoxed!

Shanon Lyon, Marisa Pena, Colt Tipton-Johnson, Mélanie Grandgirard/ Gamewright games

Set up/ pack away: 5-10 minutes
For: Ages 5–10, young families
Best with: 2-4 players
Length: variable, up to 20 minutes
Table space: About 1.5m square
Perfect for: after school, wet Sundays, something different
Words: fun, tense, rewarding
Skills: deduction, memory, teamwork.

Board game shorts is a series of bite-size suggestions for young board gamers and their families.