I once played a game of chess with my partner - the first time either of us had played since childhood - which devolved to two kings chasing one another round the board. The idea of the game is to be the first detective to find out where the crime occurred, why the victim killed and what weapon was used to commit the murder and then catch the killer using deduction skills, evidence cards, truth and deception to crack the case. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH). These also include various ability cards, which can be played to steal cards from opponents’ hands, have all players pass their hand to the player on their left, or just act as blank false evidence.

Please note: a signature is required for most deliveries so please choose an address where someone is in. It would make an excellent gift this Christmas for older children and teenagers and lots of fun to play together as a family.

You must be over 18, a resident of the country offering Afterpay, and meeting additional eligibility criteria to qualify. Loved this Keith Haring toy, it engrossed my 4 year old just as much as it fascinated me - hours of fun, and it looks so good too. But I’ve got to say that Case File is the first time in living memory I’ve ever intentionally thrown a match just to stop playing. When it comes down to it, I’d gain exponentially more from listening to the actual podcast than I would playing the game based on it, too. We all love game night, and we all have our favourite games but do love discovering new games to play.

The first thing you do when sitting down to play a new tabletop game, perhaps after briefly examining the components, is read the rulebook. The game is played until a player guesses the answers correctly or all players are knocked out through wrong guesses.

All that changes is the four cards that are randomly dealt into the confidential folder at the start. Select a card at random (without looking) from the Weapon, Location, Motive and Suspect piles and place them, without anyone seeing what is on the cards, into the Confidential Folder – this folder now holds the solution to identify the killer. The stuffed animal could preferably have been double bagged inside the packaging though, since the package had a small rip and thus the toy was in risk of damage. The cards need to be separated into the five different types: Weapon, Location, Motive, Suspect and False Evidence and shuffled.

Adding fun and clever card play with the False Evidence cards which really do mix up the game quite a bit. If they are wrong about any of the four cards, they are out and the game continues for all other players with that player out of the game. Although we did think that the card used could have been a bit thicker, it is a bit thin but doesn’t make any difference to the gameplay. I did go through an odd, out-of-body moment amid the mind-numbing experience that was Case File, when I half-wondered if, peeking through, like a prisoner through cell bars, was some semblance of a meaningful decision.

Solve crimes around a fictional small town, piecing together the evidence to discover where it happened, how it happened, and who did it. With 44 cards, there are near infinite possibilities so you can solve a different crime again and again. For such grizzly subject matter, you’d think the game would be at least a little gripping, but I found it impossible to care whether the tattoo artist did it in the cemetery with a tire iron.