Review on Gamewright Outfoxed! The Ultimate Cooperative Mystery Game For Kids by Randy Washington

We were desperately looking for games to play as a family while we have been staying at home during the pandemic. Emotions are running a bit high and competitive games are sometimes ending in tears. Unfortunately, a lot of cooperative games are not challenging enough to entertain kids older than pre-school age. This game turned out to be a big win for us. There is definitely some luck but it requires some basic deductive reasoning to beat the fox.In this game, all players are competing against the fox to figure out 'who done it.' There are 16 different possible fox thieves and each has a matching suspect card. You pick one thief card without looking and put the card in a special plastic holder. (Other thief cards are not used during the game and are returned to the box.) Suspect cards are placed face down around the board, four per side. On the board, each player gets a game piece and there is a fox. There are also 'clues' that are either stacked or placed face down nearby. Each 'clue' is a small card that fits into the special plastic holder.Players then take turns rolling three special dice that have eyes and paw prints on the six sides. You must declare prior to rolling if you want to "reveal suspects" or "search for clues." Then you have three rolls to match the dice with your declaration--eyes to reveal suspects or paws to search for clues. You get to hold the 'correct' dice on a roll and only re-roll the 'wrong' dice. If you get all three dice to match what you declared by the third roll, you get to take that action.Revealing suspects: The player gets to turn over two suspect cards. Each suspect is dressed a certain way and may or may not be wearing things such as a scarf, pearls, white gloves, umbrella, flower, etc.Searching for clues: The player moves their game piece on the board the number of paw prints shown on the dice (ranges from 3-6). The goal for moving your game piece is to make it to open spots on the board that allow you to search for clues. You can typically reach a spot in one or two turns. Once on a spot, the player takes a 'clue', which is an item that the thief may or may not be wearing (scarf, pearls, white gloves, etc.) and places that card into the special holder. A window slides open to reveal if the thief is or isn't wearing that item. Using deductive reasoning, the team can then look at the suspect cards that are revealed to determine whether or not the suspects are innocent. Innocent suspect cards are returned to the box.Didn't match all three dice in three rolls? The fox moves forward 3 spaces toward its fox hole.Play continues like that, eliminating innocent suspects by revealing suspects or clues. The goal is to get down to one final suspect--who is the guilty fox--before the fox gets away by reaching his fox hole.There are some variations explained in the instructions, but those are the basics.I would highly recommend this game for kids over age 6. Kids under 5 would need help with the reasoning part, but could participate. It might be a bit too simplistic for kids over around age 8.