Crimewave: California 2023

Sun, surf, sand… and serial killers. It’s 1970-something in California, hippy culture is rife, things are getting groovy, and serial murders are at their peak. Public panic is high but arrests are still low, so you and your fellow investigators (or just a bunch of friends) have been tasked with solving these heinous crimes.

Crimewave: California is a hidden movement co-op game. Players choose to play as one of the investigator roles or take on the task of controlling the three criminals.

One player operates as all three killers, who reside in secret locations across the board. On each turn, that player places down crime scenes to try and increase public panic and outsmart the investigators.

On their turn, investigators will move around the board in an effort to locate the killers' residences. Their goal is to work together to find out where the killers are residing by piecing together crime scenes. Investigators also roll dice to try and verify evidence at different crime scenes, which they'll use during the trial phase.

When the investigators successfully take the killers to trial, they go into a courtroom face-off and play defense and prosecution cards to try and increase and decrease their own score.

The winner is the player with the highest card score at the end of the trial. For the investigators, the way to win the game is to jail all three killers. Alternatively, if the public panic marker reaches 10 before the killers are jailed, the player controlling all three killers wins the game.