2011Gabriele Mari, Gianluca Santopietro
- Videos
- 53
- Creators
- 46
2 - 6 players90 minMedium weight

2023Gemma Kaczerepa, Timothy Quill
From BoardGameGeek
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.
Crimewave: California has 2 videos from 2 creators: 1 how-to-play guide and 1 other video. They date from 2022 to October 2023.
If you like it, try Letters from Whitechapel, Whitehall Mystery, Kelp: Shark vs Octopus or Pyramid of Pengqueen, which share several of its mechanics.
2011Gabriele Mari, Gianluca Santopietro
2 - 6 players90 minMedium weight
2017Gabriele Mari, Gianluca Santopietro
2 - 4 players45 - 60 minMedium weight
2024Carl Robinson
2 players40 - 60 minMedium weight
2008Marcel-André Casasola Merkle
2 - 5 players30 - 45 minLight weight
From BoardGameGeek:
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.
Designers
Gemma Kaczerepa, Timothy Quill
Artist
Nache Ramos
Publisher
Self-published
Categories
Mechanics