Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Mon dieu! M.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Simultaneous Action Selection
Choose actions secretly or concurrently before revealing them together.
Memory
Remember previously revealed information, positions, or sequences.
Voting
Players collectively approve, reject, or select an outcome through votes.
Take That
Direct negative effects at selected opponents.
Read the full game description
Mon dieu! M. Harpagon Richard is most decidedly dead, though not nearly soon enough for YOUR tastes, the old miser. His passing has brought you all together, feigning tears and anticipating your inheritance, when a terribly bothersome police inspector calls upon you. Chief Inspector Francois Cleu is not convinced that Harpagon passed peacefully in his sleep, as was reported. In fact, he's discovered "somewhat troubling evidence" that he was instead stabbed, poisoned, shot, strangled, bludgeoned and thrown out of a third story window. Worse, he seems to think YOU had something to do with it. Well, even if you did, which you didn't, there's no sense in all of you going to prison for it. That's why you've decided to "help" the Chief Inspector figure out who did! After all, you're the old man's heir and you're finally going to get what's coming to you...one way or another. J'Accuse! is about implicating and accusing your friends and family of murder — and no one "wins" the game so much as one of you will lose! The object is to avoid suspicion for as long as you can, while assuring that someone else ends up accused for the crime. The game ends, and the loser is "Arrested", when one player gets stuck with at least one of each type of Evidence (Motive, Opportunity and Weapon, which solves the case) OR by having ANY five pieces of Hard Evidence against them (a Preponderance of Evidence).