How To Play Mysterium With 2 Players – Explained And Solved!

Trying to play Mysterium but the instructions for two players are a bit vague? In this article we will take you step by step through how to play Mysterium with 2 players. It is worth noting that if you love Dixit then Mysterium is a great alternative for 2 players.

Mysterium is published by Libellud and released in 2015 and is a collaborative game for 2-7 players aged 10 or over.

With two players Mysterium is still collaborative. The aim is to work together as ghost and clairvoyants to work out who murdered the ghost. Thus releasing the ghost from their anguish and allowing them to rest in peace.

Yes, you read it right, there are two clairvoyants in the two player rules. Both played by the non-ghost.

In this how-to we will assume that the ghost cannot speak. This is not required and if you choose the ghost can speak but must not give any clues other than the vision cards.

Table of Contents

• Game Setup
  • Set up the character cards
  • Vision cards
  • Ghost tokens
• Gameplay
  • Phase 1 – Game Turn
  • Phase 2 – Revealing the culprit
  • Winning

Game Setup

First off you need to pick which one of you will play the ghost. In the two player version of the game the other player then plays two psychics at the same time.

So the player that is not the ghost needs to guess two people, their location, and possible murder weapons. All this within the allotted 7 rounds.

In the two player version, you can take the clairvoyancy track, tokens and markers and put these back in the box. They are not required.

The player who is not the ghost should select two intuition tokens and their sleeves. Take a look at the table below and choose a difficulty.

Difficulty	Cards dealt	Discards
Easy	4	1 per turn
Medium	5	3 per game
Hard	6	1 per game

Set up the character cards

Now shuffle the character psychic cards and deal the number of cards face down on the table e.g. Medium = deal 5 cards.

On the back of the face down psychic cards there will be a number. The ghost takes their ghost cards and picks out the ghost cards with the same number. All whilst the cards are face down so they are not seen.

The ghost now shuffles the picked character ghost cards and draws the top card. They place this card in the slot for the first color choice on the game screen. Then drawing the second card and placing it in the next color slot.

Whilst the ghost is setting up their ghost cards the player can take each of the face down cards and turn them over.

Place the character progress board on the table and arrange the character cards above it.

Set up the location and object cards.

Now repeat the character card selection process for the location and object cards. Once complete you should end up with the following.

• Character, location and object ghost card for each color clairvoyant. All placed against the color on the game screen.
• The character, location and object psychic cards laid out, face up on the table.
• The character, location and object progress boards seperated with the psychic cards in between.

Once all the cards are set up on the table, place each intuition token on the character progress board. Place the epilogue board above the object cards. The game is now ready to start.

Vision cards

Shuffle the vision cards and place them in a pile behind the game screen. The ghost now draws 7 cards from the pile as their start hand.

Ghost tokens

The ghost takes each token that represents the player’s color and places it behind the screen.

Gameplay

The gameplay is pretty much the same as with 4 or more players with a few exceptions. There are the usual two phases to the game.

In Phase 1 you will identify the suspects, the location of the crime and the object used to comit the murder.

Note: Although you are only playing 2 psychics in the two player game you will actually end up with 4 suspects.

Phase 1 ends when either:

• You have identified both clairvoyants suspects
• The clock reaches 7

Phase 1 – Game Turn

The game turn has two steps:

• The clairvoyant receives a vision from the ghost
• The ghost manifests itself and identifies missed or correct guesses

The clairvoyant visions

This part is where the ghost attempts to communicate with the clairvoyants. The ghost will try to give the clairvoyant a clue and as it is the first round it will be about the character. As the intuition tokens progress the ghost will give clues for location and then object.

To give a vision the ghost will select one or more cards and place it in front of the player. The cards will provide the clue that they think will make the player choose the right card.

The ghost then places the ghost token for the color against their column on the screen. This is to remind them that they have given tokens.

The ghost then draws enough cards to make up 7 in their hand. They then repeat this process for the other clairvoyant.

The crows

The ghost can choose to discard all the cards in their hand. They can then draw a new set of 7 cards from the draw pile. If there are not enough cards in the draw pile then shuffle the discard pile to make a new draw pile.

The number of times the ghost can discard is dependent on the difficulty. If you are playing easy then the ghost can discard every turn. Medium, they can only discard three times in the game. Hard, they can discard only once.

If the ghost discards their cards they show this by putting a crow on top of the game screen. For the easy they can take the crow off at the end of the turn and use it again during the next round.

The clairvoyant interpretation

The ghost turns over the timer. Quick now, the ghost is on its way and will manifest at the end of the timer. The clairvoyant must interpret their vision. The player will guess for both clairvoyants.

When the player makes a guess they put the intuition token on that card. They must do this for both clairvoyants before the timer ends. If they don’t then that clairvoyant will miss their guess.

The ghost manifestation

The ghost now appears to confirm or reject the clairvoyant’s guess. As the ghost reveals if the guess is right or wrong the ghost will move the ghost token away from the screen ready for the next round of visions.

Check mark – If the intuition tokens are on the right cards the ghost moves them to the next progress board. For example, after the character the token moves onto the location progress board.

The player then discards all the vision cards for that clairvoyant. They then take the psychic card they have guessed and place it in the sleeve for that color.

X – If the intuition token is on the wrong card then the ghost returns it to the progress board they are working on.

The player retains the vision cards to remind them of the clues.

If a clairvoyant has identified all three items, they have completed their mission. Move their intuition token onto the epilogue progress board, mission accomplished space.

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End of turn – time moves on

If the hand is at 7 and a clairvoyant still hasn’t completed all their guesses. Then you have doomed the ghost to eternal purgatory and you lose.

If both clairvoyants have accomplished their mission. Then fantastic job, the game moves on to the next phase – revealing the culprit.

If the hand is not on the 7 and there are still items to guess. Then move the clock hand forward 1 hour and repeat the above game turn.

Phase 2 – Revealing the culprit

If you have reached this far then spectacular job. You have identified the suspects and are close to solving the mystery. Releasing the ghost to eternal bliss.

You will have realised that you only have two suspects. If you had to guess which one was the actual murderer then you would have a 50% chance of getting this right. A simple flip of the coin would give you a good chance of getting it right.

To make this more fun for two players, randomly add two more characters, locations and objects. Placing them into their own sleeves. Once you have 4 sleeves with groups of suspects, locations and objects you are ready.

Suspect line-up

It is time to clear the decks. Place all unused psychic cards and progress boards back in the box. Leaving the four groups of suspects, epilogue board and clock.

Turn over the ghost tokens and take the tokens numbered 1 to 4. Now place the other tokens in the box.

The player removes each group of suspects from their sleeve and puts them down in front of one of the ghost tokens. Leaving you with a character, location and object above each token.

Now the ghost takes the 6 culprit tokens and puts them behind the game screen.

Shared vision

Miraculously, seeing the 4 groups of suspects restores the ghost memory and they know who did it. This means the ghost selects one of the 4 groups without revealing it to the other player.

The ghost now selects 3 vision cards from their hand for the last vision. These cards represent the character, location and object of one group.

The ghost then takes the culprit token for that numbered group. Place the token question mark side up onto the epilogue board.

Straw poll

This is the bit that changes for two players.

The player takes 1 intuition token to vote with.

The ghost reveals all three vision cards at once.

The player interprets the three vision cards and then votes with the intuition token. Placing it on the ghost token representing that group.

The ghost has one last manifestation and flips the culprit token on the epilogue board.

Winning

The player and ghost win if the intuition token is on the ghost token with the same number as on the culprit token. Congratulations you have laid the ghost to rest.

If they are different then you lose.