Portal Games is taking their Detective series to Arrakis in Dune: House Secrets

Portal Games has announced Dune: House Secrets will debut October 15, 2021 at Essen Spiel, the enormous gaming fair in Germany. The game will implement their cooperative, digitally-integrated system from Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game and subsequent releases. The game includes a prologue and three chapters inspired by the upcoming movie release, Dune, which is expected to release on October 1st. Players choose from four characters taking part in the Fremen guerrilla resistance against the Harkonnens. The player characters are not pulled from the Dune books or movie, but inspired by the lore and ready to embark on adventure.

Portal Games' Detective system debuted with Detective: A Mondern Crime Board Game. In this game, players took on the role of investigators trying to solve related crimes by visiting locations, interviewing witnesses, analyzing evidence, and using character abilities. The turn-limited game emphasizes deciding what leads to pursue when you cannot chase down every rabbit hole. New clues are uncovered through use of an online database that catalogues your progress. Two expansions have been released with L.A. Crimes and Dig Deeper. There is also Detective: Season One, which is a shorter version containing three standalone cases, instead of an overarching campaign. Portal Games' first foray into using the Detective system in a different setting was Vienna Connection - a spy game set in Central Europe in the midst of the Cold War. Now the system is heading to science fiction. Rather than solving crimes, players in Dune: House Secrets will attempt a series of missions with limited time and resources, where they cannot explore every encounter, so they must prioritize to be successful. Players can gain experience points to level up their characters between missions, and the story that unfolds will be influenced by player decisions. 

Dune: House Secrets is designed by Jakub Poczęty, Przemysław Rymer, Ignacy Trzewiczek, and Weronika Spyra. The artist for the game is Mateusz Kopacz. Portal Games has a webpage up for Dune: House Secrets where you can see some of the art and components. A pre-order campaign begins July 12, 2021. Remember, FOMO is the mind-killer.