Critical Play #2

Name of Game

One-Night Ultimate Werewolf

Creator

Andrew Plotkin’s reinvention of Dimitry Davidoff’s Mafia

Published by Bezier Games

Platform

Ios App, Android App, Browser, Cards

Target Audience

Suitable for different groups ranging from teenagers to adults

Players

3-10 players

Procedure

Each person is given a card describing their role. Three cards remain in the center.

During the night, players perform the action described by their role.

During the day, players have a limited amount of time to discuss what happened at night, and what roles are assigned to which people.

A players role may be changed by another player during the night, and the new role determines whether the player wins or not.

During the day phase, everybody casts a vote for who to kill. Once the day is over, votes are locked in. The player(s) with the most votes die, unless everybody votes for a different person, in which case nobody dies

Objective

The village team wins:

  1. If at least one Werewolf dies. Even if one or more players who are not Werewolves die in addition to a Werewolf dying, everyone on the village team wins.
  2. If no one is a Werewolf and no one dies.It is possible for no one to be a Werewolf if all Werewolf cards are in the center.

The werewolf team only wins if at least one player is a Werewolf and no Werewolves are killed.

Setup

Setup differs based on the number of players (3-10).

For 3 to 5 players, the roles could be as follows:

  • 3 players: 2 Werewolves, 1 Seer, 1 Robber, 1 Troublemaker, 1 Villager
  • 4 Players: +1 Villager
  • 5 Players: +2 Villagers

There should always be three more cards than the number of players. Shuffle the selected cards face down and deal one to each player. Put the remaining three cards and tokens that match all the cards being used in the middle of the table.

Each player should secretly view their card, and place it face down near the three cards in the center of the table.

Rules

There are several roles that are called on at night to do a night action. However, players with a Villager, Tanner, or Hunter card never wake up at night.

In addition to having a role card, one player is designated the Announcer in the event of a card game, and announces each of the roles in order and silently counts to ten after each role is woken up to allow the players with that role to perform their action at night. 

The roles are as follows:

  • Werewolves know all the other werewolves
  • Doppelganger copies the role and team of another player
  • Seer sees a player’s card or two cards from the center
  • Robber may swap cards with another player and view it
  • Troublemaker may swap two player’s cards

At night, players who are not active (whose eyes are closed) may not move, point, or do anything to communicate with the active player(s).

After the night phase, players discuss among themselves who they believe the Werewolves are. All players may say anything, but may never show their card to anyone. Werewolves might want to claim to be a different role so that they don’t die.

Because certain roles change other players’ cards, some players will believe they are one role, when they are actually a different one. After the night phase, your role is the card that is currently in front of you, which may be different than your original role. No one may look at any cards after the night phase.

After a few minutes of discussion, players vote.

The player with the most votes dies and reveals his card. In case of a tie, all players tied with the most votes die and reveal their cards. If no player receives more than one vote, no one dies.

Feedback

The game was definitely fun due to the aspect of outwitting the opponents. Mastering the art of deceit, and being able to trick opponents to kill a player that would serve your team’s interest also makes the game fun.

The roles, specifically the robber role, intensifies the stakes as one could be oblivious of the card swap, and that made the game I played particularly interesting.

The browser version of the game is kind of slow since the discussions take place in a chat room, and thus I believe the physical card game might be better. To improve the browser version, having the announcer read out the roles at night would improve the experience of the game as opposed to having each player read their own instructions. Other than that, the game is pretty solid.

Sample GamePlay

 

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