The game that I played was One-Night Werewolf created by Ted Alspach, game designer and CEO of Bezier Games. The game is available on the web as well as in a mobile app version. My friends and I played the web version of the games on our phones and laptops. This game is similar to Mafia in the sense that everyone is assigned a role, but a bit different in the fact that some roles can be switched, and some players do not know their role.
The social deduction aspect is emphasized through the game mechanics by each card having a role description on it, giving each person a specific task. Another mechanic that contributes to the social deduction is the fact that players are instructed to scroll around on their screen during the night when they do not have a task to do in order to deceive the other players. The mechanic of discussing what happened during the night is the point in the game where social deduction truly comes into play. This informal discussion is where various roles get exposed and where people have the opportunity to use deception to their advantage.
These mechanics play into the formal elements of the game in various ways. The fact that the game is digital creates more clear boundaries for the game and creates less room for error that is ideally outside the scope of the game. The number of players is a formal element that is very important to the integrity of the game as well. My friends and I only played with 4 people, which made it very easy to deduce what happened during the night. In my opinion, the minimum number of players should be much higher, creating more of a challenge to determine who the werewolf was. One interesting component of this game was that you could change the cards that were in the deck, which changed how many people were on the werewolf team and villager team. This altered the type of cooperation that was occurring between the players.
Overall, my friends and I did not enjoy this game as much as we thought we would. Although the online component made it much easier to play, we had trouble understanding the possibilities of things that could happen during the night. Additionally, the mechanic of someone not knowing they are the werewolf made it confusing as that person did not know how to/ that they should convince people that they weren’t the werewolf. The small number of players made the game end after the first round every time as well.
I liked the concept of the game and I can see us enjoying it if we become more familiar with the mechanics of the game and play with more people. But, as of now, I would play Mafia over this game any day.
