For my competitive analysis, I chose to play an online version of One Night Ultimate Werewolf. This game was created by netgames.io and the general age recommendation is ages 8+.
This game can be considered a competitor to my team’s P1 project because both revolve around social deduction and deceit, with a strong conversational and argumentative element. Werewolf is a highly popular game among social deduction game lovers, including myself (in fact my friends and I have a group chat called “Werewolf” just for when we want to play a game) so I felt it would be a strong match for this competitive analysis. These types of games usually have an intended audience of close friends/family, due to the social deduction aspect.
One Night Ultimate Werewolf successfully develops a stage for social deduction and deceit by providing each player a different role that each other must deduce. Our prototype, tentatively named “Cabo Castaway” is similar to One Night Ultimate Werewolf in this sense, but differs in that there is no “odd one out” and everyone is trying to deduce each player’s final goal.
I enjoyed this specific version of One Night Ultimate Werewolf because having it online meant everyone was able to play, unlike the standard version which requires a narrator. Having the game online also allows for more roles and more complex game mechanics. Before the game, the host can select a set of roles that will be distributed to the players.
In this critical play, I played in a group of 3. The number of players allowed is 3-29. I think this could be improved, because we learned that 3 people is quite difficult to play with, since the game ends when the number of Werewolves matches the number of everyone else. To account for varying amounts of players, the system requires the host to select more or less role cards to include, a number which is always greater than the number of players, adding an element of surprise and unknown. This also leads to the potential of there not even being a werewolf, depending on how the system distributes the roles, which is an interesting twist compared to standard “Mafia” or “Werewolf.” Each player is assigned a role and the remaining cards are in the middle, face down.
Once the game began, each of us were able to see our role cards. I began the game as a villager and my friends “hello” and “icecream” were randomly assigned to be Witch and Seer, respectively. This meant that none of us were the Werewolf, so the Werewolf card had to be in the middle. The system prompts the users to do their role’s action in a set order. “Icecream” was the Seer, and decided to check my card. She saw that I was a villager. Next, “hello” took her turn. As a Witch, she had to check one of the cards in the middle and then assign it to one of the other players. Evidently, the card that she flipped over was the missing Werewolf role card, which she assigned to me. Based on the role order, Werewolf goes first, so I never actually knew that I was the Werewolf, since this timing basically skipped my Werewolf turn.
Next, it was time to discuss and vote. No one died, so we didn’t really have much to go off of. “Icecream” cleared me, and said that she saw that I was a villager. “Hello” knew that she assigned me to be the Werewolf though, so went against her. We all believed we were innocent, so the arguing took quite a bit of time. The game provided a 10 minute discussion time. Each player on their own device had to select “ready” in order to activate the voting. Somehow, we ended up voting nobody out, by each of us getting one vote.
Much to my surprise, I was greeted by a screen saying that I won and that I was the Werewolf. We all traded notes and stories and finally understood what happened. The feature of having so many potential roles helped make the game more engaging and made it feel more similar to Cabo Castaway. One thing that could make it even more interesting, however, is if there was an option for the role cards selected could be randomized, instead of the host manually selecting them, which could add even more surprise and suspicion. This is something our game tries to remedy, because we will have a large pool (ideally 50+) potential “role” or “independent” goal cards.
In conclusion, I feel Werewolf and Cabo Castaway are similar in the themes of social deduction and trying to trick each other. As the number of players in Werewolf increases, so do the number of potential roles, thus so do the potential ways you can win and the more enemies you may have. It differs from Cabo Castaway in that there is are 2 somewhat set teams, however there are also often subteams within that. Werewolf does a good job of keeping the whole game in one place and automating it so that every player is engaged. Similar to our game, every player is active, unlike traditional mafia where the villagers often don’t have as much to do. I believe our game shines in that it is more “every person for themself” and you gain points from deducing someone’s role, rather than completely eliminating them. This helps keep all players engaged and active the entire time.
