An indirect competitor to our conceptual game Prisoners of War is the well-known game Mafia, where players are assigned roles as civilians or mafia and aim to eliminate members of the opposing team. Prisoners of War, developed by our team, features one prisoner, one mole, and the remaining players as soldiers. To escape, the prisoner must guess a password, which is known to the soldiers and the mole and belongs to a category sampled from a predefined group (e.g., countries, fruits, etc.). During the game, soldiers and the mole interrogate the prisoner, subtly providing hints while adhering to specific rules. The mole’s objective is to help the prisoner identify the password without revealing their identity. After each round, soldiers vote to eliminate the player they suspect is the mole. The soldiers win if they successfully vote out the mole; the mole and prisoner win if the prisoner guesses the password or if only the mole and one soldier remain.
Although a bit more complex, Mafia and Prisoners of War share many similarities and differences. In this critical play analysis, we will focus on comparing the two games across four aspects: players, objectives, dynamics, and outcomes.
The first aspect to consider is the players. The most popular version of Mafia includes four well-defined roles: mafia, doctor, detective, and civilians. One team consists of the mafia, while the other includes all remaining roles. Each player has a specific function—eliminating civilians (mafia), saving civilians (doctor), investigating roles (detective), or voting to eliminate players (civilians). In Prisoners of War, a similar team structure exists, with soldiers on one side and the mole and prisoner forming a cooperative opposing team. Another point of similarity is the voting mechanism used by soldiers, which mirrors the civilian voting system in Mafia. The major difference lies in role-specific actions: while soldiers interrogate the prisoner, the prisoner attempts to guess the password, and the mole tries to provide hints without being discovered.
Next, we analyze the objectives. Both games are categorized as social deduction games. In Mafia, civilians aim to identify and eliminate the mafia, while the mafia seeks to eliminate all other players. Similarly, in Prisoners of War, soldiers attempt to identify the mole, while the mole and prisoner aim to communicate the password successfully or be the last players remaining. Despite similar goals of hidden role detection, the stakes and outcomes are framed differently in each game. Figure 1 exemplifies the roles of two of the players in Prisoners of War.
The game dynamics also differ notably. A unique feature of Prisoners of War is the password mechanic. Although the password is restricted to a specific category (similar to Spyfall 1), maintaining variety requires generating many categories. If too many are used, the sampling process and corresponding hint rules can become overly complex. In contrast, Mafia operates with a simple day/night cycle: night for mafia actions, day for discussion and voting. Prisoners of War similarly has two phases: the interrogation phase and a voting phase (yet to be formally named), which parallels Mafia’s daytime discussion.
Finally, the outcomes of both games are quite similar. Each game has two possible win conditions. In Mafia, the civilians win by discovering the mafia, or the mafia wins by eliminating all civilians. In Prisoners of War, soldiers win by eliminating the mole, or the mole and prisoner win either by successfully passing the password or outlasting the
Finally, the outcomes of both games are quite similar. Each game has two possible win conditions. In Mafia, the civilians win by discovering the mafia, or the mafia wins by eliminating all civilians. In Prisoners of War, soldiers win by eliminating the mole, or the mole and prisoner win either by successfully passing the password or outlasting the soldiers. In both cases, a crucial secret is uncovered—either the identity of the mafia or the escape password—leading to victory. Alternative outcomes are met if the other team is completely eliminated.
Footnotes
- BoardGameGeek. Spyfall (Game). https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/166384/spyfall
