In this critical play, I will be comparing and contrasting my team’s game, Corruption, to Secret Hitler, the game that our game’s foundations were built off of. Secret Hitler and Corruption are very similar games when it comes to what kind of gameplay experience they are meant to create, but they are different in the ways which they go about it.
Secret Hitler is a social deduction analog board game created by Max Temkin, Mike Boxleiter, Tommy Maranges, and Mac Schubert. The foundations of the game align with our own, however, certain mechanics differ. Our game, Corruption, is intended for the same type of audience. When focusing on the target audience, Secret Hitler is ideal to play for a diverse audience of older kids, teenagers, and adults. However, more specifically, those who know each other, such as friends and family rather than strangers. This is due to the game being designed to promote friendly conflict within a magic circle rather than legitimate conflict. The game is less ideal for players who do not know each other, as players need to use the context clues of social behavior differences which is easier to detect in known groups than unfamiliar ones.
The dynamics and aesthetics are also very similar, along with some mechanics. In Secret Hitler, when given cards, players either end up with liberal or fascist cards. When the Chancellor receives the remaining cards, they can either place down one or the other. One could be a liberal to form trust, and one could be a fascist to progress the fascist team.
A visual example of what players may see:
In Corruption, there are cards that can progress the lawful and corrupt teams, and passing a lawful card can also create trust. Along with this, in both games, players can form lies for players on why they made either their corrupt or fascist choices. While these lies could be different, they both share the same goals of deception. A simple example in Secret Hitler is claiming that they only had fascist cards to choose from. In Corruption, the reasoning could be that it was the third random card in the enaction pile. This type of gameplay forces players to focus on each other and reason through each and every players choices through the game to come to a conclusion on what team they are on.
Both games attempt to achieve the same goals, but they go about it differently. In both of these games, they try to promote social thinking and catching clues in people’s decisions. They try to have players formulate their own methods of convincing each other that they are “good,” whether they truly are or are not, with players having freedom of choice. With all of this said, these games are mechanically different. In both games, outside of the main two good and bad roles, there are also roles that players take on that change their gameplay. In Secret Hitler, these are the President and the Chancellor, while in Corruption, they are the Speaker, the Elector, the Treasurer, and the Vigil. While both have their own roles, they differ in quantity and the ways in which they play. In Secret Hitler, the President draws cards and discards one secretly, while the Chancellor chooses one of the remaining two to place on the board. The Speaker and Elector in Corruption are the roles that choose the cards, but they are not intentionally designed to always work together. The Speaker is the one that convinces all other players where government funding should go, while the Elector chooses to place and discard cards based on the funds already in play. There is also the treasurer and the vigil which completely differ in purpose, but the Speaker and Elector’s purposes are more notable due to being similar and different at the same time to the President and Chancellor. One of the most notable differences is that while in Secret Hitler, Hitler can be eliminated, in Corruption, the Corrupt(s) cannot. This allows for a dynamic difference. In Corruption, there is still a chance for found Corrupt(s) to succeed if they are strategic enough to manipulatively use their known identity to their advantage. In Secret Hitler, discovery of one’s role could be the end of the game.
To close this off, the game’s differ in their pacing. While both take around the same amount of time to finish (around forty minutes), Secret Hitler feels faster than Corruption. Secret Hitler is a more simple game that moves around its roles fast, while Corruption gives each role time. While this could be beneficial to players with complex thinking, casuals may find Corruption a little too slow. For my team, this could be viewed as a flaw or a good thing, but it is the most notable negative difference.
Overall, the games play differently and are separated by some of their mechanics, but they still remain similar games in their dynamics and aesthetics.
