Many board gamers, especially Chinese players, have a fondness for "identity speculation" games, and enjoy it tirelessly, from the Three Kingdoms Kill, the Werewolf Kill to the Script Kill.
This kind of game generally has the characteristics of easy to use and strong interactivity, especially when many people gather, while reasoning and guessing, while the mouth cannon is continuous, the whole process is full of scheming decisions and laughter, when the game ends, each person reveals their true identity, and it will trigger a passionate discussion of everyone.
Although there are many "identity speculation" board games, only when combined with appropriate gameplay mechanics can the strategic depth of reasoning and action be improved, making the game more playable, rather than simple mouth cannon induction.
Today, I will introduce a few excellent and very fun identity speculation board games.
Resistance: Avalon
As a party board game for identity reasoning, Avalon is quite famous in board game circles, and this game is indeed quite good.
Avalon is set in the legend of King Arthur, and players are divided into two factions, good and evil.
Each round of the game, through the way of public voting under the leadership of the "leader" to form a team, after the team is successfully formed, the team members will perform the task through a secret vote, only all vote "success" to complete the task, as long as there is a villain and cast "failure", then the task will fail.
In the five-round game, the righteous side wins if it successfully completes three times, and the villain wins if it fails three times. However, when the righteous side completes three missions, the assassin of the evil side can also choose one person to assassinate, and if the person who assassinates is "Merlin", the villain can immediately reverse the victory.
The gameplay of Avalon is somewhat similar to "Werewolf Kill", except that there is no mechanism to be eliminated in advance in this game, and everyone can participate in the game in real time throughout the game, ensuring everyone's experience.
Five-round games, whether it's a "leader" forming a team, an open vote, or a secret vote to complete a mission, provides a stronger basis for identity reasoning, rather than relying on an inflexible mouth cannon.
Combined with the game's setting of special ability identities and some variation rules, the replay of the game is greatly guaranteed.
Last year's sequel, The Legend of Arthur, modified some of the rules of the game, added many characters and gameplay, and was also very popular and well received by players.
The Sound of the Wind
"The Sound of the Wind" is a "phenomenon-level" domestic original reasoning board game born in 2009, when there was even a saying of "North Three Kingdoms, South Wind Sound", which is also the work of many board game players.
In The Sound of the Wind, players are divided into red lurking camps, blue MI6 factions, and neutral third factions, but each player's initial identity is hidden.
The cards in the game can be used as function cards to test other players and intercept intelligence transmitted by others, or they can represent intelligence transmission, which is divided into three types: secret electricity, direct access and text, and the color can be divided into red, blue and black false intelligence.
When a player of a red or blue faction receives three pieces of information about the color of the faction, all the characters of the same faction win. Neutral forces have different ways of winning depending on their role.
In addition to the initial three hand cards, the player draws two cards per turn. You can use these hands to play your cards twice and pass on the information once.
Through the actions of other players and the response to their own operations, to deduce which players are in the same camp as themselves and which players are enemy camps, thus attributing the intelligence of the color of the faction to one person and destroying the actions of the opposing camp.
Identity hiding, dual use of hand cards, off-turn response mechanism, and differentiated character ability of each character make the situation of each game completely different, which not only puts forward higher requirements for players' hand management and reasoning judgment, but also is very strategic, and the degree of replay is also quite good.
This year, "The Sound of the Wind" will launch a sequel to the orthodox upgraded version, which is very worth looking forward to!
Blood Contract Hunting
"Blood Contract Hunting" is a board game work that has a certain sense of coolness to play and also tests the ability of reasoning and thinking.
Players are mainly divided into two vampire families, red and blue, and if the player is odd, a neutral player will be added, but the players are hidden from each other.
Character cards in the game will show a real faction and an appearance faction, and have a different level number. This information is almost always hidden, only the appearance camp will show to the player on the left-hand side, except for the Joker, the real camp and the appearance camp of the other characters in the two camps are the same.
The game begins with a random knife bearer, who has two choices in his or her turn, either to attack one of the other players or to abandon and hand the knife indicator to another player.
The attacked player can ask others to help him block the knife, if someone helps, the knife blocker deducts a little health, if no one helps, he has to bear this damage and deduct a little blood.
Each character has only a four-point health cap, and each deduction reveals a clue about their identity. There are three clues, their own level and two color symbols. When you reveal your own level clues, you can unleash your character's skills.
When you eat damage, you also get a knife, and each time the player with the knife becomes the next action player.
The game ends when a player has emptied their four health. The leader of each faction is the lowest-ranked character, and if the leader of the enemy camp dies, the party wins, and vice versa, the party loses.
The rules of the game are fairly simple, and the part of identity reasoning is not strong, because many characters are easy to expose their camps, but their strategy is not weak.
For the calculation of the leader's health, the camouflage of some special characters, the rational use of the character's ability, etc., are quite exquisite, plus the game allows players to discuss openly, which can drive the atmosphere and ensure the durability.
"Sinister Voyage"
The board game "Sinister And Suspicious Voyage" is also a relatively good identity speculation game in the past two years, players boarded a "thief ship" on the sea, there are good sailors, vicious pirates and terrible cult leaders, they all say that they are ordinary sailors, and each faction wants to dominate the course of this ocean-going giant ship and reach its destination.
The largest number of sailors had to go to the northeast, the fewer pirates had to go to the northwest, and the cult leader had to go to the north to summon evil gods and let everyone die together.
Ships in the game move once a turn, and the direction of movement is determined by the captain, first officer, and navigator. The captain and the first officer will draw two direction cards each, and then secretly choose one to give to the navigator, who will choose one of the two secrets to execute and decide which direction the ship will move to the east, west, and north.
Because of the hidden identity and the opaque selection of the heading card, the captain, first officer, and navigator can complain to each other each time they move against the largest number of sailors, and the crew can also reason about their identity.
Because the first officer and navigator are appointed by the captain and change shifts each round, if it feels that the captain's identity is problematic, other players can also launch a rebellion to change the captain by firing a pistol token.
Each faction's playing strategy is different, and a variety of observational reasoning, mouth cannons, and special items available in the upper course make the game full of complex and changeable fun.
Interestingly, cult leaders also have the opportunity to hold secret ceremonies to turn players from other factions into their own, making the reasoning process more suspenseful and interesting, and the "iron good guys" who were originally confirmed cannot be easily believed.
Everyone in Sinister Quest has the opportunity to become an important character to decide the course, and in most cases everyone can participate in the game, which is a great experience!
The Human Destruction Project: Social Interpretation 2.0
"Project to Destroy Mankind" is very "cyberpunk" from the graphic style to the background setting.
The background is the outbreak of the wisdom weapon crisis, and the surviving humans hide in the last stronghold in anticipation of a comeback, but the crowd is not only mixed with intelligent weapons disguised as humans, but also some outlaws who only want to destroy the world. Three unidentified factions will determine the final fate of mankind in this small space.
Each player determines their identity through one character card and two faction cards, which is very similar to "Infinity", which is also a game of identity speculation.
In general, the number of human players is the largest, and it is only by destroying the intelligent weapons and the fanatics that the victory is won. The number of intelligent weapons players is secondary, and they can win by destroying humans. The Berserkers need to eliminate the players from all other factions, including other Mad players, to win alone.
Players take turns performing one of three actions:
Secretly view a player's faction cards (character cards can be viewed when two faction cards have been opened);
Select and equip a weapon to aim at a player, and when the previous round is aimed, you can fire, aim at a new target, or drop the weapon when it is your turn;
Draw a card and use it at any time or hold it for all your time.
When the player is attacked by a weapon, they must show their faction card or character card according to the different choices of weapons, or eat the damage of the weapon (if there is no card to show, you must eat damage). Each person has only two points of health, and if the amount of health is emptied, it will be destroyed.
Eliminated players also have the opportunity to return to the game with the help of other players' special cards, but can no longer speak. Whenever a player is eliminated, it is up to that player to determine whether the end-of-game condition was triggered, so that he knows the identities of all players after resurrection.
The game is fast-paced, and in addition to guessing identities by looking at faction cards and various speeches and actions, the mutual combat of various weapons, the skills of various character cards, and the various functional hands (including cards that can transform their own factions), the linkage between each other makes the game extremely strategic and replayable.
"Blood Stained Bell Tower"
Blood Stained Clock Tower is a new game that has just been published, but it is very popular in the player circle, and the word of mouth is quite good.
Blood Stained Clock Tower is also a "killing" game. Every night in the game, the demons of the bad guy camp will kill one person. During the day, after free discussion, each person can nominate a person who is a demon, but each person can only be nominated once, and then the nominee is voted one by one, and can vote more or no vote at all.
The nominee with the highest number of votes is executed, but if the highest number of votes is the same or the maximum number of votes does not exceed half, the vote is invalid.
Night and day alternate until one side wins. As long as demons die and no new demons spawn, the good guy faction wins. When there are only two players and the demons are alive, the bad guy faction wins, and there are some cases where the bad guy side wins early.
The biggest feature of "Blood Stained Clock Tower" is that everyone has a unique role and skill, and the good guy camp is divided into two categories: ordinary townspeople and outsiders, but the skills of the outsiders may be unfavorable to the good guy camp. In addition to demons, the bad guy faction will also use various skills to help demons.
The multi-script offers a rich number of characters with different abilities, making every player very engaged, and each random identity selection and combination makes the game very re-open.
In addition, the host is no longer just a tool to guide the process and inform the outcome, he can decide on skill operations and some random and probabilistic events, so he can be more integrated into the game. Of course, higher requirements are also put forward for the ability of the host.
Players who are killed will not be eliminated directly, not only can they speak, but also have a freely chosen voting opportunity, and can even be revived, which is much better than the ordinary "killing" game.
Curiosity about unknown identities, thinking about reasoning results, enthusiasm for carry, and enjoyment of the warm atmosphere may be an important reason why many players prefer "identity guessing" reasoning board games.
Under the careful design of the designers, players not only have to guess and reason about the identity of others' camps, but also need to use various abilities to interact with each other to make the game interesting and playable.
What other fun guessing games have you played that you've repeatedly reopened with friends? Share it in the comments section!