After playing hundreds of werewolf kills, I found it terrifyingly real
Author | LJS
Title Picture | "Man Wolf Game"
In recent years, the popularity of werewolf killing seems to have been replaced more by social games such as script killing and egg hunting. However, from 2015 to 2018, Werewolf Kill was a social game project that attracted much attention from investors. An online game called "Werewolf Killing" once released data saying that during the Spring Festival in 2017, "Werewolf Kill" DAU grew in a general trend, and its popularity did not subside, with nearly one million paying users, and it received millions of yuan in Series A financing from Qingsong Fund, with a post-investment valuation of more than 100 million yuan. This year, dozens of werewolf killing games were launched.
Previously, the live broadcast platform Zhanqi TV launched Lying Man, Panda TV launched Panda Kill, and Mi Wei, who targeted young people, also launched the variety show "The Temptation of Dinner". At that time, the App Store listed the strategy game Werewolf Killing, which originated from offline tables, as a "social" game, and investors and media talked about the consumer demand and market prospects of "social". According to reports, mobile games such as "Werewolf Killing" have reached 300,000 daily active users for more than 3 months, squeezing into the top 10 of the App Store's free list, second only to QQ, WeChat, and Weibo.
Character poster for the game Werewolf Kill.
"Please close your eyes when it's dark" and confirm your identity
Although other board games such as poker, mahjong, Three Kingdoms Kill, and Script Kill are played in turn, werewolf kill still has its unique charm in social games. In 2017, I would spend hundreds of dollars a week to play a werewolf kill with a dozen strangers, which is similar to the current price of script killing. The complex script will allow players to play different roles, reason according to clues, and finally restore the truth, the story blueprint is richer, and everyone has the opportunity to see the ending of the story and participate in it.
The beginning of Werewolf Kill is much simpler, mainly divided into God cards, civilian cards and werewolf cards, God and civilians are the good guy camp, werewolves are the other camp, and finally the number of survivors is used as the basis to divide the winners and losers. After "Close Your Eyes When It's Dark", a moderator will play the role of "God" to advance the game. Aside from the werewolves and their companions, no one else was aware of the identities of anyone present.
On December 2, 2017, in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, people play the game of werewolf killing at the 2017 Tencent Game Carnival (TGC2017). (Photo/Visual China)
Werewolves can choose to "kill" one person every night, and if they deduce the person with the skill card based on clues and speeches, and kill them all, the werewolf camp declares victory. And the god card is generally composed of characters such as soothsayers, witches, hunters, etc. Prophets can verify the identity of any person by talking to God, and if they are lucky enough to find a werewolf, they can convince others to vote for the werewolf to be executed "after dawn".
However, if a prophet reveals his priesthood too early, he will arouse the suspicion of werewolves. In order to prevent more of their werewolf companions from being identified, the werewolves will "knife" the prophet after dark. The Prophet must not only recognize the identities of more people from the opposing faction, but also not arouse the suspicion of the werewolves, and at the same time convince the good faction to believe in him, so he must first win the trust of the God Card and the Civilian Card.
Beijing, November 3, 2017. On weekends, young people gather at a board game store called "Wolf's Gate Inn" to play werewolf killing. (Photo/Visual China)
The witch has a bottle of poison and an antidote, and she can choose to kill or save a person, and she will be given additional information - who is killed by a werewolf on a given night can be used to determine whether the other party is in the good or werewolf camp, and cast her own vote after dawn. However, it is also possible that the person who is killed is a werewolf who stabbed himself, and the werewolf used bitter meat to kill himself by a thousand, which can deceive the witch for the only chance to save people, and can also use this method to gain the witch's sympathy. Some witches will think, "The one who is killed must be a good person, and the werewolf will not pay such a big price to face the end of losing." "The killing and rescue of witches sometimes only rely on a little intuition or suspicion, there are too many gossiping people at the table, it is difficult to distinguish between friend and foe, and mistakes in killing and saving often occur.
(Photo/"Human Wolf Game")
Hunters can choose to reveal their identities before they die, taking a person with them on their backs. This is a dying skill. Hunters sometimes hide their identities, and when some people are desperate to get the hunter voted out, the hunter guesses that it is probably the result of the conspiracy of the werewolves, and decides to shoot a person before he dies.
In the end of the doomed exit,
Players still have a chance to have more fun
Civilian cards have no identity. Every time they get a civilian card, many players will look dark - boring. In this game, they are both downstream of the information, without any perks and other buffs (stacking skills) to get more information, nor do they have any prophetic preknowledge and the ability to reward and punish. Both werewolves and gods have lofty ideals and clear goals, which are to ensure their own retention and disintegrate each other's trust and strength. But civilians lack this sense of mission and responsibility. Since they have no identity, what role do civilians have to play in this game, and what game routines do they use?
Generally speaking, civilian cards and god cards belong to the same faction, and naturally want to help god cards survive, so they often sacrifice themselves to achieve the ultimate goal - the good guy camp wins. Therefore, after logical reasoning and subtle observation - they can only rely on themselves and reason - they will choose to trust the god card that behaves more reasonably, become a part of adding firewood to the fire, and throw suspicious characters out, and will also choose to cover the other party after the identity of the god card is exposed, insisting that they are the prophet or witch, so that the werewolf is likely to concentrate their fire on them after dark, and the real god card can survive one more night and lead more people out of the fog.
On June 1, 2010, several young people were playing board games in a board game bar in Beijing. (Photo/Visual China)
But some civilians don't care about this, the victory of the camp is not the most important thing, and "Gou" to the end is the goal. Unlike script killing, if you are suspicious of your fellow camp and targeted by the werewolf camp because of your speech loopholes and sacrifice, the civilians will quickly end the game and watch until the end. An already boring identity will have no sense of existence. The duration of a werewolf kill game can be very short, unlike seven or eight hours at every turn, like script killing. Werewolf kills are sometimes the final word, and the person who is kicked out of the game has no chance to play the game. For those who are out early, werewolf killing is not a social game, they have become players who are socially rejected because they are screened by logic, expression, and intuition.
But when I get a civilian card, I don't play either of these ways. The path of the god card and the werewolf card has been set, and the person who gets these two cards will have a very strong sense of participation, and the opponent is clear, the partner is clear, and the protagonist is the protagonist at the table. Each time these cards are acquired, the players have a stronger sense of performance and purpose, and often even clash because they have the logic of trying to defend themselves in order to convince more people to help them win the battle for survival. But the civilian card is not arranged for a good way, and there are no additional resources. However, if you are a civilian card and still want to have fun in the game, you can't be a "transparent person" who follows the trend.
(Photo/"Human Wolf Game")
I chose to be a so-called "highly engaged" civilian. Many familiar players will use the term "mob" or "rioter", "-stirring stick" and "catfish" to refer to civilian card players who are unwilling to lose interest in the game early. Since you are involved, why can't the civilian card find its own fun? You might as well make some suspicious movements in the middle of the night, and after dawn it is revealed that you are a "god card" personnel, and have experienced that the No. 13 player on the scene is a werewolf, and the No. 10 player is very similar to another priesthood, and the No. 2 player, who is largely a civilian, is an iron wolf.
The 13th, 10th, and 2nd will contribute more participation in the game, and more enthusiasm for expression and feeling—it would be great if they were civilians too. The game is no longer a traditional game with god cards and werewolf cards as the protagonists, and the civilians have turned the tide and made themselves the protagonists of the game. This is an important lesson that werewolf killing has taught me - when this only one life comes, you don't have to go along with it, you don't have to listen to it, you have your own judgment, you have your own persistence, and more importantly, you will never lie down when you get a civilian card. When the desire to be the hero of the game is greater than anything else, you can become the hero of the game.
In the game, the player has the right to leave the game at a later date. In a doomed ending, players still have a chance to have more fun. No matter how the rules are written, that's where the freedom of werewolf killing comes in.
(Photo/"Human Wolf Game")
On the game table,
There is no "truth" and "highest value identity"
I've played hundreds of Werewolf Kills, and novices are often stunned by the deception and lies of the Werewolf cards, some of whom turn tables and leave, some of whom "express despair of humanity", and some of whom cry for grievances. At this point, Werewolf Kill as a social game will tear off the veil, different players will be screened, and some will quit the game forever, believing that this is a disaster for making friends to break the ice, because "seeing the most cunning side of the other person".
Werewolf killing is by no means a game of harmony, as mentioned above, it is full of doubt, persuasion, distrust, self-proof, calculation of interests, betrayal, head-on conflict, false and wronged, "backstabbing", high-level werewolf killing is like a debate arena, in fact, there is no "truth" and "the highest value identity", the survival mechanism born with the goal of winning or losing, often tests the debate technology and the public opinion orientation woven with logic. But if you play it to a state of being too serious and exploding at one point, werewolf killing will be detached from the attributes of the game and become a mental competition. After all, it's better to have fun with the game.
(Photo/"Human Wolf Game")
There will always be people who are new to some kind of game, and everyone is starting as a beginner. I and many werewolf slayer players like novices to participate, after all, people who are too familiar with the routines have already understood the routine, and the ever-changing performances and words are already strange, and the unfamiliar novices will be used as a factor to join by chance, disturbing everyone's fixed judgment.
The threshold for werewolf killing is not low - expression, reasoning, intelligence, understanding, sensibility, and having such an identity with the game: the behavior of allowing competition and cooperation for the sake of winning or losing the game, and not being "disappointed in human nature" at every turn, "pig teammates" can have, but morally blaming others for their game performance behavior will be filtered. Those who can make friends in Werewolf Killing actually have tolerance and appreciation for the same values. Werewolf killing accelerates the social process, and you can see each other's hole cards in a few games: the fun is the same, the game can continue to be a partner, and if there is no big conflict in cognition, friendship can be pushed smoothly.
Although the players "kill" at the poker table, many times they are just "playing emotional plays", whether they are red or arguing, they can always smile at each other in the end. Such friendships must not be established in a hasty or false manner, and such friendships may be more real than those who have never understood each other deeply.
Original title: What does werewolf killing teach me?
This article was first published in the 651st issue of the New Weekly "Egg Test"