Tag: Bluffing

Bluffing board games typically require players to lie to each other to gain a competitive advantage.

Quest

| T3d-1978
Quest

Quest

In Quest, all will show their true colors as Good and Evil struggle for the future of civilization. Hidden amongst King Arthur’s loyal servants are Mordred’s unscrupulous minions. These forces of Evil are few in number, but if they go unknown, they can sabotage Arthur’s great quests.

Players are secretly dealt roles that determine if their allegiance is to Good or to Evil. Then, players debate, reason, and lie as they decide who to send on Quests—knowing that if just one minion of Mordred joins, the Quest could fail. Quest includes 25 different characters and many different ways to play the base game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Deduction
  • Hidden Roles
  • Memory
  • Negotiation
  • Party Game
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 4 – 10 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.83

Museum Suspects

| T3d-1978
Museum Suspects

Museum Suspects

DRRRiiiiiiiiinnnnng! Hurry, close the doors, a museum piece has been stolen! The director calls in a number of highly skilled investigators to find the thief or thieves amongst the 16 suspects held inside the building. Some clues are more valuable than others. Find the best ones to solve the case while obstructing your competitors’ investigations!

The culprit and his possible accomplices may still be around!

  1. Look for a clue in one of the museum’s rooms.
  2. Cover your tracks to deceive your opponents.
  3. Accuse a suspect by deduction.

What will be the outcome of this case? Will you find the culprit(s), unless they have escaped before the closing of the doors?

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Deduction

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 25 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.00

Good and Bad Ghosts

| T3d-1978
Good and Bad Ghosts

Good and Bad Ghosts

In Good & Bad Ghosts!, each player has four good ghosts and four evil ghosts – but only the player who owns a ghost can see whether it’s good or evil. These ghosts start the game in the back rows of a 6×6 game board with the corners removed. Each turn, a player moves one of his ghosts one square orthogonally. Moving into an opponent’s ghost kills that ghost. To win, you must get rid of your own evil ghosts, kill your opponent’s good ghosts, or move one of your good ghosts off the board from one of your opponent’s corner squares.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Grid Movement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • 15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.31

Full Throttle!

| T3d-1978
Full Throttle!

Full Throttle!

The wild moped riders are ready to race with their souped-up mopeds! Knowing that neither your courage nor your health insurance lets you take part in such a dangerous race, you and your friends instead choose the safe way to enjoy these races and start betting on the mopeds.

While the six mopeds race three times around the racetrack, trying to avoid getting stuck behind other mopeds or at the choke points, you assess the situation round by round and bet on your favorite mopeds. Who will finally win, place, or show?

In Full Throttle!, no one controls the mopeds, with them racing around the track in a “self-controlled” manner. Each round, reveal racing cards and move the mopeds around the track. Then draft the racing cards to be used as your hidden bets. The undrafted cards are reused for future movement of the mopeds. Choose your bets carefully because the cards you choose will make those mopeds go slower.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Closed Drafting
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.20

Downforce

| T3d-1978
Downforce

Downforce

High-stakes bidding on million-dollar race cars. Frantic bets placed in secret even as the cars race around the track. And to the victor, the biggest purse of all. But in the world of motor racing, the margin between victory and defeat can be a single moment: a steep banked turn, tires screaming and spitting out smoke, and the downforce, pressing you down in your seat and keeping you on the track as you make your move inside to pull ahead.

Downforce is a card-driven bidding, racing, and betting game for 2-6 players based on Top Race, the award-winning design by the legendary Wolfgang Kramer. Players first bid to own the six cars in the race, then they play cards from their hand to speed them around the track. However, most cards will also move their opponents’ cars. So figuring out just the right time to play a card is the key to victory. Along the way, players make secret bets on who they think will win the race. Whoever has the most money from their prize money, winning bets, and remaining bank wins.

This is a game whose design needed no attention. Years of play and multiple versions have honed it to near perfection. On the contrary, one of the design challenges was figuring which of the many rules modules to incorporate to create the most fun version. Downforce also adds variable player powers to improve replayability. But mostly, it improves the look of the game to make it gorgeous and easy to play. Special attention was paid to the colors, the layout of the cards, the design of the cars, the details on the board, and more.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Hand Management
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.74

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

| T3d-1978
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is a game of deduction and deception for 4-12 players that plays in about 20 minutes.

In the game, players take on the roles of investigators attempting to solve a murder case – but there’s a twist. The killer is one of the investigators! Each player’s role and team are randomly assigned at the start of play and include the unique roles of Forensic Scientist, Witness, Investigator, Murderer, and Accomplice. While the Investigators attempt to deduce the truth, the murderer’s team must deceive and mislead. This is a battle of wits!

The Forensic Scientist has the solution but can express the clues only using special scene tiles while the investigators (and the murderer) attempt to interpret the evidence. In order to succeed, the investigators must not only deduce the truth from the clues of the Forensic Scientist, they must also see through the misdirection being injected into the equation by the Murderer and Accomplice!

Find out who among you can cut through deception to find the truth and who is capable of getting away with murder!

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Deduction
  • Hidden Roles
  • Limited Communication
  • Party Game
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 4 – 12 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.59

Ca$h ‘n Guns

| T3d-1978
Ca$h ‘n Guns

Ca$h 'n Guns

In an abandoned warehouse a gangster band is splitting its loot, but they can’t agree on the split! It’s time to let the guns talk and soon everyone is aiming at everyone. The richest surviving gangster wins the game!

Ca$h ‘n Guns helps you relive the best scenes of your favorite gangster movies. The goal is to have more money than anyone else after eight rounds while still being alive.

Each round, one player is the Boss, and he controls the pace of play. First, loot cards are revealed on the table to show what’s up for grabs. Next, players load their guns by secretly selecting either a “Bang!” or a “Click! Click!” card from their hand. The Boss counts to three, and on “Three” each player points his foam gun at someone else; due to his status, the Boss can tell one player who’s pointing a gun at him that he needs to point it in another direction. After a pause to observe threats and measure the seriousness in an opponent’s eyes, the Boss counts to three again and anyone who doesn’t want to risk getting shot can chicken out and remove themselves from the round.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Negotiation
  • Open Drafting
  • Party Game
  • Player Elimination
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 4 – 8 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.25

Camel Up

| T3d-1978
Camel Up

Camel Up

In Camel Up, up to eight players bet on five racing camels, trying to suss out which will place first and second in a quick race around a pyramid. The earlier you place your bet, the more you can win — should you guess correctly, of course. Camels don’t run neatly, however, sometimes landing on top of another one and being carried toward the finish line. Who’s going to run when? That all depends on how the dice come out of the pyramid dice shaker, which releases one die at a time when players pause from their bets long enough to see who’s actually moving!

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Dice Rolling
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 8 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.45

Balderdash

| T3d-1978
Balderdash

Balderdash

A clever repackaging of the parlor game Dictionary, Balderdash contains several cards with real words nobody has heard of. After one of those words has been read aloud, players try to come up with definitions that at least sound plausible, because points are later awarded for every opposing player who guessed that your definition was the correct one.

Versions of the game as a parlor game go back at least as far as 1970, although Balderdash itself was not published until 1984.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Paper and Pencil
  • Party Game
  • Word Game

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.41

Bezzerwizzer

| T3d-1978
Bezzerwizzer

Bezzerwizzer

Bezzerwizzer is a quiz game from Denmark. It contains 5000 questions (English version has 3000 questions) from 20 categories. It takes its name from the german ‘Besserwisser’ meaning “know-it-all”.

On your turn players draw the category tiles from a bag and sort them on their player board according to their knowledge. If you know the answer to the category questions that you thought you’re worst at, you get one point. For your best category question you receive 4 points.

Each players has 3 additional tokens. One is labeled with a “Z” the other two are labeled with a “B”. With the “Z” token you can swap one of your categories with another player. Afterwards it’s out of the game for this round. You can use the “B” token when you think you can answer a question that your opponent might not know. This brings you additional points.

It’s a quick and funny party game that you can also play with teams.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Bluffing
  • Party Game
  • Trivia

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 12 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.59