Tag: Deduction

In Deduction games, players rely on their logic and reasoning skills to attempt to find the correct solution to a problem.

Bristol 1350

| T3d-1978
Bristol 1350

Bristol 1350

The dreaded Black Death has descended upon the town of Bristol. You are racing down the streets in one of the three available apple carts, desperate to escape into the safety of the countryside. If your cart is the first to leave the town and it is full of only healthy villagers when you leave, you and your fellow cart-mates successfully escape and win the game!

However, some villagers on your cart may already have the plague! They are hiding their early symptoms from you so that they can enjoy their last few days in peace. If you leave town with a plagued villager on your cart, you will catch the plague. You must do whatever is necessary to make sure that doesn’t happen!

On the surface Bristol 1350 is part co-operative teamwork, part racing strategy, and part social deduction. In reality, it’s a selfish scramble to get yourself out of town as quickly as possible without the plague, by any means necessary.

The game comes in a magnetic book box and includes a rubber playmat, 9 wood pawns, 3 miniature carts, 6 rat/apple dice, a linen bag, and 64 cards. The deluxe version adds 6 coins, 6 cards, and 3 metal carts. This standalone game is Volume 4 in the “Dark Cities Series” by Facade Games following Salem 1692, Tortuga 1667, and Deadwood 1876.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hidden Roles
  • Party Game
  • Player Elimination
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 9 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.54

BANG! The Dice Game

| T3d-1978
BANG! The Dice Game

BANG! The Dice Game

In the U.S. wild west, the eternal battle between the law and the outlaws keeps heating up. Suddenly, a rain of arrows darken the sky: It’s an Indian attack! Are you bold enough to keep up with the Indians? Do you have the courage to challenge your fate? Can you expose and defeat the ruthless gunmen around you?

BANG! The Dice Game keeps the core of the Bang! card game in place. At the start of the game, players each take a role card that secretly places them on a team: the Sheriff and deputies, outlaws, and renegades. The Sheriff and deputies need to kill the outlaws, the outlaws win by killing the Sheriff, and the renegades want to be the last players alive in the game.

Each player also receives a character card which grants him a special power in the game. The Sheriff reveals his role card and takes the first turn of the game. On a turn, a player can roll the five dice up to three times, using the results of the dice to shoot neighboring players, increase the range of his shots, heal his (or anyone else’s) life points, or put him in range of the Indians, which are represented by nine tokens in the center of the table. Each time a player rolls an arrow, he takes one of these tokens; when the final token is taken, each player loses one life point for each token he holds, then the tokens are returned to the center of the table.

If a player collects a trio of Gatling symbols on the dice, he fires one shot at everyone else and rids himself of Indian tokens. Who’ll get his shot off first? Play continues until one team meets its winning condition – and death won’t necessarily keep you from winning as long as your teammates pull through!

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Deduction
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hidden Roles
  • Party Game
  • Player Elimination
  • Push Your Luck
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 8 Players
  • ~15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.27

BANG! The Card Game

| T3d-1978
BANG! The Card Game

BANG! The Card Game

“The Outlaws hunt the Sheriff. The Sheriff hunts the Outlaws. The Renegade plots secretly, ready to take one side or the other. Bullets fly. Who among the gunmen is a Deputy, ready to sacrifice himself for the Sheriff? And who is a merciless Outlaw, willing to kill him? If you want to find out, just draw (your cards)!” (From back of box)

The card game BANG! recreates an old-fashioned spaghetti western shoot-out, with each player randomly receiving a Character card to determine special abilities, and a secret Role card to determine their goal.

Four different Roles are available, each with a unique victory condition:

  • Sheriff – Kill all Outlaws and the Renegade
  • Deputy – Protect the Sheriff and kill any Outlaws
  • Outlaw – Kill the Sheriff
  • Renegade – Be the last person standing

A player’s Role is kept secret, except for the Sheriff. Character cards are placed face up on table, and also track strength (hand limit) in addition to special ability.

There are 22 different types of cards in the draw deck. Most common are the BANG! cards, which let you shoot at another player, assuming the target is within “range” of your current gun. The target player can play a “MISSED!” card to dodge the shot. Other cards can provide temporary boosts while in play (for example, different guns to improve your firing range) and special one-time effects to help you or hinder your opponents (such as Beer to restore health, or Barrels to hide behind during a shootout). A horse is useful for keeping your distance from unruly neighbors, while the Winchester can hit a target at range 5. The Gatling is a deadly exception where range doesn’t matter: it can only be used once, but targets all other players at the table!

Information on the cards is displayed using language-independent symbols, and 7 summary/reference cards are included.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Deduction
  • Hand Management
  • Hidden Roles
  • Player Elimination
  • Take That
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 4 – 7 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.63

Avalon

| T3d-1978
Avalon

Avalon

The Resistance: Avalon pits the forces of Good and Evil in a battle to control the future of civilization. Arthur represents the future of Britain, a promise of prosperity and honor, yet hidden among his brave warriors are Mordred’s unscrupulous minions. These forces of evil are few in number but have knowledge of each other and remain hidden from all but one of Arthur’s servants. Merlin alone knows the agents of evil, but he must speak of this only in riddles. If his true identity is discovered, all will be lost.

Game Mechanics:

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

Game Specifications:

  • 5 – 10 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.76

Agatha Christie’s Death on the Cards

| T3d-1978
Agatha Christie's Death on the Cards

Agatha Christie's Death on the Cards

In Agatha Christie: Death on the Cards, which consists of a deck of eighty cards, players work co-operatively to solve a murder, using their detective skills to unmask the culprit and prevent their escape. The twist is that one of the players is the murderer and must work against the group to keep themselves hidden. Players also have dark secrets from their past they want to keep hidden from the other players. Who can you trust?

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Hidden Roles
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.25

Deal with the Devil

| T3d-1978
Deal with the Devil

Deal with the Devil

Deal with the Devil is a deeply thematic competitive Eurogame set in a fantasy medieval era. Each of the four players takes on a secret role of a mortal, a cultist, or even the Devil. Due to the asymmetrical roles, players experience the same game but with different game goals every play.

During the blind trading phase, players can offer their resources in exchange for money from another player. The Devil will tempt mortals with goods for a piece of their soul, while the cultist’s nature is to sell their soul easily. Only the accompanying app knows who is trading with whom.

But beware! Showing off how well you are doing can attract unwelcome attention and the suspicion of other players. It also may pique the interest of the Inquisition, which is eager to punish those who cannot prove their souls remain intact.

There are many dynamic strategies to experiment with across each playing. Will you sell pieces of your soul early on to boost your city-building prowess at the risk of future punishment from the Inquisition? Or will you carefully manage loan and debt repayment while waiting for others to inadvertently reveal their nefarious nature? Every choice has a consequence, and each role has its own unique strategic approach to explore.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Deduction
  • Trading

Game Specifications:

  • 4 Players
  • 120 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.59

Vendetta

| T3d-1978
Vendetta

Vendetta

Vendetta is a cooperative deductive murder mystery game where players must solve puzzles, follow clues and make decisions to solve a case. They do this using the included deck of cards, 12 hidden realistic clue documents, and the Internet. Through a choose-your-own-adventure mechanism, players make decisions that influence the course of the game and lead to solving the case in the end. One by one, they enter different realistically designed locations and encounter the various suspects. Then they choose from 3 different ways to deal with the situation and receive points based on their decisions. Complex puzzles and escape room elements must be solved in order to progress further in the case.

Thematically, the game moves in the environment of the mafia in today’s New york. As a member of the mafia you have to uncover the mole in your own ranks who caused the death of the eldest son of the godfather. It’s up to you whether you act morally or use other methods to make your victims talk.

The game is closely intertwined with the real world, and players have to keep using traditional apps like Google Maps or Wikipedia to gather information. Writing emails, detiallated web pages and cell phone calls are also part of the immersive gaming experience.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 180 – 300 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

Unfathomable

| T3d-1978
Unfathomable

Unfathomable

The year is 1913. The steamship SS Atlantica is two days out from port on its voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Its unsuspecting passengers fully anticipated a calm journey to Boston, Massachusetts, with nothing out of the ordinary to look forward to. However, strange nightmares plague the minds of the people aboard the ship every night; rumors circulate of dark shapes following closely behind the ship just beneath the waves; and tensions rise when a body is discovered in the ship’s chapel, signs of a strange ritual littered around the corpse.

Lurking within the depths of the Atlantic Ocean are a swarm of vicious, unspeakable horrors: the Deep Ones, led by Mother Hydra and Father Dagon. For reasons unknown, they have set their sights on the Atlantica, and their minions, taking the form of human-Deep One hybrids, have infiltrated the steamship to help sink it from within. Each game of Unfathomable has one or more players assuming the role of one of these hybrids, and how well they can secretly sabotage the efforts of the other players might mean the difference between a successful voyage and a sunken ship.

If you’re a human, you need to fend off Deep Ones, prevent the Atlantica from taking too much damage, and carefully manage the ship’s four crucial resources if you want any hope of making it to Boston, all while trying to figure out which of your fellow players are friends and which are foes. Everyone shares the same resource pool, but humans will try to preserve them while traitors will strive to subtly deplete them. Being able to tell when someone is purposefully draining the group’s resources is harder than you think, especially when you take crises into account!

At the end of each player’s turn, that player must draw a mythos card. Each of these cards represents a crisis that the whole group must try to resolve together. Some of these crises, such as “Food Rationing”, call for a choice that could potentially put the ship’s passengers or resources at risk, while others, such as “Hull Leak”, call for a skill test in which failure could have disastrous consequences.

During a skill test, each player contributes skill cards from their hand to a face-down pile shared by the group. Once everyone has contributed (or chosen not to), the cards are shuffled, then revealed. If enough of the correct skills were contributed, then the group passes the test! But if the wrong skills were contributed, they can actually hinder the results, leading to failure. Thus, skill tests are dangerous opportunities for traitors to sabotage the humans’ efforts, so you have to stay on your toes at all times.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Bluffing
  • Deduction
  • Hand Management
  • Hidden Roles
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • 120 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.94

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

| T3d-1978
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Have you ever had the desire to walk the streets of Victorian London with Sherlock Holmes in search of Professor Moriarty? To search the docks for the giant rat of Sumatra? To walk up Baker Street as the fog is rolling in and hear Holmes cry out, “Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!”? Now you can! You can enter the opium den beneath the Bar of Gold, but beware, that may be Colonel Sebastian Moran lurking around the corner. You can capture the mystery and excitement of Holmes’ London in this challenging and informative game. You, the player, will match your deductive abilities against your opponents and the master sleuth himself, Sherlock Holmes.

In Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, you are presented with a mystery to solve, and it is then up to you to trace the threads of evidence through the byways and mansions of nineteenth century London. You will interview suspects, search the newspapers for clues, and put together the facts to reach a solution.

Why were two lions murdered in Hyde Park? Who is responsible for the missing paintings from the National Gallery? Who murdered Oswald Mason and why? These are just a few of the cases that will challenge your ingenuity and deductive abilities.

This is not a board game: No dice, no luck, but a challenge to your mental ability. The game has been thoroughly researched for Holmesian and Victorian accuracy so as to capture a feeling of that bygone era.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Narrative Choice
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 8 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.68

Shards of the Jaguar

| T3d-1978
Shards of the Jaguar

Shards of the Jaguar

Shards of the Jaguar is a competitive “dungeon-deduction” game, which requires both strategic and tactical thinking. It is about an initiation trial where you and your fellow initiates have to prove that you are worthy of your tribe’s legendary animal’s, the Jaguar’s power.

The Jaguar was the defender of the tribe in the ancient times, but on a fateful day it got struck by a terrible curse and was broken into crystal shards.

The Shards of the Jaguar are still to be found in the Sacred Temple among the mountains, and the initiation trial is about to seek them and incorporate their power. But your journey will not be that easy. The temple is filled with perilous traps, and you have to learn how to use them, if you want to acquire the Jaguar’s hunting instinct.

Try to foresee what the others will do and set clever traps against them. Collect precious crystal shards, mystical amulets and map pieces leading to the Heart of the Jaguar. Outsmart the others and be the best in this trial to become the heir of the Jaguar, the defender of the tribe!

Shards of the Jaguar has eight rounds, and in each round, each player sets a trap secretly (Poisonous Gas/Darts/Guards/Earthquake), and then each player moves their character in the temple spending action points. You can move, take crystal shards, perform rituals and heal yourself in your turn for the action points. But move carefully! Each space on the game board could contain a secret trap – activated by another player – so you have to pay attention to each other’s movements to be able to find out which traps will be activated and so which spaces are safe for that round.

After each player spent their action points, you activate the traps and check who got hit by them (gathering different negative effects). If you were able to hit another player with your trap, you get glory points, as you are worthy of the Jaguar’s hunting instinct. At the end of the game you count the points you get for the crystal shards, the glory points for the successful traps, and the player with the most points wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Action Points
  • Deduction
  • Grid Movement
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.36