Tag Archives: blood on the clocktower

Social Deduction Games and Blood on the Clocktower!

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Social deduction games are terrific party activities. A social deduction game involves players being assigned secret roles or allegiances, and the goal of the game is to unravel these secret roles before the opposing side can eliminate you from the game.

Usually it means the good guys trying to root out the bad guys before the bad guys take power, kill the good guys, or outwit the good guys into acting against their own best interests.

There are a lot of social deduction games out there for you to enjoy. Ultimate Werewolf, Are You a Robot?, Salem 1692, The Resistance, and Secret Hitler are all affordable ones with tons of replay value. (Of course, for affordability, you can’t beat Mafia. You can play a round of Mafia with just a deck of cards, proving that social deduction games are more about the players than the game pieces.)

But, when it comes to social deduction games, one game stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of complexity, variation, challenge, and immersion.

Blood on the Clocktower.

There are usually only a few different roles to play in social deduction games. In Are You a Robot?, there are humans and robots. In Ultimate Werewolf, villagers and werewolves. In Secret Hitler, there’s Liberals, Fascists, and Hitler. In Mafia, there are mafia members, townspeople, a doctor/guardian angel, and a detective.

The limited number of character archetypes allows you to introduce to new players to the game quickly, which is definitely a bonus for games that require a large number of people.

But these limited roles can also hurt replay value if your players are looking for more to sink their teeth into.

That’s where Blood on the Clocktower comes in.

Yes, there are only two teams (good and evil), but EVERY player gets their own role, including powers and requirements that change over the course of the three “nights” that the game takes place. Every role is unique, and victory or defeat can hinge on the special abilities of a single player.

Blood on the Clocktower is the Tri-Dimensional Chess to every other social deduction game’s Chess. There is so much going on, so much to keep track of, so many possibilities that you can’t help but fall fully into the immersion of the game. It’s your only chance to survive.

And the game is so involved that it lends itself well to be “performed.” Watching a great game of Blood on the Clocktower being played is sometimes just as fun as playing.

I have seen some amazingly entertaining actual play videos of Blood on the Clocktower. YouTube channels like Smosh and No Rolls Barred have played, and now, Good Time Society is hoping to fund a Kickstarter for a series of actual plays of the game:

Some of the best actual play personalities in the board game and roleplaying game are teaming up for this, and it looks like they’re going to make something special here.

So click this link if you’d like to contribute. If not, hopefully you’ll watch some of these actual play videos and check out the game for yourself.

Game companies continue to push the envelope in terms of storytelling, presentation, and immersion, and Blood on the Clocktower has become the new benchmark. Who knows what’s coming next!

Do you have a favorite social deduction game? Let me know in the comments below! (For me personally, I love the simplicity and replay value of Mafia!)

And happy deducing, everyone!

What’s Better in Puzzles and Games – Loud or Quiet?

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One of my favorite things about puzzles is how peaceful they are.

Sure, escape rooms can be cacophonous, and dropping a jigsaw puzzle can be infuriating, but for the most part, puzzles are soothing.

The satisfying scratch of pencil on paper as you fill in a word, watching the pile of unplaced jigsaw pieces slowly dwindle as the picture continues to form, getting a little victory chime when you solve a puzzle in your favorite app…

Board games, on the other hand, tend to get loud.

Sometimes, it’s good-natured debate or enthusiastic contributions, like when things get tense in a cooperative game, or when the game generally encourages rambunctiousness, like Throw Throw Burrito.

Other times, it’s a by-product of the gameplay itself. There’s a fair amount of frenzied clacking in Hungry Hungry Hippos, for instance, but I never hear people complain about the noise that comes along with a round or two of marble-chomping.

[Image courtesy of Grey Mass Games.]

Of course, that increase in volume can be for reasons that are a little more heated. Maybe someone betrayed someone else in a game like Sheriff of Nottingham. Monopoly famously inspires people to flip the board in frustration.

Social deduction games where identities are secret, or where there’s some level of deception involved, also tend to get pretty loud. Whether it’s Mafia, Ultimate Werewolf, Secret Hitler, Blood on the Clocktower, or others, raised voices are common.

But when it comes to loud board games, I think we can all agree that one particular dexterity takes the cake.

Say it with me now…

JENGA!

Yes, Jenga — by design — is loud. The only way the game can end is with a toppling tower of wooden blocks. CRASH! I know several board game cafes that have banned it for that specific reason.

Sure, KerPlunk can be loud, but even a stack of falling marbles doesn’t seem to compare to the jarring clatter of a stack of Jenga tiles hitting the table and/or the floor.

Sure, Perfection can be loud, but that’s kind of the point. You’re trying to complete the task BEFORE the buzzer. So it is possible to play without the cacophony.

Jenga is so infamously loud that there are other games that sell themselves on being quieter than Jenga but offering the same stacking mechanic. Rhino Hero and Rhino Hero Super Battle employ cards instead of wooden blocks, so the collapse is less more tolerable, while Catch the Moon employs ladders, which makes for an oddly soothing yet still stressful game experience.

But where do you stand on noise-making games and puzzles? Do you like them soothing and soft or calamitous and crashing? And just what is the loudest game? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you.

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