Werewolf in the Dark
- Board's Eye View
- 12 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Tuesday Knight Games are probably best known for Two Rooms and a Boom, published in 2013. It was a Werewolf-style game for a potentially huge number of players (as many as 30!) who each had secret roles and were mostly allocated to either the Blue Team, which included the President, or the Red Team, which included a Bomber. Players started off randomly allocated between two separate rooms; each round some folk would be swapped from one room to the other; and at the end of the game the Red Team wins if the Bomber ends up in the same room as the President, otherwise it's the Blue Team that wins. It was beautifully produced, with plastic cards for each role, and it was far and away the most fun, if chaotic, entry to the Werewolf sub-genre of party games. At least that was the case until Tuesday Knight Games published Alan Gerding's and Andy Patton's Werewolf in the Dark.
Werewolf in the Dark comes in two versions; a Wolf Pack and a Monster Box. Each is standalone and caters for almost as many players as Two Rooms and a Boom but you can combine the Wolf Pack and Monster Box and/or mix & match the cards therein, so the only real limitation on the number of players is the practicality of the unobstructed space you have to play in. As to gameplay, it's pretty much covered by the title: it's Werewolf and it's played in the dark; as pitch black as possible. Essentially this is Werewolf meets Hide & Seek because players scatter in the dark and, subject to what's written on their role card, they are trying to avoid being caught by the werewolf or monster who 'kills' by double-tapping other players on the shoulder. A round ends immediately when someone stumbles on a body and calls that out.
There's more. This is a Werewolf game with no player elimination: if you're killed, you return next round as a ghost. You'll be subject to certain limitations on how you shuffle along and you'll be equipped with a candle that illuminates the area around you; and of course that makes you a liability for all those hiding in the darkness... You could use real candles but these could be a fire hazard in a game played in darkness and so with obvious trip hazards, so Tuesday Knight Games have also made available a pack of LED tea light 'candles', tho' you'll also need batteries to power them.
Admittedly, Werewolf in the Dark is highly situational in that, to get the most out of the game, you need to have a large relatively uncluttered space or set of rooms, all of which can be kept dark: great if you have a disused warehouse at your disposal or if you have access to an otherwise unoccupied haunted house. You can play it in more modest surroundings and with as few as six players but, with this game, it's very much a case of the more the merrier...
