Wolfmoon
Designed by Michael Palm and Lukas Zach, Wolfmoon is a deduction card game from Pegasus Spiele that takes 3–6 players. Tho' it has a werewolf theme, gameplay is recognisably similar to Love Letter (AEG) but with many more roles and additional options for the players.
As in Love Letter, each card has a numerical value but there are 2–4 different roles sharing most of the numbers; so tho' the Mayor and Werewolf are uniquely value 9 and 10 respectively, the Seer, Tax Collector, Inquisitor and Vampire all, for example, share the value 2. Altogether there are 26 different roles and all are printed on particularly sturdy Tarot-size card - twice the thickness of cards in most other games. Art is by Lea Frohlich.
The game is played with a seeded deck so that nobody starts off with the Werewolf card but it's among the cards in the first third of the draw deck. The deck also has two random cards removed unseen so players do not have perfect information about the cards that will be in play. A Moon card positioned a third of the way through the deck warns players that the Werewolf has by then entered play. Other Moon cards act as indicators of how much time remains and as a trigger for one of the four possible win conditions (having the Werewolf card in hand when the third Moon card is revealed).
Gameplay is similar to Love Letter, in that players start off with a card in hand and, on their turn, they draw a card and play a card, except that players in Wolfmoon have an additional option... As part of game set-up three cards are placed face-down in the centre of the table and, instead of drawing a card from the draw deck and playing a card for its effect, a player can choose to take one of the three face-down cards and replace it with a face-down card (either the card the card they had in hand or the card they just took). This gives them potentially useful knowledge of what cards are where but at the expense of foregoing a card effect that turn.
Even moreso than the multiplicity of roles and the multiple alternative potential win conditions, it's the three-card pool in the centre of the table that switches up the dynamics of Wolfmoon. Players with eagle eyes and good memories who've placed cards in the pool will try to keep track when other players take a card they've seen...
Nearly 15 years after its original release, and through several iterations and variants, we still play Love Letter as a gateway game and games night filler. That's probably going to continue but Wolfmoon is already earning its place as the 'next step' game that players can move on to. It's only a tad more complex. You can play a single game or, like Love Letter, you can play a short set of 'rounds' with players collecting a token for each win. However you play, Wolfmoon shines at 5-6 players, with each game or round running to around 15 minutes.
