One Night Werewolf

One night werewolf, or to use the full name, One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a party game of deception and deduction for 3-10 players. You must have a minimum of three players because you attempt to figure out who the werewolf is and vote them out of the game. Two people just wouldn’t work. That is essentially how you win. If you end up on the villager team your goal is to find the werewolf and kill them! If you find yourself a werewolf, you must use your wits to deceive your friends that you are one of them. If the werewolf or werewolves survive, they win! There is also the Tanner… He’s special and not really on those two teams.

That is easy enough to grasp, so let’s get into the actual gameplay. Everyone gets assigned at random a role by dealing out the player cards face down. The players then look at their roles and keep them a secret. Every role, except for the regular villager has a special ability. Most of these abilities take place during the “night” phase. One player, usually the one that owns the game or has the most experience with it, takes the secondary role of the announcer. They are the one that will guide the others through the gameplay and the night phase in general. Alternatively, and certainly the best option, you can download a completely free app that takes the role of the announcer and does everything for you.

Either way you chose to play, it’s a relatively straightforward game. The announcer, or the app, will tell you what to do during the night phase and when or when not to open your eyes. I’d say it would take two to three rounds max and you’ll have a complete understanding of how to play. After the night phase and all of the chaos that the roles create are finished, the “Day” phase begins. Day phase is just when everyone discusses who they think are the werewolves. Keep in mind though, the roles shake up so many things up during the night phase that even the players that think they are the werewolves may not be anymore. A vote then takes place, and the players can reveal their cards! It can literally be a surprise for everyone.

Now that the gameplay is relatively explained I’ll give my opinion. To see how we rate the game or to get a more in-depth view of the game, you’ll need to listen to the podcast that should be attached to the top of this blog entry. This is just a quick review.

First and foremost, I do enjoy this game. I will say though, when I recently played it, we played probably three or four rounds before we decided to switch to another game. There was only four of us playing and I do think that this game plays better towards the upper limit of ten players rather than the minimum. It’s an entry level game and almost anyone can get into it quickly and have a good time. When I played, we had a friend with us that really doesn’t ever play games with us. He was able to pick this up in no time. The game hits all the marks you’d want, but honestly just doesn’t have the spark to make me want to continue playing for the night. It’s something to play when you are just hanging around waiting for more friends to come by or entertain the group while you set up some huge complex game that will be the game of the evening. Take that as you’d like. It is still a game I would recommend for someone’s collection.

All of the player roles cards

The average playing area with the three extra cards in the middle.