One Night Ultimate Werewolf meets the Quacks of Quedlinburg 

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I love these next two games, One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Quacks of Quedlinburg. They are great family games in addition to being just two great games. Werewolf will be another great game for a crowd, while Quacks settles in at 2, 3, or 4 players. These are outstanding additions to any aspiring board gamer.

Moving into our next two games – I broaden the scope of what I was looking for as opposed to the last two games I picked. Those qualities are:

• Easy
• Family
• Dynamic

One Night Ultimate Werewolf

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What is It

At its core, “One Night Ultimate Werewolf” immerses players in a world of hidden roles, bluffing, and social deduction. The whole purpose of the game is to quickly, and I mean in less than five minutes, who is lying and who is telling the truth about “who” they are. Each player will assume a role on one side of a team. Either you are on the side of the villagers, or you are on the smaller side (the villains in this game) the Werewolves. The various character roles, from the Werewolves to the tricky Troublemaker and the helpful Seer, sprinkle in bits of information to help determine just who is who. The game’s success hinges on players’ ability to navigate the roles each player may have been, read subtle cues, and make strategic decisions within a 5 minute timeframe.

What makes this game easy to recommend for purchase for your new collection is its ease of learning and play. I can’t stress enough that your first games should be mostly easy to learn, not just for yourself but in general easier games are more likely to get played – again and again. What also sets this game apart is the free app (available here for iPhone and here for Androids) that guides gameplay, gives clear instructions making it very accessible even for those unfamiliar with modern board games. You could download it for free and construct a game just to hear what a game sounds like. The app also adds an immersive element to the experience, providing background noise during the night phase and automating narration, making it a seamless game.

As mentioned you’ve all got the pressure of 5 minutes to figure out who is the werewolf or werewolves, and quickly vote buy pointing your figure at essentially “who done it.” There are always tons of laughs after the big reveal as either the werewolf got away with it by throwing players off the trail. Or the villagers congratulate each other with their detective skills.

Almost every game you likely get to be a different role and I love that. I love it also when the most unsuspecting person at the table pulls off the role of the werewolf and no one saw it coming at all

What a Turn is Like

Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of what a turn typically looks like in the game:

1. Night Phase: The game kicks off with the night phase, during which players close their eyes, and various character roles come into play. Roles like the Werewolf, Seer, Troublemaker, and others perform their unique actions in secret,
2. App-Guided Narration: The free app seamlessly guides players through the night phase, providing narration and background noise to obscure movements and actions. Here is where depending on your role you will take unique actions that hopefully will help sus out who the werewolf is.
3. Day Phase: As the “sun rises”, players open their eyes to a changed game state. It’s during this phase that the real fun begins, as players must now navigate the information available to them and deduce who might be the werewolves among them. There is no structure to this – someone just has to start the conversation. The kicker is you only have 5 minutes to quickly put together who is who.
4. Voting: After the frenzied discussion, players vote on who they believe the werewolf or werewolves are.

Oh man – that discussion can just get fast and furious. It becomes all about who you believe and does what they are saying match with whatever little piece of the puzzle you may have. If you are the werewolf – you must tread carefully and sew seeds of doubt trying to cast blame on anyone but you. What a player says, and when they choose to say it, is just an important. Is someone just conveniently dogpiling on a suspect when they are the actual werewolf? Is person who says they are the Seer really telling the truth? What happens when what they say doesn’t match what you “know” to be true about a role? Because roles potentially could change in the Night phase – What anyone is “for sure” is almost always possibly could in fact be different. It is even possible to “go to bed” a villager and “wake up” a werewolf, and not even know it!

 

Why I picked it

Easy: The app really drives the action – in concise instructions it literally tells each player what to do and when to do it. The biggest thing people need to remember is you only get to look at your role once, and the very start of the game. Remember it may have changed during the night – That is the one rule I stress above all others – only look at your roll once, unless the game tells you otherwise.

There isn’t any structure or rules that define the Day Phase/Discussion period – players really are on their own to navigate through it just by talking. YOU CAN SAY ANYTHING. Remember this game is about bluffing/deduction. If you are the werewolf – your going to need to lie and cast doubt. If you are one of the players who know pieces of the puzzle, you are quickly looking for others to help solidify your story.

Family: Because it can handle higher player counts, this is great for family gatherings like holidays or just get togethers. The game itself comes in a pretty small box making it easy to travel with. The app drives all the instructions, making it easy for multiple people to play. You can play one game, and in 10 minutes swap in new players that want a go at it.

Dynamic: The game state is constantly changing, and certainly will be different between every game you play. Each time you play, you likely will have a very different experience, without having to relearn a whole new game. One time you might be the Werewolf trying to throw everyone off, one time you might be the Seer who gets to look at either one or two cards, thereby holding a great deal of information, or you might “just” be a plain villager not really having any additional information and just trying to really put together the pieces of the puzzle. Shoot, you could start the game as a villager and end up a werewolf and not even know it. The Day Phase/Discussion phase is my favorite part. Saying to much (or to little) could mean the difference in a game. You might spot just enough of suspicion that you can either catch someone in a lie, or better, make someone else look like the Werewolf, when in fact you are the Werewolf!

Check out this game to get a good sense of the game and the various roles.

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“..it’s really interesting how when you play with different roles you think differently…”

— Dan, Gameboy Geek

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Quacks of Quedlinburg

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What is it

As I look at the games I’ve introduced so far, as well as looking ahead, Quacks of Quedlinburg may be the best family board game on here. I’m not the only one that things that – according to Board Game Geek, it is ranked as the 8th best Family Board Game, and the 61st highest ranked board game overall. Considering the thousands of board games out there – those are some pretty high marks!

Family games should be fun and competitive, but not necessarily cutthroat. They should offer a chance to cheer each other on, while still giving each player the means to have an equal chance at winning.

Quacks of Quedlinburg hits all those marks. It is a great family board game.

“Quacks” as we tend to call it – really nails down its theming. That is part of the reason it is a great family level game. It jumps out right away as you unpack your box and your individual player mat is represented by a large cauldron that you’ll be buying quirky ingredients for. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

In Quacks you are a medieval scientist – alchemist? looking to come up with the best potion. You’ll be adding ingredients to your potion, but add to many of the same one, and your cauldron “explodes” costing you either points or money to buy more ingredients. Looking closer at the cauldron I had mentioned, you’ll notice two series of numbers – one representing points, and the other currency. The farther you make it down each round – the more points you score. How do you make it down those tracks you ask? Why by pulling out the mystical ingredients from your “Bag of Mystery.” Ok so it is not called a “Bag of Mystery” but since you don’t know if your grabbing an ingredient that will push you down four spots on the point track, or the one ingredient that will make you explode – I think the word mystery applies.

What is a turn like

Each turn in a round begins the same. Each person, at the same time even, will reach into their bag – pull out one ingredient, and advance their cauldron marker the number represented on the ingredient they pulled. As you might guess the higher the value, the farther the ingredient is placed on your brewing board’s swirling pattern of increasing numbers. Now the first few pulls are easy enough – but bag will always have some bad ingredients in there – pull to many at the round ends for you. So after your first bad ingredient our two – this bring us too….

Decision Time! Now comes the crucial decision-making moment. You must decide whether to continue drawing more ingredients or to stop. The catch is that if you draw too many white chips, your cauldron might explode, limiting your rewards for that round. Specially you’ll need either forgo points, or the cash you need to buy well better ingredients. I should also mention that the different ingredients kind of have unique effects you can take advantage of as you pull them out and safely place them. It’s a delicate balance between pushing your luck for greater rewards and avoiding potential disaster.

You have a limited amount of rounds to amass your points and best your competing alchemists. After 9 rounds, tally your victory points and see who your winner is.

Why I picked it

2 reasons I chose to pick this game. 1st – This really makes a great family board game. Even if not everyone in the family is into board games – this one can tend to draw them in. Which leads to my 2nd reason – “Push Your Luck.” That is a bit why this game is so captivating, and why it can draw people in. It doesn’t really on deep strategic thinking (though there is some) it really relies on that “gamble” aspect I think everyone has at some level. It does so in a safe space so to speak. You won’t have to gamble real dollars, just how far you’d advance down the victory point track. As a family game, it does a good job of including some “catch-up” mechanisms as well. That’s a fancy way of saying, it is hard to blow somebody out in score, which you don’t like to see in a family fun night. It is no fun to get beat by hundreds of points!

We talked about games needing to be easy to learn. Again, Quacks hits that. There is a little bit of setup, and learning what each ingredient does, but most of that is printed right in front of the players. Your main action is simply pulling a token out of a back, and counting spaces down a track. Do I dare compare that to Chutes and Ladders or Candyland?

The game is also dynamic. Our final qualifier. The games can change from game to game, because you can switch up the types of actions the ingredients do. It will change just what you might want to buy from one game to the next. The game changes as you are playing it as well – not the rule set, or what’s available – but how each player will need to react to others. If you see someone else moving down farther the victory point track than you – it may be time to increase your risk factor a bit – and go for that one last pull out of the bag.

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“…One of the best games we’ve played in years…”

— Matt Lees, Shut Up & Sit Down

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