On Janurary 26th 2023, the game Ultimate Werewolf was played in the depths of one of Miami’s most mysterious halls. While this game was new to many of the participants, some of the others held a double edge sword with their expirtise. Individuals such as I have never played such a game as complex as Ultimate Werewolf, but dabbled only simpler versions as a child, like within the game of Mafia. Many were extremely confused at the beggining of the session, but with a well equipt and experienced narrator, confusion metamorphisized into familiarity.

A breif summary of the game play of the session is as follows: In one of the beginning rounds the Witch was killed by the Werewolfs, but before she died, she managed to kill off one of the pup Werewolfs as well. This was an example of risktaking since she took the chance to kill at the very beginning rather than solely questioning who was the Werewolf. This allowed the Werewolfs to choose double the amount of townspeople to elliminate. Eventually the townspeople were able to kill off another Werewolf, which only left one left without their pack. While each one of the towns people tried their best to single out the werewold using their specilized tasks, time seemed to be running out quickly. With only about 6 townspeople left, many strategized that the only way to find the werewolf was through the process of ellimination of sharing their roles. This method did not seem to be beneficial at first, but eventually the last Werewolf standing was able to be picked away from the group, leaving the townspeople victorious (except for the dead ones).

The most challenging aspect of this game was not being familiar with the other players. Usually individuals like myself are very skilled at picking up on both verbal and physical normalities when it comes to one’s self. Since we were all playing with strangers, this made the game much more difficult to pick up on what was suspicious from an individual and what would typically seem normal. With that being said, I think the game more heavily relied so on leadership rather than intuition. It relied on leadership since many were able to speak up and share what stratigies might be helpful to pick out the Werewolf in given situations throughout the game play. An example of this that was breifly explained in the game play summary was the tactic of everyone saying their roles in the hopes to single out the Werewolf. This made the game both challenging and fun as a result.

Personally, I really liked this game, but it would not always be my first choice. There is a time and a place for this game since it is fairly stressful with trying to both defend yourself as well as trying to find and kill the Werewolf. Personally, in a game such as this, I am less likely to take risks since it will probably end in me making the wrong decision. This is also a similar approach to how I would handle a leadership role (make sure that you do it right rather than just to get it over with). One very important aspect of this game is that in order for the game to be enjoyable, every single player has to be into it. If not every player is 100% in. then it will not be a fun game. With that being said, I do not think that this game would be good for my direct family since it is fairly complex. I would suggest this game to my roommate Kendra though. This is because she plays a lot more complex games on her computer as well as DND, and I think that she would find it to be very enjoyable.