Tag Archives: werewolf

Compare and Contrast: Ultimate Werewolf and Blood on the Clocktower

Ultimate Werewolf and Blood on the Clocktower (BOTC) are two social deduction games that we have played over the last semester that share quite a bit in common mechanically. However, both have distinct differences that set them apart in many ways. Both games utilize a day and night cycle in which two teams attempt to meet the necessary criteria to bring their team to victory. For Ultimate Werewolf, the townsfolk try to catch and kill the werewolves before they can kill the whole town. Similarly, BOTC has the town attempting to catch a demon and its minions before they can murder the whole town. During the day, the town votes to execute one person in an attempt to kill a member of the evil team. During the night cycle of both games, the werewolf/demon faction chooses one townsperson to kill. Each game utilizes unique hidden roles to give players an edge for their team.

            While these two games are both similar, each presents itself differently and provides unique experiences for its players. For example, while both Ultimate Werewolf and BOTC use hidden roles, BOTC makes sure that each role is unique and has an ability of its own. In Ultimate Werewolf, many of the players are simply townspeople with no addition abilites. I see this as both a positive and a negative. For one, I believe the lack of an ability could make the game less exciting for players. However, I also think this requires players to then utilize other skills in the game to make up for that. On the flip side, everyone having an ability makes things very interesting in BOTC. This is especially the case because of how BOTC works. What roles are in play is unknown, unlike in Werewolf. It is harder to tell if someone is lying about their role. Not even to mention that the demon gets to see what roles are not in use. Another difference between Ultimate Werewolf and Blood on the Clocktower is that BOTC relies on private conversations before each day’s execution. This feature I really enjoyed. It allowed you to secretly communicate and construct alliances way better than you could in Ultimate Werewolf. For Werewolf, you are largely limited to communicating with those near you, if not to the entire group at large. Another difference that I was particularly fond of in BOTC was how death was handled in the game. Unlike in Ultimate Werewolf, you don’t just sit around once you die. You can still communicate and participate just as you had when you were alive. The only caveat was that you could no longer use your ability. Additionally, you were allowed to vote one more time during the course of the game. A vote beyond the grave. One thing that I also felt made a distinct difference between these two games was the hidden special mechanics that BOTC had (the red herring and the drunk). Both added some nuance and intrigue to roles, making it harder for the townsfolk to win. Ultimate Werewolf does not have special conditions like this. Finally, the biggest difference I noticed in the games was the role of the Gamemaster. While Ultimate Werewolf largely only had the gamemaster playing a passive role, the gamemaster of BOTC was an active participant in the story of the game. They’re role is to make the game as interesting as possible and to try to get it to come down to the wire in the last few rounds. I really liked this, as it made the game feel more alive.

            Overall, I really like both games. The social deduction genre has been a favorite of mine for years, and while my experience with these specific iterations has been limited, I found myself enjoying them both while playing with the class. I like the differing roles, especially those of BOTC. Each time you play will result in a vastly different experience from the last. I feel like this game is good for large groups of people. I did find Werewolf easier to pick up, but that is largely because there are some more complex mechanics in BOTC. From what I have seen, the the game is evenly balanced from round to round, with one side never really being too far above the opposing team just by default. Additionally, I really enjoy games where I can act both cooperatively and competitively. Working as a team in a game is just so satisfying.

I didn’t find many negatives in either game, though I did feel that BOTC had more replayability compared to Ultimate Werewolf. It expanded on and filled in any of the gaps that I felt Werewolf had. Not only did every player get a unique ability with their role, but the game felt a lot more secretive and strategic. Every person had a role to play. I also really liked the role of the GM and dead players. The GM felt more like an active participant who had an effect on the outcome of the game as opposed  to just a neutral party who facilitated it. Additionally, players were still important throughout the game, even after dying. This meant that unlike Ultimate Werewolf, there was still an incentive to remain tuned in to the game. While this didn’t have much of an effect on our gameplay, I also thought I should add that BOTC has additional role sheets to spice things up if it began to feel stale. Overall, both games were a lot of fun – but for me BOTC simply did it better.

Compare/Contrast: Werewolf and Blood on the Clocktower

The games Werewolf and Blood on the Clocktower are both excellent social deception games, though they both offer unique upsides and downsides to prospective gamers who may be considering playing them. Werewolf, at its core, is a game that does not need unique materials to be played, and I have played it on some occasions using a deck of cards to assign roles, as well as having the moderator choose roles secretly on other occasions. I learned the game of Werewolf around the time I began middle school, and this lack of any barrier to entry was very beneficial, as it made the game easy to set up and play. It was also quite easy to bring new players into this game and teach it.

Blood on the Clocktower is similarly easy to teach, though it definitely does take more time for a newcomer to really understand and get a handle on it. It does have a high price for obtaining the game, but its increased complexity and modularity makes it valuable for those who want more of these things in a social deception game. It can still be played simply at its base scripts as well though, these are still well balanced. One major benefit to playing BOTC over Werewolf is player interaction. In Werewolf, there is often decreased player interaction due to two major differences between the games. Once a player is eliminated from Werewolf, they do not impact the game, and, in Werewolf, players can not speak privately to others in the game who are not their neighbors, making interactions with these players less likely.

Although Werewolf does not require complexity to function, there are variants which add many additional roles that add more depth to the game, and there does exist a Legacy version of the game, which does not exist for BOTC. If players enjoy this campaign style of playing where choices in one game impact the next, they would have to make their own custom rules for BOTC, where there already is a premade version available for Werewolf. In more complex variants of Werewolf, there are additions of roles that would be similar to BOTC’s minions and outsiders, though BOTC never has additional demons like Werewolf has multiple werewolves, except in certain custom scripts.

I would definitely recommend Werewolf as something a person new to social deception games should try, as I would recommend that they also try playing BOTC afterwards. From this experience, a person could choose which style they prefer. If they are interested in more party games or word games, there are many variants of Werewolf that have these elements added. The spin off games people have made of it scratch entirely different niches from BOTC, Werewords and One Night Werewolf are both great games that are not currently replicated with a connection to BOTC.

Personally, I still enjoy both games, though I do not know so many people who hold this opinion once they play BOTC, I find many gamers will move on to what they perceive as the superior game. For a person who plays many games, the increased complexity of BOTC will certainly make it superior for replay value, but the simplicity of Werewolf will always make it valuable to me when the materials for BOTC are not available. And in the end, these games are more similar than different, they both are social deception games with unique player information that rely on team cooperation and leadership to dominate a voting phase which ultimately determines the outcome of the game. The game I ultimately prefer would have to be BOTC though when it is available, primarily for the reasons of player engagement, increased complexity, and the opportunity for a more deterministic solve as compared to Werewolf. This better chance of a solve is the result of another benefit of BOTC, that being, more information is given to individual players through each player always having unique roles. All of this adds up to a greater feeling of player agency which I have not seen surpassed in a social deception game of this kind.

Ultimate Werewolf Reflection

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.

Ultimate Werewolf Reflection

In class we played the game Ultimate Werewolf, and my role was as a villager. I really liked this game for a few reasons. One of them was because even when you got out of the game it was still very engaging. This is because once you were out, you got to keep your eyes open the entire time. This allowed for you to observe what was going on during the night phase of the game and got to see how actions other players made affected the game. Additionally, I liked how for the first class it involved the whole class in one game. This made it easier to meet people in the class. I that this would be a good game to play with tweens and teens in a camp setting. I think they would enjoy it more than mafia, which is a popular camp game because there are more roles, and it is more complex.

I would say the hardest part of the game for me was understanding all the different roles and remembering them all. I had only played Ultimate Werewolf once before this class. It was with a very big group at a League of Geeks event and since I did not know what I was doing and I was a villager, I did not participate very much. However, in class I felt more inclined to participate since it was a smaller group. That meant I really needed to understand the roles in the game.

One of the ties this game had to leadership was through the leadership principle of enabling others to act. During the day phase in Ultimate Werewolf, the village votes on one person who they think might be a werewolf. If someone strongly suspects a person to be a werewolf, they must get the majority of players to also vote on this person. This means that they must foster collaboration and build trust with the other players to convince them that they are not a werewolf.

Game Reflection: Ultimate Werewolf

The first game we played in class is called the Ultimate Werewolf. According to the rule, we have to exile 1 person every day by voting. I think the hardest part about this game was figuring out who we should vote out for the first 5 rounds at least, especially for the first round when nobody died. There is not a lot of information to be analyzed and to figure out by logic who we should vote for. This game is tied to leadership because at least one person had to start the conversation so that other people would all share their thoughts. Moreover, people don’t know who should be exiled in the first couple of rounds, therefore, some people usually stepped up and said who they think is on the evil team. These people were leading the group and helping the game to continue. However, these people were usually questioned by others, especially in the first couple of rounds. 

I think my friend Kath would enjoy playing this game because of two reasons. She is the leader in all her classes throughout her college career, so I think she would be happy to lead the group when they are struggling with who they should vote out. Secondly, she is in the team for the Debate Competition. I think she would be able to practice some skills that she could use in her competitions. 

First, everyone got a role at the start of the game and after God explained all the roles, we started our first night. During the first night, all the people who had roles opened their eyes to do their jobs. Then all of us opened our eyes to see if anyone died during the night and figured out who we should vote out for today by having a discussion. According to the game rule, one person had to be exiled by having the highest votes, and the people who were exiled had to reveal their roles. The part I liked was when people tried to persuade others to vote out another person, they were more likely to be voted out in our session. Especially during the first couple of rounds, most people did not have enough information to figure out who were the werewolves so they found people who accused the others to be suspected. The part that I didn’t like was people who were killed at night needed to leave the group immediately when all people opened their eyes without saying any last word. These last words can sometimes provide a good amount of information for people who are still playing the game. 

I think the session went well because the royal team was able to figure out who was on the evil team and eventually voted all of them out. The risk of playing this game is finding the right amount of words to say. Sometimes people who don’t talk during the game are more likely to receive higher votes because they are not helping the royal team to find the bad people by providing their thoughts. However, people who speak more sometimes may expose themselves by saying too many things. I don’t like to take risks, especially in a game like this, so I didn’t talk a lot during the first couple of rounds. I started to talk more when someone accused me of being on the evil team. I didn’t want to take the risk of saying too many things and exposing my role to other people because I wasn’t sure if they were on the good or bad side. By the time I started to say more things was when I had some ideas about who was on the evil team. 

Ultimate Reflection: Werewolf

The game we played in class was called Werewolf. The premise is very similar to Mafia and Town of Salem. There are three werewolves, including a cub, a peer, a bodyguard, and many others. The point of the game is to take out the werewolves unless you are the werewolf then your goal is to survive to the end. The hardest part about this game was deciding how to vote someone out. In the game we played, sometimes those who accused someone were voted out, and other times those who were accused were voted out. Either it was stay quiet and go with the crowd or speak up and risk getting voted.

The leadership was shown through the person who was the bodyguard. He chose to tell us his role and since no one spoke up against him, we all believed him for the most part. Since he was someone the good side could trust, most of the time everyone listened to him. I was one of the werewolves so I just went with whoever they said so they would not suspect me. I thought the werewolves had a good game going until the P.I revealed a werewolf was sitting next to the girl who happened to be next to me. Ironically enough a werewolf was on both sides of her.

Somehow the person who was the witch suspected me as a werewolf and the night we chose to kill him, he used his once a game ability to kill me. After that the werewolves went downhill. One of the two werewolves remaining told everyone to vote him and he got out and the other one forgot the lying game he was playing and switched up what role he was when he was questioned. Personally there wasn’t anything I disliked about the game because it was very well played and went on for quite a while. Some of my friends back home would love this game because we used to play Town of Salem.

Ultimate Werewolf Blog

  • Ultimate Werewolf is a very strategic, logical and fun multiplayer offline social game. The game will divide 10-20 players into two main camps, the evil side and the good side. The victory condition is that the good side defeats the evil side, or the evil side defeats the good side. In addition and will be subdivided into some small camps, such as Cupid let two people become a couple, and the victory condition of the couple is to ensure that both people can survive to the end of the game.
  • For the evil side, the werewolves, they need to find their companions at night and kill all the good side characters. The good side needs to deduce who the werewolves are according to what happens during the night. It’s not like the righteous side can’t do something about it. All the characters except for the normal villagers have some skills to find out who the hidden werewolves are or to protect other righteous players from being killed.
  • I really like this game because it is a great test of leadership. For the Justice side, the Justice leader needs to have a strong logical mind and good game character skills to guide all the Justice players to find the werewolf and execute him in daylight. And the leader also needs his firm leadership to prevent the werewolf side from challenging his leadership. The same goes for the werewolf camp. The werewolf camp leader role needs to lead the other werewolves to confirm the kill of the right target and needs to lead the other werewolf players during the day to mislead the other justice side players to join his camp to execute the justice side characters.
  • The risk of this game is when the leader character makes a wrong leadership leading to the failure of the game, for example, if the righteous leader mistakes the villagers as lurking werewolves leading everyone to believe he is a werewolf and executes him during the daytime. Or the werewolf player leads other werewolves to kill unimportant non-important Justice side characters in multiple nights resulting in game failure. Or when leading other werewolves to mislead other righteous players to join their camp during the day, a failure due to a lapse in the logic level of the chat leads to the entire camp being suspected of being werewolves resulting in a failure.
  • Personally, I am very willing to take risks and I like to be a camp leader. Because taking risks is a responsibility that a leader must take, and it will determine whether other people in the same camp will be willing to follow my command. Because when the game is won, I am likely to be the most recognized and popular character, and when it is lost, I am likely to be the reprimanded character. Risk is something I can take and popularity is something I aspire to.

Ultimate Werewolf: Cupid’s Perspective

The game of the week this week was werewolf and personally, I really enjoyed this game. I thought it was very complex and I enjoyed all of the different elements to it. The storyline was fun, as well as the narrations from JS. I felt like it was a great way to get the class to engage with each other, and we seem to be more comfortable with each other now. I wasn’t sure how the game would work playing with a somewhat smaller group this time, but it seemed to go over well. I would like to play this game with people that I know very well, because I think it might break up the awkward tension in the beginning if everyone is already comfortable with each other. I like that the game is different for each person depending on which role you have, and you’re unlikely to get the same role each time you play, making it a game that never gets old or boring.
I’ve only played this game twice, and each time I’ve had different roles. The first time I was a werewolf, and this time I was cupid. It’s very interesting how different the game can be for each role involved. To be honest, I almost feel like I enjoyed this game a lot better when I had no idea how to play it because I didn’t feel a lot of pressure to do well. I needed to try my best because I was a werewolf but without a lot of knowledge, it’s hard for the werewolves to win the game anyway. I think the game is a lot more interactive for werewolves vs more general roles, and after cupid uses its ability, the cupid role is basically a villager. To be honest, I just don’t think I’m very good at this game because I don’t perform well under pressure and I’m not a very good liar. It’s tricky for me to remember all the roles and which ones have been eliminated once the game progresses, so I can’t really make a lot of accusations, or defend myself when accused because I feel a bit clueless compared to everyone else. The game is fun to watch and somewhat participate in. I enjoy watching the more seasoned players navigate their way through it.
When using my cupid ability, I wanted to try to make the game interesting so I chose players that I assumed would do a lot of talking during the game. Sometimes the players who do a lot of talking in the beginning of the game are the first eliminated because they are more noticed, whereas everyone else is just quiet and there’s not a reason to eliminate them if they haven’t said anything. I thought eliminating people that could be key players in the game would make it interesting, and sure enough Romeo and Juliet were the first to go. At that point my role was pretty useless, so I wanted to just watch the game play out. My role was silenced, and people wanted to know who had been silenced, but I didn’t know whether it would be in my interest to tell them or to just keep quiet, and when people found out, I inevitably looked suspicious. I knew I was at risk for elimination, and I panicked and showed a few people my card, which is totally against the rules of the game. I remembered incorrectly from the first time I had played, that you can tell people your role but not show them your card. After I made this mistake I realized that I messed up and felt bad about it, but it seemed like most people couldn’t read the card anyway and just assumed it was an act to prove my innocence. To be honest, I really didn’t have an idea who the werewolves were in this game. I thought they all did a pretty decent job protecting their roles. The last time I played this game I thought it would be beneficial for everyone to have a card that explains all the roles on it so everyone can keep that on hand and reference it during the game, and I still think this would be a helpful idea, especially for new players.I think this game ties to leadership very well by the idea of group think. Once one person said their case for believing someone was a werewolf, everyone else seemed to jump on board with that idea, rather than forming their own opinions. Even after the person tried to defend themselves, everyone still voted for them to be removed from the circle anyways. We didn’t necessarily have one leader, but we had about 5 people that were consistently talking, and I think they acted as leaders in a way. I think with games like this, some people kind of have to step up and speak more, otherwise the game won’t go anywhere. With the rounds needing to go quickly, we didn’t have enough time to go around the circle and ask for each individual opinion. Those who wanted to speak were free to do so, and I think we were all kind and respectful of each other’s opinions. I can see how some people might get frustrated during this game, but we all acted mature. I don’t think I really took on much of a leadership role in this game, and I’m okay with that.

Game of the Week Reflection: Ultimate Werewolf

Ultimate Werewolf was the perfect way to start Tabletop Games and Leadership. The hardest part of this game was trust. Everyone had their own role and they were all trying to figure out and accuse those who were their enemies. This in turn caused the students to become overly skeptical and defensive, which is how the game now functions. It’s almost every man for himself situation because you can’t trust anyone else except for yourself. Because of this, trust is the main issue when it comes to an individual win.

This game ties into leadership because the followers blindly trust the leader. What I mean by this is once someone deviates from the main group and votes, others will subconsciously vote for that same person because they now start to follow the majority. This may not be a fair psychological way of going about things, but it is the way how people get voted out. My personal opinion on this is that it can turn the tables if there is one confident leader with devoted followers blindly agreeing with confidence at its core. There are also other leadership factors such as the person who got naturally selected to have a certain card. This can dictate the power the person automatically obtains in the game.

Overall, the session went well but was also a little chippy. There are a lot of moving parts with synergies to different characters and situations that it was difficult to grasp the concept on my first go around. There was a lot of risk in not consciously knowing who you picked and whether or not that person was a positive or negative target in the end. It’s hard to escape this however because this game is all about that risk. There is no definite answer to a multitude of things until it’s nearly too late. This, however, is similar to taking leadership. There is no finite answer to if your leadership will take off and you play that risk knowing that, which makes a good leader if you have the confidence and the consciousness to take on that feat. Logical and critically thinking people such as my uncle for example would like this game not only because of its medieval theme but also because of the thought-provoking actions that occur as well. Overall, I personally enjoyed this game and would definitely take part again.

Ultimate Werewolf Blog Reflection

This past week in class we played Ultimate Werewolf. I believe the hardest part about it is when you have to try and figure out who is lying and telling the truth. I noticed that the more charisma you have the more likely people are to believe you. In our particular game, there was a very charismatic man and he made it nearly to the end as a werewolf because he was so talkative and outgoing.

This game heavily ties into leadership. Who was killed almost directly correlated to who the most charismatic person chose. Whoever was brave enough to speak up and share their opinion (whether they were lying or not) was able to take control of the game and lead everyone else to get what they wanted done. It was also important that the self-chosen leader had a first follower, someone who backed and supported their opinion. The first follower showed that it was okay to follow someone else’s lead.

I would recommend this game to my younger brother because even though he is not a huge fan of games involving cards I know he would love this one. He would love the talking and deliberation involved. It would be a great fit for him as he loves taking the lead and talking to people. He’d find the chaos that ensues during the game as hilarious as I did. I’ve heavily considered getting the game just because I know how much he would enjoy it.

The session we played was very chaotic. Both seers were taken out very early in the game by the werewolves. One of our werewolves revealed his position in order to get voted off. I’m still not really sure why he did that. Another one of our werewolves was killed by the witch who was then immediately killed by the remaining wolf cub. Our wolf cub was very charismatic and managed to shift the blame off himself until the very end of the game. It was only through process of elimination that he was discovered and subsequently voted off. Very surprisingly, the townspeople managed to win.

I liked having special privileges as a seer but disliked how quickly I was out of the game and had to just be a silent bystander. There was very much a risk-taking element to this game, you could never be sure if voting out one person would start a chain of deaths. Any kill was extremely risky as it could lead to you being taken out or the wolf cub being killed.

I was killed very early in the game so I didn’t have much of a chance to take risks. As the seer, I had just figured out one of the werewolves and was planning to try and get them voted out the following day. That was a big risk in case no one believed me and thought I was just a werewolf trying to get the blame off of myself. Unfortunately I was killed and unable to share my discovery. This is pretty similar to how I approach leadership, I’m not afraid to take risks and look stupid but I prefer to know what I’m talking about before I try and lead a group.