One Night Ultimate Werewolf Review
One Night Ultimate Werewolf Review
Your peaceful village has been disturbed indefinitely for generations. But one day it turns out that there is a werewolf among you (don’t ask how).
Dissatisfied with waiting for the next full moon and looking at who is starting to shed hair, you decide to catch them and kill them in an act of reckless mafia vigilance that was not seen The Salem Witch’s Attempts . Hopefully you don’t blame the wrong person ... Read the full review of the One Night Ultimate Werewolf board games below.
- Each player gets a unique role: werewolf, seer, troublemaker, ...
- After a secret night phase that involves switching roles, the players ...
- Includes a free iOS / Android app that makes playing amazing ...
A brief overview of the final werewolf one night
One nocturnal ultimate werewolf (or werewolf as everyone knows him) is a social happening deduction game between 3 and ten players. The task of the villagers is to hunt down and kill all the werewolves hiding in their species. If they catch just one, they win.
With a single night and day phase, the villagers don’t have much time to decide. What’s more, with a bunch of special characters in the mix, it won’t be as easy as choosing a person who starts to breathe heavily every time someone says “walkie”.
Variations and extensions
The one-day werewolf day dawns
An extension of the original werewolf is Daybreak. It adds 11 new roles to the original game, but you can also play it on its own. There are new wolf roles like Alpha, Mystic Wolf and Dream Wolf, all with their own special abilities. Meanwhile, you can also play The Witch, Paranormal Explorer or Village Idiot, among others.
- Each actor gets a new, strong role: Mystical Wolf, curator, ...
- After a secret night phase that involves switching roles, the players ...
- Includes a free iOS / Android app that makes playing amazing ...
luxury version
Ultimate Werewolf: Deluxe Edition features brand new artwork, comprehensive new policies, and an improved moderator board. Best of all, this version supports up to 75 players! Now you can play with the whole neighborhood.
- Players get secret roles on the werewolf (stay ...
- Includes more than 40 unique roles on 78 role cards, 24 pages ...
- Bonus extension can vary: "Wolfpack" with more attractive ...
The ultimate werewolf legacy
Werewolf even has an older version with multiple chapters that you can play over time. Players can now make decisions that will impact future games and allow for different paths and consequences. No two Ultimate Werewolf Legacy games will ever be the same!
- Officially licensed
- Bezier Games
- 9-16 players
Other games "One Night"
Unpacking one night the final werewolf
Werewolf is a nice little box with only a few cards and chips in it, which makes it great portable ! In total you get:
- 16 role cards (3 villagers, 2 werewolves, 1 seer, 1 robber, 1 troublemaker, 1 drunk, 1 tanner, 1 hunter, 2 masons, 1 insomniac, 1 minion, 1 double)
- 16 deposit tokens
- 1 policy
The rules are written so concisely that a band that has never played before could easily start working on the middle of a third page. On the remaining five pages, you’ll find some additional characters to play, and they all have some nice illustrations.
Still, I think the policy could do more to pull you into the theme of the game. There is no setting of the scene or story (in my introduction there is more than in the whole policy). Instead, it’s just a list of characters with a small past (a tanner hates his job, you don’t know), but completely out of context. This would primarily help a lot in involving people in the game. Instead, you are pretty much left to your own devices.
When it comes to box art, chips and cards, I actually really like it. These are pretty common things with werewolves, but they look quality and at least show the theme in some way.
How to play One Night Ultimate Werewolf
Layout
To prepare the recommended first Werewolf game for three players, take the following cards:
- 2 werewolves
- 1 seer
- 1 robber
- 1 causer of problems
- 1 villager
There should always be three more cards than players. So if you’re playing with four or five players, take an extra villager for each subsequent player. If you have more than five players or you just imagine the game, then you can use additional roles. I'll explain these later.
Shuffle the cards and deal one face down to each player. Place the three remaining cards in the middle, along with the chips representing all the cards. When they look at their card, the players must place it face down towards the middle of the table, but make it clear that it still belongs to them.
Night phase
That’s when it happens. Choose a speaker first - the speaker tells everyone what to do. Then everyone closes their eyes and the following happens:
- Werewolves open their eyes and confess.
- Werewolves close their eyes.
- Seer opens his eyes and looks at any card on the table.
- Seer closes his eyes.
- The robber opens their eyes and can exchange the card with another player.
- The robber closed his eyes.
- Defenders open their eyes and can swap two-player cards without looking at them.
Finally, the announcer (with his eyes closed) moves things slightly on the table so that when people open their eyes, they can’t claim to know someone’s identity because the card is in a different position. Then everyone opens their eyes. And don’t forget: don’t look at the card in front of you!
Day time
Now is the time to discuss. Players discuss who the werewolves are. You can say everything you like, including what role you are and what you did at night. Or - probably if you're a werewolf - you can make it up. Thanks to the three roles in the middle, it’s hard to prove someone wrong. The debate can become at least chaotic.
Voting and end of the game
After a few minutes , each player points to someone he wants to kill. In the event of a tie, all accused players are killed.
The killed player (s) now reveals the card in front of them:
- If the player killed is a werewolf, then the villagers win.
- If none of the players killed are werewolves and the only werewolf cards are in the middle, then the villagers win.
- If the villagers don’t kill the werewolf and who in the group is the werewolf, then the werewolves win.
Additional roles
In the role, you can mix roles and customize them to your liking. Some roles not yet mentioned include:
- A minion who knows the identity of werewolves but doesn’t know who a minion is. A minion wins if the werewolves win.
- A duplicate that copies another person's role.
- About a drunk who takes a card from the center without looking at it.
- A tanner who is not on anyone’s team and only wins if he dies.
Your first game Ultimate Werewolf One Night
Werewolf is an easy game to play, so it won't be hard to start the game quickly. However, the announcer has a lot of responsibility for proper operation and for avoiding stupid mistakes that could destroy the integrity of the game.
In particular, the Night-Time phase involves a lot of moving and switching things - much more than most other social deduction games, such as Avalon , Deception or Secret Hitler . The announcer should therefore do everything in his power to make it clear to everyone what they need to do and so that no one hears anyone move anything. The policy suggests that they make some noise on the table, for example. Although, if they do something, it might not work ...
The announcer may also have a hard time remembering everything they need to do. They can peek at speeding cards, but they need to be done wisely so they don’t see something they shouldn’t.
One great feature is that there is now a Werewolf app that will play the role of an announcer for you. This is a major innovation that helps incorporate some of these potential flaws.
Advantages disadvantages
Advantages:
- One of the easiest social deduction games to learn and play
- Many roles mean high repeatability
- One of the few social deduction games for three people
- Werewolf app
Weaknesses:
- Quite basic
- Loose topic
For those who want to get involved in social deduction games, One Night Ultimate Werewolf is definitely one of the easiest. The announcer’s script says very clearly what each player needs to do so you can immediately dive in with a bunch of newcomers. The policy makes it very easy for the announcer, even if it's the first time - they have the hardest work - or you can simply download the free app so no one has to!
And while it's incredibly easy and quick to play - I'd easily eliminate 10 games in an hour, I was also impressed with Werewolf's repeatability. Many additional roles create many combinations, while everyone will want to try each of them at least once.
No more third wheel
Werewolf is also one of the few social deduction games that only three people can play. This saves me a serious bug, as I’m a big fan of social deduction games, but similar to Scam and Secret Hitler, they need a group of at least five , so it’s hard to find time to actually play them.
Too simple
The simplicity of the werewolf is also a drawback. It seems to me that the play is a bit vague compared to others in the genre because the werewolves themselves don’t actually do anything. After all, for a game named after a mutant, a bloodthirsty wolf beast, there is a surprising lack of murders with paw prints. The question is, why kill a werewolf at all if they haven’t done anything wrong? Perhaps the policy could clarify this.
For me, a werewolf at night could use something extra, such as werewolves killing someone to properly involve people in a script. While with just one night phase, the drama and intrigue of every game doesn’t really have enough time to get started.
Role transformation
It also bothered me that you could even play one role in the game, only to find that your card was swapped. I mean, can a werewolf actually suddenly become a werewolf? The discussion and revelations in the end were certainly fun, but I just didn’t have a real impression of what we were trying to achieve.
TL; DR
One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a social deduction game for three to ten people. Someone among you is a werewolf and using the special abilities of each player you have to try and figure out who.
While playing social deductions, this is a simple and easy option that is great for parties with different interests / abilities. And with a lot of roles we can play, we can also present it over and over again.
Simplicity, however, pulls the depth of the debate somewhat. So, if you are after a more attractive social deduction experience, you may want to consider some other options as well.
Conclusion: a verdict?
Werewolf is one of the most famous and popular deduction games for a reason. It is a simple and fast fun game that groups of all kinds of characters can easily pick up and play. It also has a lot of repeatability with so many different character combinations and it’s also not as aggressive in hearing as others in the genre.
However, for me, when social deduction games take place, the Night-Time phase (or whatever happens when the eyes are closed) doesn’t offer enough intrigue to really bring a juicy debate to life. Maybe this is something that could fix the extension.
If you want an alternative fun game like Cards Against Humanity, then you will have a lot of fun with Werewolf. There will easily be group mixing and laughter. However, if you’re interested in a truly appealing social deduction experience, I think you’d better opt for something deeper.
- Each player gets a unique role: werewolf, seer, troublemaker, ...
- After a secret night phase that involves switching roles, the players ...
- Includes a free iOS / Android app that makes playing amazing ...
No comments