deduction

Hedbanz: For Adults

This family of games goes by a variety of names but in all of them you are guessing what the card on your head is. Cards have a cartoon or name of something or someone or somewhere, and you must ask yes-or-no questions of all the other players to determine what/who/where you are. Part of the humor is in the absurdity of the questions the guesser asks, "Do I drop my leaves in the fall?" when it's a celebrity, or "Would you find me on a buffet?" when it's a football. "Am I covered in fur?" when it's Tahiti or cheesecake or George Bush. So it's a silly game, sort of an opposite of charades with 20 Questions mixed in. There is logic and luck involved - the number games are more intellectual - but many of the games are just for laughs.

There are junior versions of the games (animals or community workers), number versions (deduce the three digits), versions where you have two cards including a person and a place, an 80s version, etc..

One Night Ultimate Werewolf Daybreak

One Night Ultimate Werewolf Daybreak is a fast game for 3-7 players in which everyone gets a hidden role, each with a special ability. (No plain "villagers" here!) In the course of a single morning, your village will decide who among them is a werewolf...because all it takes is finding one werewolf to win!

Daybreak includes eleven new roles, and it can be played on its own or combined with the original One Night Ultimate Werewolf game; when combined, you can have up to ten players in a single game.

Alchemists

In Alchemists, two to four budding alchemists compete to discover the secrets of their mystical art. Points can be earned in various ways, but most points are earned by publishing theories – correct theories, that is — and therein lies the problem.

The game is played in six rounds. At the beginning of the round, players choose their play order. Those who choose to play later get more rewards.
Players declare all their actions by placing cubes on the various action spaces, then each action space is evaluated in order. Players gain knowledge by mixing ingredients and testing the results using a smartphone app (iOS, Android, and also Windows) that randomizes the rules of alchemy for each new game. And if the alchemists are longing for something even more special, they can always buy magical artifacts to get an extra push. There are 9 of them (different for each game) and they are not only very powerful, but also very expensive. But money means nothing, when there's academic pride at stake! And the possession of these artifacts will definitely earn you some reputation too. Players can also earn money by selling potions of questionable quality to adventurers, but money is just a means to an end. The alchemists don't want riches, after all. They want respect, and respect usually comes from publishing theories.

During play, players' reputations will go up and down. After six rounds and a final exhibition, reputation will be converted into points. Points will also be scored for artifacts and grants. Then the secrets of alchemy are revealed and players score points or lose points based on whether their theories were correct. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins.

Flavor text:
Mandrake root and scorpion tail; spongy mushroom and warty toad — these are the foundations of the alchemist's livelihood, science, and art.

But what arcane secrets do these strange ingredients hide? Now it is time to find out. Mix them into potions and drink them to determine their effects — or play it safe and test the concoction on a helpful assistant! Gain riches selling potions to wandering adventurers and invest these riches in powerful artifacts. As your knowledge grows, so will your reputation, as you publish your theories for all to see. Knowledge, wealth, and fame can all be found in the murky depths of the alchemist's cauldron.

P.I.

P.I. is a pure deduction game, with players competing in three consecutive mini-games in order to see who's got the best chops in terms of solving their cases.

Each mini-game plays out the same way. To start, you receive in secret one suspect card (out of 12), one crime card (out of 10), and one location card (out of 14); this set of information represents the case that the player to your left must solve. The game board shows fourteen locations arranged so that each location touches a few others; each location has space for a suspect and crime tile. Shuffle the suspect tiles (12, plus two "no suspect") and the crime tiles (10, plus four "no crime"), then place one face up in each location. Each suspect, crime and location is included in a deck of evidence cards, and nine evidence cards are revealed.

On a turn, a player either places an investigator, chooses an evidence card, or attempts to solve her case. When you place an investigator in a location, the player to your right looks at his case cards, then places a disc on this space for each case card he holds that matches the suspect, crime or location in this space. Additionally, he places a cube on this space for each suspect, crime or location that's adjacent to this space.

When you choose an evidence card, the player to your right places a disc on the matching tile if the card matches one of the case cards he holds, places a cube on the matching tile if this tile is adjacent to a tile matching one of the case cards he holds, or places nothing if you've made a wild-eyed guess and the tile isn't adjacent to anything.

To attempt to solve the case, you place a black token on your guesses. If wrong, you're penalized two points and continue play next turn. If right, you receive 7, 5, 3 or 1 points depending on how many others have solved their cases in earlier rounds.

The mini-game ends once everyone has solved their case or only one case remains unsolved. All used investigators are removed from play, then the board and cards are reset for the next mini-case. Each player has only five investigators total, so use them wisely!

Whoever has the most points after three mini-cases wins.

Visual Brain Storms

A trivia/puzzle game akin to MindTrap, but more child-friendly. The questions require mostly critical and mathematical thinking, there are only a few lateral thinking questions. The cards are large and colorful. The questions are always accompanied by a large illustration, and the answers often come with diagrams and examples.

The difficulty of each question is reflected in how many points it is worth: yellow questions are worth 1 point, blue are worth 2 points, red are worth 3 points, and "bonus" questions are worth 1 point. Gameplay and scoring take a back seat to the actual questions. You can play for a certain amount of time, for a certain number of cards, or until a player gets a certain score.