Traitor Game

Secret Hitler

Secret Hitler is a dramatic game of political intrigue and betrayal set in 1930s Germany. Each player is randomly and secretly assigned to be a liberal or a fascist, and one player is Secret Hitler. The fascists coordinate to sow distrust and install their cold-blooded leader; the liberals must find and stop the Secret Hitler before it's too late. The liberal team always has a majority.

At the beginning of the game, players close their eyes, and the fascists reveal themselves to one another. Secret Hitler keeps his eyes closed, but puts his thumb up so the fascists can see who he is. The fascists learn who Hitler is, but Hitler doesn't know who his fellow fascists are, and the liberals don't know who anyone is.

Each round, players elect a President and a Chancellor who will work together to enact a law from a random deck. If the government passes a fascist law, players must try to figure out if they were betrayed or simply unlucky. Secret Hitler also features government powers that come into play as fascism advances. The fascists will use those powers to create chaos unless liberals can pull the nation back from the brink of war.

The objective of the liberal team is to pass five liberal policies or assassinate Secret Hitler. The objective of the fascist team is to pass six fascist policies or elect Secret Hitler chancellor after three fascist policies have passed.

Mantis Falls

Mantis Falls is a "sometimes cooperative" game of hidden roles, strategy and deduction for 2-3 players.

As witness to something not meant to be seen, you must escape the dark mob-ruled town of Mantis Falls alive. You are told another witness will join you, and together you must use cooperation to survive the increasingly dangerous roads of the night. Your ability to work with another could be your greatest strength, but what if they are not who they claim to be?

By the deal of hidden roles, each game could have only witnesses, meaning you must all survive together to win. Or there could secretly be an assassin hidden among you, subtly manipulating the situation and waiting for the right moment to strike.

Inspired by shadowy film noir worlds, Mantis Falls is a thematic journey that requires players to continually weigh the value of cooperation against the implicit perils of trust. Hand management and facedown card play combine with opportunities for betrayal to create a detailed blend of strategy, player interaction and suspicion. At every turn, players make concealed moves and develop hidden plans, but will also have thorough conversations as they discuss tactics, defend choices and bluff to protect carefully guarded secrets.

Mantis Falls is sometimes a game of competition balanced with indecision and sacrifice, and sometimes it is a game of cooperation challenged by doubts and distrust. With care, you may figure out which one you are playing before it's too late.

Betrayal at House on the Hill: 3rd Edition

The House on the Hill still sits abandoned, and fearless group of explorers has been drawn to the house to discover its dark secrets. Immerse yourself in the narrative gameplay as you take on the role of one of those explorers.

The co-operative board game Betrayal at House on the Hill: 3rd Edition includes fifty haunts and dozens of danger-filled rooms that will terrify even the strongest among you. At first you'll work together, but beware...one explorer will betray the others and then the haunt begins.

This edition of the popular haunted house traitor game features content and gaming elements that help new players jump right in. So gather friends for a game night of monsters, miniatures, and modular board pieces in this immersive, story-driven hidden traitor game.

—description from the publisher

Unfathomable

The year is 1913. The steamship SS Atlantica is two days out from port on its voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Its unsuspecting passengers fully anticipated a calm journey to Boston, Massachusetts, with nothing out of the ordinary to look forward to. However, strange nightmares plague the minds of the people aboard the ship every night; rumors circulate of dark shapes following closely behind the ship just beneath the waves; and tensions rise when a body is discovered in the ship's chapel, signs of a strange ritual littered around the corpse.

Lurking within the depths of the Atlantic Ocean are a swarm of vicious, unspeakable horrors: the Deep Ones, led by Mother Hydra and Father Dagon. For reasons unknown, they have set their sights on the Atlantica, and their minions, taking the form of human-Deep One hybrids, have infiltrated the steamship to help sink it from within. Each game of Unfathomable has one or more players assuming the role of one of these hybrids, and how well they can secretly sabotage the efforts of the other players might mean the difference between a successful voyage and a sunken ship.

If you're a human, you need to fend off Deep Ones, prevent the Atlantica from taking too much damage, and carefully manage the ship's four crucial resources if you want any hope of making it to Boston, all while trying to figure out which of your fellow players are friends and which are foes. Everyone shares the same resource pool, but humans will try to preserve them while traitors will strive to subtly deplete them. Being able to tell when someone is purposefully draining the group's resources is harder than you think, especially when you take crises into account!

At the end of each player's turn, that player must draw a mythos card. Each of these cards represents a crisis that the whole group must try to resolve together. Some of these crises, such as "Food Rationing", call for a choice that could potentially put the ship's passengers or resources at risk, while others, such as "Hull Leak", call for a skill test in which failure could have disastrous consequences.

During a skill test, each player contributes skill cards from their hand to a face-down pile shared by the group. Once everyone has contributed (or chosen not to), the cards are shuffled, then revealed. If enough of the correct skills were contributed, then the group passes the test! But if the wrong skills were contributed, they can actually hinder the results, leading to failure. Thus, skill tests are dangerous opportunities for traitors to sabotage the humans' efforts, so you have to stay on your toes at all times.

—description from the publisher

The Menace Among Us

The Menace Among Us is a semi-cooperative game of intrigue and survival in deep space. Adrift and powerless, your crippled vessel is bleeding oxygen. As you effect repairs, every breath you take brings you one step closer to death. You must work together to restore power before the air runs out — but hidden among you, as loyal friends and crew members, are imposters who have infiltrated security and continue to sabotage the ship. Their only goal is to avoid detection and kill the crew, by force or by asphyxiation. Can you identify them in time and eliminate the threat? Or will succumb to the menace among us?

The Menace Among Us is a 40 to 60-minute, asymmetrical card game for 4-8 players. Each player chooses an Agenda at random, either a loyal Crew member, a deadly Menace or the Coward, who’ll take any side just to survive. Your Agenda card sets a Team Goal and an Individual Goal, as well as outlines any special abilities and the card composition of your individual 13-card deck. Then, knowing your Agenda and Goals, you choose a Character who you believe will best help you achieve them or mask your true identity. Characters add 7 new cards to your deck, shuffle-building a unique combination of cards, as well as provide you two specialized Above Deck Actions.

In this hidden traitor game, how you play your cards and abilities is far more important than the meta game aspects of accusations and denials. Cards are played face down and shuffled together as “Below Deck Actions.” Here, Menace players secretly sabotage the ship’s systems and attack crew members, who are trying to save the ship with their cards. If too few crew members risk going below deck to effect repairs, the ship’s Emergency Maintenance Assistant (EmMA) adds cards to the pile to help. However, the system has also been compromised and occasionally places damaging cards into the mix, providing plausible deniability to the Menace players. In contrast, Above Deck Actions are conducted in full view of the crew. Most of these abilities have costs, either in Energy or Oxygen, both resources the crew is trying to increase. So, while The Doctor has the ability to heal a crew member and remove a debilitating effect, a Menace player, who may be secretly in control of The Doctor, cares far more that it costs 2 Oxygen to perform the healing.

At some point, someone’s behavior will raise suspicion. But, did they do so because they are trying to fulfill an Individual Goal – or are they a Menace? You can call a vote to expose their true nature. But if they are a loyal Crew member, you’ve just blown precious Oxygen in the effort to detain them. For that matter, was it a Menace player calling the vote in hopes of wasting the air on purpose?

If the Crew can find and eliminate the Menace players – and raise the Energy to a safe threshold before the air runs out, they win. If the Menace can prevent this or kill the crew outright, their mission succeeds. Special commendations are awarded for surviving and for achieving your Individual Goal.

—description from publisher