Social deduction game explained

Social deduction game
Genre:Social game
Related:Murder mystery game

A social deduction game is a game in which players attempt to uncover each other's hidden role or team allegiance.[1] Commonly, these games are played with teams, with one team being considered "good" and another being "bad".[2] During gameplay, players can use logic and deductive reasoning to try to deduce one another's roles, while other players can bluff to keep players from suspecting them.

Examples of social deduction games include Mafia, in which only the mafia know who is mafia and what the mafia players' roles are; Bang!, in which only the sheriff's role is known to everyone; and Secret Hitler, in which only the fascists know who the fascists are, except for the player who plays as Hitler.[3] Other social deduction games include The Resistance, and Spyfall.

Social deduction games have been adapted to video games numerous times through mods or full games. One instances of such adaptations are custom maps for StarCraft: Brood War including Changeling and The Thing.[4] These custom maps inspired later Warcraft III custom maps including Mafia, Werewolf, Zerg Infestation, and another Changeling and The Thing.[5] Other notable examples include Garry's Mod "Trouble in Terrorist Town" game mode,[6] Town of Salem, StarCraft IIs Phantom Mode mod,[7] and Among Us.

One important element of strategy in some social deduction games is determining how long to stick to one's story in the light of information obtained from other players.[8] A Monte Carlo tree search has been suggested for making decisions in social deduction games.[9]

Notable games

Board and card games

Video games

Television

See also

Notes and References

  1. Book: Engelstein . Geoffrey . Shalev . Isaac . Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms . 2020 . Taylor & Francis Group . Boca Raton, FL . 978-1-138-36549-0 . 220.
  2. Book: Farber . Matthew . Global Perspectives on Gameful and Playful Teaching and Learning . 2020 . IGI Global . Hershey, PA . 9781799820154 . 6.
  3. Web site: Engel Bromwich . Jonah . Secret Hitler, a Game That Simulates Fascism's Rise, Becomes a Hit . The New York Times . 27 March 2020 . 5 September 2017.
  4. Web site: July 13, 2014. Changeling. April 9, 2022.
  5. Web site: LazyCoder. January 15, 2011. The Thing. Epicwar.com.
  6. Web site: What is Trouble in Terrorist Town? . Trouble in Terrorist Town . 25 August 2020.
  7. Web site: StarCraft II Arcade Series: Phantom Mode . 27 January 2016 . 25 August 2020.
  8. Eger. Markus. Martens. Chris. Keeping the Story Straight: A Comparison of Commitment Strategies for a Social Deduction Game . Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment . 2018-09-25 . 14 . 24–30 . 10.1609/aiide.v14i1.13015 . 53232291 . en. free.
  9. Book: Cowling. Peter I.. Whitehouse. Daniel. Powley. Edward J.. 2015 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) . Emergent bluffing and inference with Monte Carlo Tree Search . 2015-08-02. 114–121. 10.1109/CIG.2015.7317927. 978-1-4799-8622-4. 15461414.
  10. Web site: Casey . Matt M. . What deduction games like Werewolf tell us about ourselves . 11 November 2014 . Boing Boing . 28 March 2020.
  11. Web site: Turn your tabletop into a real Game of Thrones with Oathbreaker game . Ars Technica . 20 September 2020 . en-us . 23 November 2019.
  12. Web site: Secret Hitler. 2020-09-19. Secret Hitler.
  13. Web site: Space Station 13: a multiplayer space station simulator about monkeys, insane AI, cultists and paperwork . 30 January 2013 . . 2015-05-29.
  14. Web site: Mystic Nights - PlayStation 2. GameFAQS. January 22, 2024.
  15. Web site: 10 Best Biomechanical Horror Video Games. ScreenRant. August 18, 2022. Anastasia Wilds. January 22, 2024.
  16. News: The best games like Among Us: seven of the top social deduction and imposter games . 18 September 2020 . PCGamesN.
  17. Web site: Renadette . Brian . Among Us 2 Announced Following First Game's Huge Surge In Popularity . Game Rant . 12 September 2020 . 19 August 2020.
  18. Web site: Miller. Chris. 2019-10-22. Hello, Neighbor's Newest Upcoming Entry Capitalizes On The One Versus Many Game Play Stylized By Dead By Daylight, Evolve Happy Gamer. 2021-01-04. HappyGamer. en-US.
  19. Web site: Read About the New Fortnite Impostors Mode . 2022-07-10 . Epic Games' Fortnite . en-US.

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