Week 07- Social Deduction games

Over the past week and a half, I have been able to play a couple of fun social deduction games. Learning how these games work, playing them, and helping to explain how one works has given me some insight on their challenges and benefits. Despite missing out on the presentations of all the games I was able to play some and get a vague idea of how I would want a social deduction game to look like if I were to create one. 

When playing a social deduction game, I feel as if role-playing (pretending to play a different persona) definitely helps them out. For example, when I played Spyfall with Emilia, Brooklynn, Mark and Corynne we struggled with keeping the questions and responses flowing. When Brooklynn, Emilia and I had played without any role-playing we struggled even more to come up with questions we could ask one another without giving away the location on our cards. Instead, when we “became” the role on our card, questions flowed a bit more easily. This was big as it helped even those who struggle some with social interactions. It gave an idea of what you could ask, or say in response to questions, without putting too much pressure on any one person. Adding to this the abstract nature of the questions made it difficult to employ any consistent or rigid strategy. Therefore, adding to the chance and uncertainty for the Spy, who had to figure out where the players were located. Overall, Spyfall was a very simple and open game, where its vagueness added a level of challenge that created a fun amount of chaos.

In contrast, the game called Avalon, which was taught to Emilia, Brooklynn and I by Mark and Corynne, was much more rigid and straightforward. There was a certain procedure that had to be followed to advance the story of the game. However, there was still some level of uncertainty and chance when it came to making certain decisions. Considering I have always preferred strategy games growing up, I rather enjoyed the structured chaos. What I especially enjoyed though was the story behind the gameplay itself. 

As such, the game I would consider making would perhaps follow something more like Avalon rather than Spyfall. There would be roles that could be played, so anyone could enjoy the game, while an interesting backstory is added with a flexible journey that is influenced by the players. However, I would perhaps try to incorporate more than one backstory or journey that could be played like how in Spyfall there were a number of locations to guess for each round. There is still much I need to figure out, but generally I would enjoy a role-playing, multi-story, social deduction game.