Are You a Werewolf KickStarter from Looney Labs

Elliott MillerSep 16, 2012

There’s just a few days left to get in on the Kickstarter for Are You a Werewolf from Looney Labs. Why do we need another version of “Are You a Werewolf?” you might ask? This new version comes with small viewers, so that you can look and see if you are a werewolf or not with little chance of accidentally revealing it to your fellow players. They are pretty neat. If you back the Kicjstarter, you’ll also receive a Promotional Fluxx Werewolf Creeper card, suitable for use in your favorite version of Fluxx.

From the Project:

What is Are You A Werewolf?

Fraught with deception and thrilling guess who’s, this crazy fun party game will keep you and your friends on your toes as you maintain secretly assigned roles as a Villager, the Seer or one of two Werewolves.

Game play involves clever interrogation and conniving rebuttals to keep Villagers and the Seer from guessing who the Werewolves are. But hurry! You don’t want the Werewolves to kill everyone off before being discovered, lest they win the game. A minimum of seven players work their way through the game in 20-60 minutes, although 10 or more is optimal.

After the “day phase” of the game, in which all players interrogate one another and discuss openly who the two

Fluxx Promo for Kickstarting Werewolf

Werewolves might be, the group must choose one player per round to eliminate – by majority vote – as they declare who they think is the Werewolf.

Just watchout! Some Werewolves are very good at throwing off the scent and you don’t want to eliminate any innocent Villagers, or worst of all, the Seer! During the “night phase,” all players close their eyes, as the moderator looks on. Then, the Werewolves discreetly open their eyes, quietly choose a Villager to kill and shut their eyes again. Next, the Seer opens his or her eyes and soundlessly picks a suspected Werewolf that the moderator must confirm or deny as having that role. All eyes are opened and the moderator reveals who was killed, along with their identity. Game play continues until the number of Werewolves matches the number of Villagers, or the Villagers and Seer eliminate both Werewolves.

Why a deluxe version?

Years ago, Kristin Looney put together a set of small, hand-held viewers for her local group of gamers and they quickly became a regular part of their weekly Werewolf games. The viewers are really cool to play with! Cards can get marked up over time, and if one is accidentally exposed during the game, it can ruin the whole session. These problems are eliminated by the viewers, and they also provide a visible reminder of who’s still in the game.

Unfortunately, as much as Kristin (who does in fact publish games for a living) wanted to make this awesome deluxe version of the game available for sale, it was clear the manufacturing cost was far too expensive on these viewers to get the wholesale rate necessary to make this a product. So for 10 years our game group has been the only ones to play with this deluxe version of the game.

Then, Kickstarter came along, providing a way to gauge interest and get up-front funding to produce exactly as many items as necessary to make a limited-edition run of the game, sold directly to the end consumer, rather than making and selling a large print run over time through stores. Kickstarter makes this project possible after all these years!

f you’ve ever been to a popular vacation destination, like an amusement park or beach boardwalk, you’ve likely come across a place that takes your picture and sticks the image in a tchotchke with a magnifying glass at the end. These are similar, except the image inside is one of the characters in the game. They’re perfect because Are You a Werewolf? is a hidden information game. Since you’re free from holding cards with character information, you do not risk accidentally exposing your role and potentially ruining a game.