Disciple Detective: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Hand Management, Cooperative/Competitive
Player Age: 14+ Player Count: 2 - 5 PlayersTime to Play: 10 - 20 Minutes
Game Designer: Lance Hill
Player Age: 14+
Game Designer: Lance Hill
Objective:
In Disciple Detective your hand is a mystery to you, in a similar vein to games like Hanabi, your hand of cards will face outwards. Either cooperatively or competitively, you will use your deduction skills to effectively determine which disciples you hold in your hand.
Card Anatomy:
Disciple Reference Sheet and Note Card:
These two references will be needed throughout the game. The note card can be used to eliminate suspects. The reference sheet will show every detail on every card including the traits, numbers and quirks.
Disciple Cards:
There are 17 unique disciples numbered 1-17 and each with different traits and (sometimes) quirks.
Each disciple has the character side that faces your teammates/opponents that will have all the details of the disciple. The backside of every disciple card will have space to write every information you know and suspect of the disciple.
Dry Erase Markers, Timer, Tokens:
Dry erase markers are used for writing any information you receive on any of the disciples, note or reference cards. The timer is to keep turns moving at a fast pace and the tokens are used throughout the cooperative mode.
Set up:
Co-operative Mode:
- Give each player a reference sheet, dry erase marker and note card.
- Set aside the 7 clue tokens.
- For a 1-4 player game, remove card numbers 14, 15, 16, 17.
- For a 5 player game use all disciples except no. 17
- Shuffle the disciples and deal cards to each player dependent on player count:
2 cards for 6+ players
3 cards for 4-5 players
4 cards for 2 players
- Remove one disciple out of the game without looking, stack the remaining disciples in a face-down deck.
- Each player should pick up their cards and display them facing away from them.
Competitive Mode:
- Give each player a reference card and note card.
- Shuffle all disciple cards, create individual decks dependent on player count:
7 cards for a 2 player game
5 cards for a 3 player game
3 cards for a 4-5 player game.
- Each player will draw cards to create their hand dependant on player count:
4 cards for a 2 player game
3 cards for a 3 player game
2 cards for a 4-5 player game.
- Make sure to draw your cards with the front of the card facing outwards.
How to Play:
The base explanation of how to play will be focused on co-operative mode.
During your turn you can perform 1 out of 3 actions; give a trait clue, order the disciple cards or guess a disciple.
Giving a trait clue has a player spending a clue token to give a trait such as even/odd or a particular occupation to all players with that trait visible on their card. Players have to follow along with any card quirks that have messed with this clue, such as Judas where you have to say the opposite is correct when talking about his traits.
A player may also spend a clue token to numerically order every players hand (except theirs) from smallest to largest number. Players also have to take the quirks into consideration when doing this as Peter for example will always go to the end of the ordering even though he is number one.
The last thing a player can do is guess a card in their hand. To do this the player will state the name or number of a card while indicating a card in their hand. If they are wrong they will spend a clue token; if they are correct they will gain a clue token from the spent pile. The correctly guessed card is then discarded and a new card is drawn from the face down pile. The players will lose if all clue tokens are used. Once all cards have been guessed (including the face down pile) than the players have successfully deduced all identities and won the game.
The competitive mode plays very similar to the cooperative mode. The main differences are that there are no clue tokens, players will instead take turns either asking for certain traits, card ordering or guessing a character.The player who successfully guesses all cards in their hand and personal draw pile will win the game.
Final Thoughts:
Pros:
- More deduction based instead of memory based.
- Great use of the whiteboard cards, for players to keep track of all the information you have.
- Each clue gives multiple information.
Cons:
- The competitive mode feels much better than the co-operative mode.
- The game can cause a lot of analysis paralysis when it comes to thinking through the clues.
Disciple Detective works as a great family or filler game. The structure of having your cards face outwards has been done a couple of times before in mainly co-operative games but not only does this game offer a competitive version but also due to the implementation of writing clues down with the marker the game focuses more on deduction than memory. This keeps the game feeling tense as you have to decide when your going to guess a character to gain a token (cooperative mode) or extra turn (competitive mode). A fun component to the game is the deduction being deepened further by character quirks that can interfere with clues given. Also in the competitive mode each new card drawn eliminates a possible suspect for your opponent(s). This game pleasantly surprised me and will be a game I choose when looking for a filler or family friendly game.
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