Introduction
It’s definitely been a while. With
so many of my reviews being in the realms of full-fledged games and some
triple-A titles, I figured it was time to review something new and fresh out of
Kickstarter(as of six months ago). This game is known as Town of Salem, and can
be played here (if you want to experience the game BEFORE reading the review): http://www.blankmediagames.com/TownOfSalem/
What is
“Town of Salem”?
Town of Salem is a party game
created by BlankMediaGames LLC. It takes place in an alternate reality of the
Salem witch trials in Massachusetts. It is based off the popular party game
Mafia, and is about murder, mystery and deception.
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| Just your everyday basic... POSSIBLE HARBINGERS OF DEATH |
Gameplay
First thing you would realize after
creating an account and joining a game is the sheer amount of roles in this
game, with a whopping 29 (soon to be 32 and more) roles, including those
well-known roles such as the Godfather and the Serial Killer, both of which are
the killing roles (there’s still more) in Town of Salem.
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| 29 + 3 roles in one zoomed-out window of a screenshot |
Not to worry, though, you don’t have
to go through the trouble of finding custom setups and set-up a game for
yourself if you’re new. Just jump into classic and you’re find that the roles
assign themselves according to the number of players, with the maximum player
cap being 15.
After the game is launched, players
will have to type in a name they wish to use in the game. This is to give each
of the players’ anonymity from their usernames, and to give each player a
temporary identity within that one game.
.jpg) |
| Names that players enter appear on the bottom-right and positions are randomized around the circle. |
The role is then assigned. The role
can place you in one of three factions. These three factions are: 1. the town,
you win by winning with other town-related roles through working together. 2. The
mafia, you win by killing anyone who would oppose you through, this includes
town members and neutrals who pose a threat to the mafia. 3. The neutral (I
personally call them “indie” for being individual), you win by fulfilling a
specific goal in your role. For example, the Serial Killer is an example of a
Neutral role that can kill everyone else, and he wins if he does so
successfully, which requires skill, a level of cool-headedness and cunning.
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| "I am... the Godfather." |
The game starts with all 15 players
gathering around the gallows and the first day will commence. The Day Cycle is
when town members come together to share information and attempt to find the
bad guys lurking around the city, and bring them to justice by lynching
(hanging) them. Lynching only happens if the WHOLE town can reach a majority
vote to bring the person up to the gallows (so if there are 6 people left, a majority
vote of 4 are needed), and sometimes the Mafia or the bad Neutral roles could
throw certain correct suspicions into disarray or support bad claims from town
roles by voting innocents up to the gallows, with lynching being a good way to
help them thin the Town’s numbers, making it easier on their part to get rid of
the townspeople.
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| One of them may just visit you at night |
Once the player is up on the gallows, they can defend themselves for 20
seconds with no interruptions from others, and this is where they must prove
their innocence. After the player’s defense, players can pass judgment on the
player, whether they are innocent, guilty, or one could abstain from the vote,
meaning they add nothing to either the innocent or the guilty counter. If the
innocent counter is more than or matches the guilty counter, the player in
question returns to his original spot and the voting phase resumes if not
already over and the whole town can discuss who they think is the criminals. If
the guilty counter is more than the innocent counter, the player will be hanged
and his last will (if any) will be read to the crowd and his role will be
revealed. A true test of trust and quick thinking happens within these precious seconds.
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| Have some executed animations whydoncha |
After the lynching occurs, or when the timer for voting runs out, day
turns to night. During the night cycle, many things occur. The Mafioso
coordinates and talks of whom to target next. The investigator sets out on his target
to find out his role. The lookout keeps watch of the man sleeping next door.
The sheriff hunts for the Serial Killer whilst keeping a list of suspicious
people. The Serial Killer sharpens his blade for his next target. The framer
places guns and suspicious items in the homes of the innocent. Many things will
happen, most of which unpredictable, but the ones who do things at the right
times, at the right people and say the right things are those that will evade
the next day unhanged.
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| This plus the music playing at the end is just 2spooky4me |
Strengths
The true strength of this game is in
its sheer replayability. I’ve played many hours of the game and I am not even
sure that I have played all available roles yet. The huge amount of
characteristics and variety found in all the random public people you get matched
with all act differently from, say, the previous game you played, in terms of
how they act and how they react to certain situations. In essence: every game
is like a snowflake, and one snowflake is never the same as the other (I
think).
Every role is truly different and
every role has their strengths and weaknesses, but knowing how to play each and
every role effectively is the key to mastering this game. This is one game I
would dub “easy to learn, hard to master”. I mean 29 roles holy moly even RPGs
don’t have 29 jobs to choose from.
Knowing when and what to do during
specific parts of a match is crucial and can help swing the tides of whoever
you’re helping, be it the town, the mafia, or the neutral party, and that
learning process is also another strength of the game: how it draws you in to
WANTING to learn how to play the game well. Many games these days don’t do that
well other than flooding you with tutorial messages until the end of days,
hoping something gets into your mind when clearly you just want to chill out
and have a great time playing something simple.
Weaknesses
As Town of Salem is based off a
party game that not many people may have heard of, most of the player community
is new to this concept of Mafia. Some people may have heard of it and know the
infamous role of Mafia or Serial Killer, but definitely not the many uncommon
roles such as Amnesiac, Executioner, Janitor and many others, thus many people
could still be unfamiliar with about ¾ of the roles, but of course, people will learn of them over time and this isn't that bad of a weakness.
Another weakness of the game to add
on to that is the lack of any form of tutorial explaining the game’s highly
useful UI, which is albeit wordy but still informative. With about 5 boxes of
information taking up about 60% of the screen space, players might at first be
intimidated by the amount of information they have to take in, and may become
unfocused on the game at hand. Certain role abilities such as Jailor and his
ability to jail one person every night has to be selected via a player
selection screen, but to activate it, one must press the Sun-like icon on the
top. This icon does not obviously state what it does and is rather misleading
as an icon and is something I hope will be changed in future versions of the
game, but as a whole, a tutorial in the game for new players is something I
would feel that would help them understand the game faster.
.jpg) |
| REUSED: but still it shows how much info the game and how its squeezing everything in. |
Finally, one weakness is the game’s
lack of localization for various languages, and also servers dedicated to the
different languages so everyone can enjoy the game in their own language and be
able to understand each other. This, of course is being developed as I speak so
this should not be an issue in the near future.
WARNING: WALL OF TEXT WITH LITTLE PICTURES INCOMING.
What the
game taught me
Of course, after playing for a fair
bit, there are certain things I’ve learnt and I feel like it’ll be good (and
humorous) to share what I think of when I play the game.
There is a lot of thinking involved
in this game, whether you like it or not, some people are lying, some people
are speaking the truth, it’s how you evaluate what others say and try to place
it side-by-side with fact and see whether their statements add up.
If you’re town:
The long and short of it is, as a town-related role: never trust anyone
until you 100% know that they are good.
It is also good to communicate with
the town and gather information together to eliminate the mafia and any neutral
killing role. Being quiet and being a town-related role offers no help and
you’ll often be seen as a target to by lynched just so the other town-related
roles have lesser people to suspect and target.
It is also a very good habit to
constantly write in your will (the piece of brown-colored paper on the top of
the screen) if you’re an investigative role of any sort, or an escort, and
constantly keep track of who you investigate/roleblock, what happens the next
day and (if any) note down any suspicions you have of anyone, drawn from the
conversations during the day. This information can be crucial to the other town
members who could be deciding between one guy and the other to lynch.
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| A bloodied will = death will (any killing role can write it). An unbloodied one = a regular will. |
Oh, and another thing, don’t leave
even after you die. Even after death, you can communicate with a Medium and
convey any suspicions or things you’ve noticed from wills not caught by others
and tell the Medium of such things so he can point out who the bad guys are,
and effectively helping the town win, even from the grave.
If you’re Mafia:
It’s important to communicate on the
first day and coordinate attacks well. Telling the Godfather his target is
immune the next night helps to single out one role effectively in the Classic
mode, which is Executioner/Serial Killer, who has night immunity. Singling out
people like this makes life very easy for the Godfather to find who to kill and
in what order to kill people in.
The role of the Mafia is to not be
informative during the day, but this doesn’t mean keeping mum and hoping for
the best. More often than not, you would be aimed at by a town role and asked
for your role, and silence only begets suspicion to other people, and you would
probably be lynched off on that day. So, how would you be not informative and also
not raise suspicion? Say things that are redundant and repeat what others say,
for example a lookout points out that a person (as long as this person is not
your mafia brethren) is suspicious of being a Serial Killer or Mafia, direct
suspicion at him and back up the accuser, and if it turns out to be wrong, say
something that sounds like you are disappointed that the “town is losing”, or
something along those lines.
In essence, the goal of the mafia is
to kill with discretion at night without raising suspicion in the day by
gaining the trust of the town.
If you’re a Neutral:
This is tricky, because Neutral
roles differ greatly between each other. But in the game, Neutral is separated
into 3 different kinds of Neutral, known as Neutral Killing, Neutral Benign,
and Neutral Evil. Neutral Killing refers to Serial Killer and Arsonist, and is
responsible for the (surprise surprise) killing. Neutral Benign refers to
Amnesiac and Survivor, and their role is rather passive (not Amnesiac when he
takes over a role). Neutral Evil refers to Executioner and Jester, and they are
put into the game to create chaos and disarray with the former having a target
(that is always a town role) to kill no matter what, and the latter having a
life goal of being lynched.
In summary…
Town of Salem really is a unique
game that tailors to any sort of playstyle with a huge array of roles. The
result is a highly replayable game with various numbers of outcomes, and the
players who have the better playstyle and strategy will come out on top.
The game also teaches the player how
to work together with other people when the player is a town or mafia role, and
how they should adapt to different situations when they are playing a neutral
role. After all, every vote happens and swinging the town’s favor towards you
will only help to substantiate any of your claims. If you manage to do that and
you’re a town member, that’s great, if you’re mafia… even better, but if you’re
the serial killer…
That wraps up the review for this
week. They haven’t really been written in big frequencies over the past weeks
and that’s because it’s hard to commit long hours of gameplay time when school’s
just started. But of course, when the reviews do come in you can be sure that
they’ll be of good quality and quantity just as the ones that came before.
Town of Salem is accepting donations
on PayPal and is currently having their Kickstarter campaign ongoing! If you
wish to donate/be a backer of the game (like yours truly), you can do so in the
link below that has both donation buttons!
