We were at Castelo das Peças, one of the most traditional board game events in Rio de Janeiro and we introduced Nosferatu to the participants. Nosferatu went down in event history as the only game that remained with an active table all day in seven years of Castle of the Pieces. At the opportunity, Marcelo Groo, one of the independent reviewers of the most important games in Brazil played Nosferatu, liked it and gave a nice review of the game. See below!
Review: NOSFERATU !!!
Castle of Pieces (05/18/2014)At the last Castelo das Peças, one of the most traditional board game events here in Rio de Janeiro, we tested Nosferatu and the game was on the table all day! There were several, several consecutive matches, with the crowd vying for a spot to play!
Nosferatu is a game by Pierre-Yves Lebeau, with illustrations by Ismaël Pommaz, which was launched in 2013 and is very successful in Europe. The good news is that Conclave Editora is bringing Nosferatu to Brazil (it is being financed by Catarse), and it was the Conclave people who came from Minas (Gerais, not Morgul… ) to present and teach the game to the cariocas of Castelo (from Peças, not Ravenloft… again…).
Wow, what a bunch of bad jokes… Let’s get to the game that is more business…
Nosferatu is a vampire-themed deduction party game (more specifically the vampire Nosferatu… kind of obvious right…), where two players (Renfield and Nosferatu) face off against the others (who are the vampire hunters). At this point you might be thinking – “Ahhhh…. deduction, two teams… it's like Werewolf or like The Resistance… got it! lol lol lol lol”.
No, you didn't get anything, my dear neophyte...
In common with these other games, Nosferatu has a short duration (about 15 to 20 minutes per game) and the possibility of getting a lot of people together to play (up to 8 players), but the comparisons stop there. Nosferatu's gameplay and deduction mechanics are quite different, in addition to being very ingenious, by the way.
In Nosferatu, one of the players takes on the role of Renfield, the vampire's asshole, and it's up to him to secretly distribute the roles of the other players: one of them will be Nosferatu while the others will be hunters. That is, only Renfield and Nosferatu know who is who, the hunters will need to deduce during the match.
Once the game has started, the rules are very simple: each player has 2 hole cards, on his turn he buys two more, discards an open one, delivers a closed one to Renfield, and opens a card from the time deck: if it is a Night, the game continues (It's the next player's turn), but if it's a Breaking Dawn, the round is over and it's Renfield's turn to play. Simple as that, and it is in this simplicity that the deduction of the game takes place. Calm down, I'll explain...
The cards are of 4 types: Rumors, Nights, Components and Bites. Rumors do nothing, Components can initiate rituals that help hunters, Nights decrease the chances of these rituals happening, and Bites... well, bites are bites right, obviously they help the vampire and his asshole! So it's only expected that Nosferatu will drop a component, and that only hunters will drop Night and Bites, but you can never be sure of anything...
It is Renfield's move that provides more clues to hunters, as he has to use precisely the cards he received from players that round: Nights must be placed in the time deck (the more nights in this deck, the harder for the hunters) , Bite must be given to players (when there are 5 the vampire wins), and if there are only Components in Renfield's hand a ritual takes place that can eliminate a bite, take a night out of the time deck or reveal a secret character (all help the hunters). Have you figured out the dynamics of deduction yet? No??? So look…
If Mariazinha played and revealed a Night, followed by Johnny who revealed a Breaking Dawn, and Renfield only has rituals on hand, it's probably because neither Mariazinha nor Johnny is the vampire. But if Renfield has a Bite, probably one of the two is the vampire… unless they only had Bites on their hands, but for that they should have ruled out an Open Bite… huuuuuuummmmmm….
And so on, until a hunter who has the stake (this card changes owners during the game) uses it to try to kill the vampire: if he hits the hunters win the game, but if he stakes another hunter is the vampire that wins
Of course, the game allows for bluffs, baseless accusations, veiled offenses, in short, anything other than punches and slaps is valid. And of course you'll also want to stake that chubby friend, even before you're sure if he's the vampire or not… you'll probably lose the game, but it's also worth it!!!
Anyway, very approved! Nosferatu is very fun, interactive, and the deduction mechanics are very well designed, guaranteed success in any group that enjoys this type of game.
Here's the Catarse link for those who want to learn more about the game, download the rules manual, or support funding:
http://catarse.me/pt/nosferatu
It cost!
Groove
Originally posted on group Boargames Brazil, on Facebook.
