Grey Fox Games Deception: Murder in Hong Kong Board Game | Social Deduction | 4-12 Players | 20 Minutes

AMAZING!! MY WHOLE FAMILY LOVES IT!! It's a Great deduction game where you try to figure out the murderer among the players. PROS: -Easy to learn -Plays great with a party or family -Very fast once everyone knows what to do -Allows for people to role-play in a sensible way -You can choose to play with basic or advanced cards which helps change the social dynamic of the game CONS: -The Forensic Scientist has to be careful not to give away the murderer by talking, but once you understand how to play this role, it isn't difficult. -The theme is very basic modern crime and some of the cards are hard for younger children to understand. I would recommend only for middle-schoolers and above or have an older person help. The basic way it plays: One person is secretly chosen as the murderer with randomly dealt role cards while everyone else is an investigator. Then, they secretly tell the chosen forensic scientist (who is on the investigator team) their murder weapon and evidence cards (in front of them face-up) while everyone else' eyes are closed. Then the game begins.... How does the murderer blend in with the investigators? Well, everyone has 4 unique weapon cards and 4 unique evidence cards face-up in front of them and no one knows who's who besides the forensic scientist... and the culprit. The catch is... the Forensic Scientist CANNOT GIVE ANY VERBAL HINTS, CLUES, OR EVEN CONSULT WITH THE OTHER INVESTIGATORS. the only thing they are allowed to do is place markers on tiles noting: The Cause, The Location, and The Motive of the Killing along with 3 other random clue tiles (If the murderer had 'Water' as their chosen 'Weapon' card, the FS would put the clue marker on 'drowning' on the 'Cause of Death' tile, etc.) The FS puts out more of these tiles as the game goes on for 2 more rounds. In each round, After the clues are marked, every player can make a 30 second case of who they think the Killer is and what single weapon and evidence pieces they had picked in front of them. Even the murderer can do this and try to throw the other players off their tracks (lots of fun). To win as the investigator, you have to make a correct ACCUSATION. How? At anytime during the game, ANY PLAYER EXCEPT THE FORENSIC SCIENTIST can use their badge token to guess the killer, weapon, and evidence correctly. If the guess is completely correct, then the forensic scientist says "Yes" and the investigators win immediately. If the guess isn't correct or only partially correct, the forensic scientist answers with "No" and the player loses their badge token. They lose their only chance of outing the murderer. If all the players made accusations and everyone was incorrect, the Murderer wins. It's what I always wanted the board game "Clue" to be: A social murder mystery where you feel like you are part of the story. Lots of fun and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR PARTY GAMERS.

I've owned this game for a few months now, and it's a hit every time I bring it out. There are elements of social deduction found in Werewolf/Mafia mixed with elements of non-verbal communication & interpretation seen in Mysterium or Dixit. The basic explanation is that one of the players is a forensic scientist, who doesn't talk or communicate during the main game, but ultimately knows who everyone's secret role is. All the other players have evidence cards placed in front of them with evidence or different ways someone can die. A murderer is secretly chosen who then (secretly) chooses one of their evidence cards and one of their means of death cards to the scientist while all other players have their eyes closed. This represents the actual murder that the investigators must guess. The forensic scientist then has a handful of cards with 6 options (such as Time of Day) and must pick one option to lead the non-murderers to the murderer's cards (who is pretending to be an investigator). As the scientist plays their cards, players start discussing which evidence cards they represent. Each player gets one guess at the correct evidence cards at any point in the game. If it's wrong, they cannot guess again, but may continue to participate in the discussion. If the murderer's exact cards are guessed at any time, the investigators and the scientist win. Otherwise the murderer wins. There are a bit more rules, but that's the majority of them. The game succeeds so well because the different mechanics complement each other so well. In a typical hidden role & social deduction game, the game can devolve into finger pointing and yelling, but the difficult task of interpreting the clues makes it really hard to be convinced that anyone is clearly lying. It can also be hard and stressful to be the secret bad guy in these types of games, but the bulk of the discussion in Deception is matching up the clues, keeping the focus on the table and not on the individual people. It can take the pressure off. The game can play quickly if the clues fall together quickly. It can also lead to a long elaborate discussion with multiple factions vying for different candidates, often ending into a win or loss that comes down to the final guesses. Strengths: - It's a hidden role game that appeals to a wider audience than games like Werewolf or Resistance. There is more going on than simply accusing one another and forming alliances with those you trust. - Quick set-up, quick rules explanation, and short play time. Every time I've played, we've played multiple games as it lends itself to that "let's play again" feeling. - It's hard to find a good game for a player count over 6. This is one of those rare games. It scales up to 12, although that size is a bit crowded since you need to see everyone else's cards throughout the game. I think it's ideal around 8, but totally playable at more or less. Weaknesses: - The rules and game flow are not airtight. For example, it expects the forensic scientist to be a bit of a game master, keeping the rounds moving along at certain points. The silver lining is that it's easy to substitute some house rules without changing the game. - The cards have a lack of balance. Some of them too clearly match up to the scientist's cards. The murderer has to be cautious in order to choose 2 good options from their tableau. I've seen games last a matter of minutes when the clues are too easily discovered either by bad luck or a poor choice by the murderer. The more you play, the more you learn to avoid it. - For some player types, the "one guess only" leads them to guess early then sit out the rest of the game. It does feel demotivating to put out your 1 guess and if it's wrong, you then have nothing to do except trying to persuade other players. Despite these small weaknesses, I still strongly recommend it. After dozens of plays, I place it as one of the favorite games on my shelf.

One of my favorite social deduction games. This game came highly recommended and it did not disappoint. I've played it with coworkers, family, friends and my gaming group. It almost never just gets played once, everyone wants to go again immediately. In this game for 4-12 players(I'd say 8 being best), one person plays a forensic scientist and everyone else plays as an investigator. Players are dealt 4 clue cards(main clue or piece of evidence) and 4 means cards(murder weapon) which are laid in front of them for everyone to see. A role card is also dealt out to everyone, secretly looked at and one of the players is the murder. The investigators all close there eyes and the forensic scientist tells the murder to open their eyes and point to one of their clue cards and one of their means card at the beginning of the game. These are now the clue and means cards that must be chosen by the other players to win the game. There are options to add other roles as well such as the accomplice and witness. The forensic scientist is leading the game by putting markers on randomly drawn scene cards that contain abstract clues to try and lead the investigators to guess who the murder is, what the main clue is and what the means of murder is. It is incredibly fun to play as the forensic scientist as it can actually be really difficult to point people in the right direction. It's also your job to give everyone a chance to speak so each player can try to persuade the other players who they think the murder might be and how they did it. An official guess can be made at anytime during the game but each player only gets one official guess. The forensic scientist then says yes or no to the guess...they are not allowed to say if one or none of the persons guess was right. The murder is secretly trying to persuade the other players to waste their guess on an innocent player, downplaying their own possibility of being the murderer. Lots of good interaction here and very easy to get people involved. A blazing fast setup and a quick rules explanation and you're off to solving the crime. There is a huge amount of clue and means cards as well as forensic scientist scene cards so the game could stay fresh for hundreds of plays. Highly recommend this social deduction game!

Deception Murder in Hong Kong is such a fun game, especially if you have a big group! This is easily one of my groups favorite board game. The game is pretty simple, but having someone to clarify questions is greatly helpful. All of the aspect of this game is amazing. Pros: -Great for a group game (I prefer playing it with 6 or more players, but you can easily play it with 4-5.) -Even though everyone has one change of accusing someone they can still have a presence in the game -Well constructed cards and and great graphics (However the graphics can be interpreted in many ways making the game more creative and fun) Cons: -Key evidence and Means card are very small (I would've prefer a tad bigger card) -Too many interpretations (Even though the interpretations make the game more unique, it can cause a lot of confusion) -Easily repetitive (Don't get me wrong this game is very playable for many times, but I do feel like if you play too many games in a row the game play gets a bit stale. There are variations to make it more challenging to keep it from getting stale, but personally after 3+ hours it gets too repetitive) Overall my impression of this game is a solid 5/5. It is a very fun social deduction game and has many unique aspect to the game that is great for a group setting. One key idea to keep in mind when first playing is having the most experience/knowledgeable player be the Forensic Scientist as they can greatly direct the game play in a successful matter.

Deception is like one of those bluffing party games where you have one group of "good" guys and one or two "bad" guys. For those of you who have played The Resistant Avalon, Spyfall, or games like Werewolf, you get the idea of the genre. What makes this game different are a couple of key features though: Theme: This isn't fantasy. Now I love sci-fi and fantasy and would have no problem playing those forever, but this does offer a more mature, real world kind of setting. There's been a murder and the investigators are out to solve it! Difficulty/Forensic Scientist: The game is challenging even without the murder getting involved to muck it up. As the Forensic Scientist, you're trying to guide the investigators to the right guess, unable to using your words and only slight indications on partially randomly generated options. As a plus, this keeps you active in the game even when you're not guessing because you have to pay attention in order to guide them right. Bad guys: We played three times and there was little pressure on murderer to constantly lie and deceive. You're basically throwing wrench into a pile of tools instead of shaking the whole thing up yourself. This is great, no awesome, if you have any players who absolutely dread getting a key role in the other games. This is a lot less pressure. My group specifically pointed this out to me. Now there is one downside to this particular game that I noticed during our second run through. This game is designed for up to twelve people. If you use all the options, you need four people to be able to see the murder's hand... but the card are small. If the two are on the other side of the room, it's just hard to see. The art is beautiful and perfect for the theme but if there is too much movement when everyone's eyes are closed... you can just hear where the unique roles are coming from. I'm sure we'll figure this problem out, but it feels the game could have used color card sleeves or something where everyone passes in their two and Forensic Scientist and the other roles just looks through them and knows by color which are the correct two. Anyway, if you're looking for a little change up in the large party group with bad person in their midst kind of games, this will be great for you. If you haven't been sold on the genre yet but are still hopeful, give this a try!

A great group game that makes for some interesting arguments. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is a hidden role game that begins with all, but one, player receiving cards that represent the murder weapon, 4 cards, and evidence left behind, 4 cards. The killer will choose one card each that is in front of him for the players to figure out. In Deception there are several roles the players take on; Forensic scientist, witness, killer, and accomplice. The forensic scientist is trying to help the group figure out who the killer is using special tiles. Each tile has word blurbs of a particular type of death, location, etc. The death tile always starts the game and has words listed like poison, severe injury, suffocation for the player to choose from. Each word placement on the 8 tiles the forensic player has will inch the players closer to who the killer may be. The issue is all the players have cards and a wrong word use can get the players to look at the wrong person. With six players, game plays very well with six, the game includes the roles witness and accomplice. When the killer chooses his weapons it is with their accomplice, whose sole goal is to through the rest of the group off by either making it seem they are the killer or someone else is. The witness brings the complication of knowing who the killer and accomplice is, but not exactly which or their evidence. The witness's job is to push the other players towards the people who did the murder. When a witness is involved in the game it also allows the killer to snatch victory away from the players. In a standard game when the players figure out the killer the game is over, but in a game with a witness the killer and accomplice have a chance to win if they figure out the witness player. This forces the witness to keep himself from being too obvious when pushing the other players towards the killer. The game is great, and really fast as a game can take 20-40 minutes to play. I prefer playing with a 6 player count as the witness and accomplice add a lot to the game. The abstract nature of the game allows players to make outlandish leaps about what the clues the forensic scientist is giving. This is funny as sometimes those outlandish leaps do not involve the killer or accomplice.

Really quickly became the game my group plays the most! It's a great game that brings good deduction mechanics and most importantly a big laughs&funs! I played about 10 games so far (6ppl & 4ppl) and here are my impressions: - It's really fast (15-30 depending on no. of players) and non gamers can easily pick up and also be really good at this game. - I love the components and its quality. Though I still used card sleeves to protect the role cards. If murderer card has some distinct damage or fold it will kill the game. - It's easy to swap away your Forensic Scientist role without affecting the game (if you don't like the role). - Murderer has much less pressure compared to other games like Resistance. It's really hard to tell who the murderer is from their behaviours as everyone's cards would match some of clues given. Also guessing the murderer won't finish the game as you have to guess the 2 cards completely correctly. So it's much more proper deduction than sniffing out the bad guy(s) which I really like about the game. - I would say it's slightly easier for murderer to win. It's mainly because some of the clue tiles cannot help to guess some cards at all (e.g. weapon is a poison and clue tile is weather). And you only get to change 2 clue tiles only. - Definitely would be more fun with large number of players (I think 6-8 would be perfect). I really really really hope to see an expansion for this game as there are good room for improvements such as adding more cards, roles, events, mechanics. I am not saying this game is not great yet but I can see that it can become even greater game with more stuff. Please make an expansion !!

Awesome party game for a smallish gathering. We played the other night for about 3 to 4 hours non-stop (probably 4 games in a row). In fact we played with 13 people by simply assigning the forensic investigator and then using that forensic investigator card as just another normal investigator and it worked perfectly. We did modify the rules a bit so that we each had only 3 of each card type in front of us as 4 of each is a bit overwhelming when playing with a larger number of of players. This game is totally an Avalon or Resistance killer for me and my group and it was honestly the first time that I think I've every introduced a game where everyone was totally involved (included non-gamer people). No one was talking about non-game related topics like movies or other general social topics like work or whatever, it was that engaging for all. The whole time everyone was totally focused on the game and it was so much fun. I would encourage taking some liberty with a few rules such as with a 4 player game, increase the number of cards to 5 of each type and perhaps give people two guessing tokens while as I've already suggested that in a larger game you might want to reduce the number of cards of each type down to 3 per person. Such a great game and so much fun for such a reasonable price. Here's another tip... make sure you put protective sleeves on the 12 secret identity cards to protect them from unwanted marks. For example, if someone scratches or defaces in any way the back of the murderer card, that pretty much screws up the game.

ルール日本語訳は付属していないのでご注意を。 英文ルール４ページ。 香港製のゲームなので、タイルとカードには英語と中国語が併記されています。 さらにカードの方には絵も描かれています。英検準２級くらいの力があれば、それほど英語で苦労することもないと思われます。 「クルー」というよりも 「コードネーム＋人狼」といった雰囲気のゲーム。 人数は４-12人(5-6人くらいがベストかな?)。 【遊び方】 ・１人が「鑑識官」(マスター)になる。 ・残ったプレイヤーのうちの１人が秘密裏に「犯人」になる。 ・「マスター」を除く全員が容疑者。 「Means」(凶器カード)×４枚 「Clue」(手がかりカード)×４枚 の計８枚を各自が受け取り、表にして自分の前に並べる。 ・「人狼ゲーム」のように、プレイヤー全員が顔を伏せる中、「犯人」はこっそり「マスター」に知らせる。 自分のカードのうち、どの「凶器」と「手がかり」で犯行に及んだかを。 ・ゲーム開始。 「マスター」はプレイヤー全員にヒントを出す。 すなわち、場の中央のタイルに記された「窒息死」「失血死」「中毒死」などの項目から、今回の犯行に最も当てはまりそうなものを選ぶ。 例えば、「犯人」の選んだ凶器が「スカーフ」だった場合、おそらく「マスター」は「窒息死」を選ぶことだろう。 ・プレイヤーたちは、マスターのヒントを、各プレイヤーの前にあるカードと照らし合わせて、誰が怪しいか推理する。 「犯人は誰か？」 「凶器は何か？」 「手がかりは何か？」の３つを当てる。 「窒息死」がヒントならば、「スカーフ」が凶器だとすぐにバレてしまいそうなものだが、そう簡単にはいかない。「犯人」以外の他のプレイヤーも「タオル」やら「ロープ」やら「枕」やら、「窒息死」と関連しそうな「凶器カード」を所持している場合が多いからだ。 ・「犯人」は、自分が「犯人」であることを悟られぬため、他のプレイヤーに疑惑の目が向けられるように、ミスリードを誘う。 ・正解者が出なければ、マスターがまたヒントを出しなおす。これを繰り返す。 ・「共犯者」や「目撃者」という役職もある。 【参考までに】 ・「凶器」はヒントからすぐ当てやすいのですが、「手がかり」は推理しづらく、ヒラメキや運の要素が大きく関わってきます。 そのため、ガチガチの推理ゲーム（「人狼」や「P.I.」のような）を好む方には、お気に召さないかもしれません。 ・プレイ人数が増えるとテンポが悪くなりやすいので、プレイヤーの「手がかり」カード数を減らしてみると良いでしょう。 ・ゲームの勝敗とは関係ないのですが、「手がかり」が犯行と一体どう関わったのか、犯人役や探偵役にストーリーを考えておいてもらうのも一興です。 実際、マスターに正解判定をもらった後で、「眠りの×五郎ゴッコ」で楽しんでます。(笑) その「コート」こそが「手がかり」になったんですよ、○○さん！ 「スカーフ」で絞殺しようとしたとき、被害者に抵抗されたあなたは、壁からはみ出たクギにコートを引っ掛けてしまった。 犯行現場に行ったことがないハズのあなたのコートの一部が、なぜ現場のクギに付着しているのか？ それは、あなたが犯人だからですよ、○○さん！ そんなバカなことを言いながら楽しんでます。(笑)

Le jeu est arrivé dans un carton passablement abîmé, entre-ouver, mais miraculeusement il était intact donc rien a dire.

It was a gift to my nephew. He loves it.

This is a great game to bring out at family gathering. Nothing like accusing your own family of murder.

Me llegó para mi cumple y hemos pasado horas jugando sin parar, es divertidísimo. Hay que tomar en cuenta en este caso que el juego (por lo menos a mi) me llegó en alemán e inglés, mas no en español Para nosotros no fue un inconveniente pero debe ser tomado en cuenta si no manejas alguno de estos idiomas. Es un party game IDEAL!