Castle of the Devil, The

[Gerald]

All players are passengers within a carriage that is rushing to Devil's Castle. They each act as a member of a secret association, but no one knows who is friend and who is foe.

Each player starts in one of two secret associations. He also gets a secret profession with a special ability. So at the beginning of the game you have no information about the membership and the professions of the others. To win the game, each association has to collect 3 defined artifacts jointly. Therefore you have to find out who your allies are and where to find the artifacts among the other secret objects that are in possession of other players. You can get this information during the game either by trading objects with other players, because every object has a special ability, e.g. "Trade it in and you may take a look at your trading partners-association." or by struggling with other players, because the winner of a struggle can view the cards of the underdog and steal one of them. But be careful, all players can support the attacker OR defender in a struggle. If they know about your identity but you don't know theirs it may be risky to struggle.

The association that has collected their 3 artifacts first, wins.

The game has a special atmosphere, because you never know if somebody is faithfully supporting you or if he only pretends to be your friend.

[Gaebril]

I have the german "subtitled" version of this, and it's a neat little game. Kinda tough too, even one inexperienced player can spell DOOM for their team. Played with a crowd of Werewolf/Mafia veterans, this really shines.

[maskmanjoe]

Is there any difference from the German edition? One of the best mafia-ish party games i've played and  also among the toughest, due to the two conditions needed to successfully declare victory.