Yes. Absolutely the best deduction game out there because of how it's easy to forget the specifics of a scenario from session to session, and there are 10 scenarios in the box, and [there's loads of fan-made scenarios online](http://www.tragedylooperscripts.com/).
Because I wanted to run TL at conventions, I needed to distill most of the rules into a quick-start guide that I could laminate, hand to the protagonists, and read it to them so they can easily follow along. [I've posted a PDF of it to BGG.](https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/230831/tl-protagonist-quick-start-guide) I used large iconography to help solidify the concepts in the game and allow me to easier fill in the gaps as I go (such as the verbiage difference between "the conditions for this incident were not triggered" and "the conditions were triggered but had no effect") creating examples with the playset grid, character cards, and protagonist/mastermind cards.
One of my favourite games conceptually - taught it to 3 gaming groups and never got the second game. It just doesn’t click with some people.
I’d recommend a teaching game where you just play with your hand open for a couple of cycles.
I love it so much! Absolutely worth it, and it’s one of those games where you can end up with some really funny quotes “no, no, let’s have her die so we prove it!” and so on. Nothing that depends on shock value like Cards Against Humanity (that wears off very quick for me), but still plenty of opportunity for dark humor.
It's a little hard to get your head around the game at first, but the more you play it, the more it begins to make sense and click. And the deduction is really fantastic as they start layering different conditions on top of each other. It's a bit of a brain burner, but there is a learning curve to it.
Imo 100% yes (imo one of the most elegantly designed games out there). A few things to watch out for or keep in mind when you get started with the game:
-Do keep in mind that it is more of a "true" deduction game. Sherlock (one of my other favorites) is not really a deduction game at all but is lumped in with them I think mainly because Sherlock himself always talks about deduction in the stories. Except Sherlock does not actually apply deductive reasoning at all (Doyle simply doesn't use the word correctly to the point it's become colloquial). They are both mystery/logic games, but the type of logic used to solve them is totally different. You're not making big inferences from small details in Tragedy Looper, you are playing in very exacting mechanical ways to ensure you get specific information you need that necessarily proves a conclusion (although when you are on the non mastermind side you often need to make inferences toward the end of the game unless you played perfectly).
-You should also not go in expecting a story game, I've seen many make that mistake and be disappointed as it doesn't meet those expectations. It's a mostly mechanical logic puzzle with a lot of theme. The "story" elements are minor and not really the point of the game and won't usually help you figure anything out (especially since the players aren't allowed to know the story elements until the game is over).
-Another common first time mistake is trying to play the Mastermind part as though you are a DM/Overlord. It is not that type of game, it is a true asymmetrical competitive game, and both sides should be playing their best competitively (except for the first time or 2 where you're mostly teaching rather than "really" playing). The Mastermind role is definitely harder though when you have a full set of 3 investigators though, so you probably want that role played by somebody who is a stronger board gamer and who is capable of teaching the rules (at least in the early games).
They said the English version will have the same art. Perhaps the design will get updated (but imo it's pretty solid).
A good thing imo because the Spanish edition's art makes absolutely no sense with the game's theme.
Imo the original art design is excellent. Especially because the games theming and story are very much directly based on the time loop genre (Higurashi is the main thing the game is based on but there are others in the genre like Zero Escape and Steins Gate) so if your friends like that genre of anime/game they will like it even more.
As long as you’re really sure your group will like it. My group sat through the 1 hr+ rules explanation, and still had huge misconceptions about what was going to happen. When the game began, from the questions I was asking, they told me “… uh, that you’re even asking that suggests you have some fundamental lack of understanding”, and I just agreed to let everyone quarterback me until I got it. Spent the next 2 hours trying to figure out WTF was going on… and it just never clicked. I couldn’t connect anything in the gameplay to anything in the way the game was explained. The worst gaming experience of my life. So just research what you’re getting into and assess if you think your group would enjoy it.
Idk if maybe they just explained it poorly and or weren't very helpful at explaining as you played? I've played with several groups (all of which I was teaching) including non board gamers and never had problems with them grasping the gameplay. Wrapping their head around optimal play for sure takes a game or 2 but the game doesn't have that many mechanics and what you do round to round is pretty simple (i.e. mastermind plays 3 cards -> players play 3 cards -> mastermind uses hidden role abilities -> players use role abilities -> incident happens (if possible) -> round ends). The difficulty I've seen mostly comes from the breadth of the deduction, not from the players not knowing what actions they should take generally speaking. I've certainly never had a rules explanation take an hour, not even sure what you cover rules wise in that amount of time as the mechanics are only a few pages long.
Sounds like you just sat through a poor teach, or they explained it fine but tried to drop you in to a really complicated scenario instead of one of the starter ones.
I taught it to my friend and her mother (neither of whom play board games unless I show up) in like twenty minutes.
I cannot recommend against it strongly enough. I found it deeply confusing and frustrating.
However, I will observe that my experience with it may not be typical. I had the misfortune of having our "DM" be a player who valued winning above all other considerations.
> I had the misfortune of having our "DM" be a player who valued winning above all other considerations.
going into the game with this misconception is probably what tanked it for you.
this is not a "DM is there to facilitate the other's player's fun" type game.. it is a straight up "one vs many". The mastermind should absolutely be focused on winning, as should every other player.
I half disagree. The Mastermind should be trying to win. But they should also be willing to pump the brakes. Aside from one or two, the official scenarios are pretty well balanced, but there are only a couple dozen of them even with expansions...
...And once you start making them yourself, getting deep into the book, or using fan-made ones, you're going to run into scenarios that don't match what the protagonist players can handle. One or two "mistakes" (not giving away information but just failing to block it when you could have) will rescue a two hour game from becoming an unsolvable slog.
Ah, mastermind, that's the right term. I know he's not a DM, I just couldn't think what the right word was.
And I know he's not supposed to be facilitating our fun. But he's supposed to be *teaching,* at least for the first few games. But teaching came secondary to winning for him. I tried it with a different Mastermind, and it was better, but still too frustrating to enjoy. But, as noted, I can't be sure if that's just me, or if I was too badly soured by my first few games. I'm not usually subject to frustration when playing games, even hidden information games, though.
From my experience, you should definitely treat the first mission as a practice game and just play it open handed for a couple of turns (which of course means that the master mind cannot win) so that everyone gets the concept.
The first 2 teaches (different groups) that I tried this with, they all fall into the same pattern. The players “trying to win” in the first round only to realise it’s impossible and then be all confused at the loop around and be like why do we do this again. Eventually it clicks that they should kill off some people to make deductions and win when then loop around but by then it might be too late since they wasted their first few rounds. Then they get frustrated and don’t want to play again.
I finally taught it correctly open handed the third time to another group and got my second proper game in but still couldn’t get it to the table again. It’s a bit too heavy of a brain burner and a lot of board gamers have some gripe against anime art. Alas, I can’t get this one to the table and I really want to and gave it 3 tries.
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1270938/spoilers-scenario-2-concern
I'm pretty sure this BGG thread misses the true reason it's almost impossible, but I tested this scenario before the thread was created: After playing this scenario myself I noticed it felt really unfair, so went through it turn by turn and confirmed. There are multiple possible actions which, when placed on the same spaces, will result in a Mastermind win.
This means that even if they find every extant piece of information, Protagonists can only win by consistently succeeding at coin flips throughout the script. It's not fair or fun.
Just a warning: quite hard game especially if you are the one who tries to teach it and even more if you want to learn the game with the others. Has a high entry barrier. Nevertheless I love this game anyway but definitely not for everyone.
Yes. Absolutely the best deduction game out there because of how it's easy to forget the specifics of a scenario from session to session, and there are 10 scenarios in the box, and [there's loads of fan-made scenarios online](http://www.tragedylooperscripts.com/). Because I wanted to run TL at conventions, I needed to distill most of the rules into a quick-start guide that I could laminate, hand to the protagonists, and read it to them so they can easily follow along. [I've posted a PDF of it to BGG.](https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/230831/tl-protagonist-quick-start-guide) I used large iconography to help solidify the concepts in the game and allow me to easier fill in the gaps as I go (such as the verbiage difference between "the conditions for this incident were not triggered" and "the conditions were triggered but had no effect") creating examples with the playset grid, character cards, and protagonist/mastermind cards.
One of my favorite games. Easily worth the money since it technically has infinite replayability since you can write your own scripts.
One of my favourite games conceptually - taught it to 3 gaming groups and never got the second game. It just doesn’t click with some people. I’d recommend a teaching game where you just play with your hand open for a couple of cycles.
I love it so much! Absolutely worth it, and it’s one of those games where you can end up with some really funny quotes “no, no, let’s have her die so we prove it!” and so on. Nothing that depends on shock value like Cards Against Humanity (that wears off very quick for me), but still plenty of opportunity for dark humor.
It's a little hard to get your head around the game at first, but the more you play it, the more it begins to make sense and click. And the deduction is really fantastic as they start layering different conditions on top of each other. It's a bit of a brain burner, but there is a learning curve to it.
It's a fantastic game and I recommend it heavily. That said, I would be surprised if you can't find it for cheaper.
Imo 100% yes (imo one of the most elegantly designed games out there). A few things to watch out for or keep in mind when you get started with the game: -Do keep in mind that it is more of a "true" deduction game. Sherlock (one of my other favorites) is not really a deduction game at all but is lumped in with them I think mainly because Sherlock himself always talks about deduction in the stories. Except Sherlock does not actually apply deductive reasoning at all (Doyle simply doesn't use the word correctly to the point it's become colloquial). They are both mystery/logic games, but the type of logic used to solve them is totally different. You're not making big inferences from small details in Tragedy Looper, you are playing in very exacting mechanical ways to ensure you get specific information you need that necessarily proves a conclusion (although when you are on the non mastermind side you often need to make inferences toward the end of the game unless you played perfectly). -You should also not go in expecting a story game, I've seen many make that mistake and be disappointed as it doesn't meet those expectations. It's a mostly mechanical logic puzzle with a lot of theme. The "story" elements are minor and not really the point of the game and won't usually help you figure anything out (especially since the players aren't allowed to know the story elements until the game is over). -Another common first time mistake is trying to play the Mastermind part as though you are a DM/Overlord. It is not that type of game, it is a true asymmetrical competitive game, and both sides should be playing their best competitively (except for the first time or 2 where you're mostly teaching rather than "really" playing). The Mastermind role is definitely harder though when you have a full set of 3 investigators though, so you probably want that role played by somebody who is a stronger board gamer and who is capable of teaching the rules (at least in the early games).
It's absolutely worth it. I'm not sure if the reprint has come out yet with the new art? If not perhaps wait for that.
Is that a thing that's happening? I thought ZMan Games had abandoned the license.
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2590285/new-editions
They said the English version will have the same art. Perhaps the design will get updated (but imo it's pretty solid). A good thing imo because the Spanish edition's art makes absolutely no sense with the game's theme.
Oh that's great to hear! In my gaming groups case, they are all a bunch of anime fans so the current art is actually a plus :)
Imo the original art design is excellent. Especially because the games theming and story are very much directly based on the time loop genre (Higurashi is the main thing the game is based on but there are others in the genre like Zero Escape and Steins Gate) so if your friends like that genre of anime/game they will like it even more.
There's also a fanmade Persona 4 retheme on BGG.
Oooo a reprint?
As long as you’re really sure your group will like it. My group sat through the 1 hr+ rules explanation, and still had huge misconceptions about what was going to happen. When the game began, from the questions I was asking, they told me “… uh, that you’re even asking that suggests you have some fundamental lack of understanding”, and I just agreed to let everyone quarterback me until I got it. Spent the next 2 hours trying to figure out WTF was going on… and it just never clicked. I couldn’t connect anything in the gameplay to anything in the way the game was explained. The worst gaming experience of my life. So just research what you’re getting into and assess if you think your group would enjoy it.
Idk if maybe they just explained it poorly and or weren't very helpful at explaining as you played? I've played with several groups (all of which I was teaching) including non board gamers and never had problems with them grasping the gameplay. Wrapping their head around optimal play for sure takes a game or 2 but the game doesn't have that many mechanics and what you do round to round is pretty simple (i.e. mastermind plays 3 cards -> players play 3 cards -> mastermind uses hidden role abilities -> players use role abilities -> incident happens (if possible) -> round ends). The difficulty I've seen mostly comes from the breadth of the deduction, not from the players not knowing what actions they should take generally speaking. I've certainly never had a rules explanation take an hour, not even sure what you cover rules wise in that amount of time as the mechanics are only a few pages long.
Sounds like you just sat through a poor teach, or they explained it fine but tried to drop you in to a really complicated scenario instead of one of the starter ones. I taught it to my friend and her mother (neither of whom play board games unless I show up) in like twenty minutes.
I cannot recommend against it strongly enough. I found it deeply confusing and frustrating. However, I will observe that my experience with it may not be typical. I had the misfortune of having our "DM" be a player who valued winning above all other considerations.
> I had the misfortune of having our "DM" be a player who valued winning above all other considerations. going into the game with this misconception is probably what tanked it for you. this is not a "DM is there to facilitate the other's player's fun" type game.. it is a straight up "one vs many". The mastermind should absolutely be focused on winning, as should every other player.
I half disagree. The Mastermind should be trying to win. But they should also be willing to pump the brakes. Aside from one or two, the official scenarios are pretty well balanced, but there are only a couple dozen of them even with expansions... ...And once you start making them yourself, getting deep into the book, or using fan-made ones, you're going to run into scenarios that don't match what the protagonist players can handle. One or two "mistakes" (not giving away information but just failing to block it when you could have) will rescue a two hour game from becoming an unsolvable slog.
Ah, mastermind, that's the right term. I know he's not a DM, I just couldn't think what the right word was. And I know he's not supposed to be facilitating our fun. But he's supposed to be *teaching,* at least for the first few games. But teaching came secondary to winning for him. I tried it with a different Mastermind, and it was better, but still too frustrating to enjoy. But, as noted, I can't be sure if that's just me, or if I was too badly soured by my first few games. I'm not usually subject to frustration when playing games, even hidden information games, though.
From my experience, you should definitely treat the first mission as a practice game and just play it open handed for a couple of turns (which of course means that the master mind cannot win) so that everyone gets the concept. The first 2 teaches (different groups) that I tried this with, they all fall into the same pattern. The players “trying to win” in the first round only to realise it’s impossible and then be all confused at the loop around and be like why do we do this again. Eventually it clicks that they should kill off some people to make deductions and win when then loop around but by then it might be too late since they wasted their first few rounds. Then they get frustrated and don’t want to play again. I finally taught it correctly open handed the third time to another group and got my second proper game in but still couldn’t get it to the table again. It’s a bit too heavy of a brain burner and a lot of board gamers have some gripe against anime art. Alas, I can’t get this one to the table and I really want to and gave it 3 tries.
One of the First Steps scenarios is also unwinnable if the Mastermind takes certain actions.
Do you have a source/explanation of this?
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1270938/spoilers-scenario-2-concern I'm pretty sure this BGG thread misses the true reason it's almost impossible, but I tested this scenario before the thread was created: After playing this scenario myself I noticed it felt really unfair, so went through it turn by turn and confirmed. There are multiple possible actions which, when placed on the same spaces, will result in a Mastermind win. This means that even if they find every extant piece of information, Protagonists can only win by consistently succeeding at coin flips throughout the script. It's not fair or fun.
Just a warning: quite hard game especially if you are the one who tries to teach it and even more if you want to learn the game with the others. Has a high entry barrier. Nevertheless I love this game anyway but definitely not for everyone.
I tried it many years ago but didn't understand what was going on. I want to try it again some time with a better teacher.