Obscurio Board Game First Impressions

Obscurio will ask players to escape a library by finding the right exit.

Will you work together and get out, or will the traitor help keep you in?

The Sorcerer is out to get you! Find your way among the illusions, but beware of the traitor in your ranks!

The Grimoire guides their team towards the exit using images, upon which they point at certain details. Working together, the other players have to find the exit as quickly as possible while avoiding picking the wrong cards. However, a member of the team is a traitor looking to lead the other players astray. A wide variety of traps are on your way to the exit of the library, making player communication harder!

Obscurio Game Play

So players are going to take up different roles. One is going to be the Grimoire which will give clues to the players and basically run the game. One of the other players, who are known as “Loyal Wizards” is randomly (and of course secretly) a traitor.

There is a board representing the library in the middle of the table and each player puts a nice hefty token representing themselves in the middle.

There is also a number of Cohesion tokens on the board depending on the difficulty level and player count, more on them in a bit.

So the game is played over several rounds, and each round has 5 steps…

First, a Trap Token is drawn out of the bag. There might be more than one depending on how you did on the previous round. These traps will hinder the players during this round.

Step 2 is to Prepare the Riddle. The Grimoire player will draw the top door card which will be the Exit for this round. They will draw 2 more cards and add them to the desk board. They then use the butterfly markers to point to clues on the desk.

These two clues are the ONLY thing the Grimoire has to help the Wizards find the right door, they’re not allowed to talk or anything.

After everyone has seen the clues, the Traitor will add Traitor Cards. Everyone closes their eyes and the Traitor will open them and look inside the Grimoire which is a book of 8 cards, not the Grimoire player! They choose 2 cards with knowledge of the clues to try and select doors that will mislead the Wizards.

Choosing the Door

Step 4 sees the Grimoire player take the Exit card, the Traitor cards and 3 more cards, shuffle them and place them near the door locations around the Library.

A sand timer starts and so does the discussion as the Wizards try and find the right door while the Traitor with all their knowledge tries to mislead.

When the timer runs out its moved forward one space on its track. The more spaces it moves the more extra trap tokens will be drawn in the next round.

Players choose a door by placing their token next to it and they don’t have to agree on a single door, they can sp[lit up. If the timer runs on the last track everyone who hasn’t picked a door has now picked “The Wrong Door”. Otherwise, players can tell the Grimoire to stop the timer when doors are picked.

If a least one player chooses the right door the players win the round and will move one step down the track to victory.

Each player that picked the wrong door takes a Cohesion token from the board. This shows how many wrong doors the players have chosen. Also, if the token pool runs out, the Traitor wins.

Step 5 is basically tidying up and starting a new round with the final room having a special rule where players can’t talk on top of any other trap tokens.

Making an Accusation

The token pool is divided into two sections. Once one section runs out, players can make an accusation. Players simultaneously vote and the players with the most votes are revealed. So you can reveal the traitor, but for each loyal player revealed, 2 cohesion tokens are lost.

If the Wizards escape they win but if the pool of cohesion tokens runs out the traitor wins.

Theme

I mean you can make up any old crap for these games can’t you? All you need is a reason for one player to not talk and a reason for one to betray the rest.

A sentient book and a bunch of trapped Wizards aren’t the worst idea.

Setup

The setup is fairly simple with just a bit of looking up to count out the cohesion tokens.

Components & Artwork

The room cards have plenty of detail to point and the artwork is cool and fantastical.

I already mentioned the hefty poker chips but the Desk is really good. The round cards fit in the spaces and the butterfly markers are magnetic, sticking to the board. It’s thick and sturdy and really nice.

Ease of Teaching & Accessibility

This game is as easy to teach as these games always are. But, it’s hard to teach a game sometimes without giving too much away. Also, a new player may struggle with the Grimoire and may not provide a challenge (or be too obvious) if randomly assigned the Traitor…

Tough one.

Obscurio Summary

There are plenty of games like Obscurio obviously. It was sold to be as Mysterium with a traitor but to me, it’s closer to Deception: Murder in Hong Kong.

While I enjoyed the game I mostly prefer to play something much shorter, like one of the One Night Ultimate Series.

I didn’t really talk about the traps. Some add extra doors, others make a random door face down etc One adds a red filter over the room cards in the desk so the Grimoire can’t use colour as a clue.

Another sees the doors placed one at a time and the Wizards have to decide if that’s the door they choose and they can’t pick a previous one.

Tough stuff.

I mean, Obscurio is fun… but there are better, VERY similar games.

Jesta ThaRogue