Awkward Guests Board Game First Impressions

Awkward Guests is a murder mystery deduction game.

Mr Walton probably deserved it.

Awkward Guests is a deduction game with infinite re-playability. You can recreate Mr Walton’s murder in so many different ways that you won’t ever play two similar games! (Mr Walton will not thank you for doing this.)

Awkward Guests Game Play

I don’t own this game, but I’m in the rare situation that I’ve played this twice with two different groups in two different ways before writing about it. So I’ll cover what I know about using both the book for the solution and the app. (Spoiler: USE THE APP :))

The game comes with a couple of hundred cards all numbered. During setup, a specific 70 cards are put into a Case deck.

Everybody gets a sheet to take notes and mark off evidence and hearsay and a screen to protect (most of) it from the other players. Players get a hand of cards that contain clues and hearsay that can be used to update their sheet.

They show where people were, where they moved, who they were with and what trace evidence was found etc You can trust the Police and the Staff, but not the guests themselves.

Players take turns following the Inquiry, Offer and then Exchange phases.

Inquiries & Exchanges

In the Inquiry phase, players will request references for two locations and/or guests. This is done by placing the arrows on the map pointing to these two pieces of information. The player then reads them out loud to all players.

Starting with the player on the right of the active player and going around the table, players offer any combination of cards from their hand that contains at least one of the requests on each card face down.

Each card has a value and the player will declare the total value of these cards and place a numbered token on top showing the value.

The active player can then trade with as many players as they like. However, they must exchange an equal value of cards from their hand with these players. If no one wants to or can trade, the active player draws 3 cards from the deck.

Then all players have a chance to note down their new info and play continues clockwise.

Solving the Case

After all of the players have done this, there is the Solution phase. Players simultaneously reveal a token in their hand with one side of that token declaring that the player is willing to make a guess at the solution.

To solve the case, the player must write who killed Mr Walton, their motive and the weapon used. If the player believes there is an accomplice they must find out who that is and why they helped.

One at a time, players check their solution in the book and if any players get it correct they win. Anyone that gets it wrong now knows the solution and is eliminated from the game.

When using the app, you enter your solution and the game will say if you’re correct. As you don’t know the solution you can continue playing but you can’t have a guess in the next solution phase.

Discard Phase

All players in the game will discard down to 3 cards in hand face down and draws back up to 6 cards.

When the deck runs out, it is reshuffled and 3 cards are revealed from the deck face up so everyone can see them.

The players that get the solution first are the winners.

Theme

Murder at a house has been around for years and I’m not sure it’ll ever get old.

Setup

Luckily I’ve never been asked to help find the cards but man that looks like a very tiring job. Of course, after the game, you need to sort them out for next time which I have helped with. I’m not a fan.

Components & Artwork

Firstly, the player screen is too small to cover the sheet which seems like a massive oversight. It means players to my left or right can accidentally (or purposefully) see which weapons I had eliminated.

On my first game, the screen was also misprinted and didn’t match the player sheet but the second version I played was OK.

The art is OK I guess.

Ease of Teaching

Erm… If people can understand the cards they can make their own notes. The rules are simple, but deciphering the cards and what to do with them can be tricky.

Awkward Guests Summary

So this is Cluedo mixed with Sleuth in a way. In Sleuth you have limited questions to ask which is the same here. You might ask for info on a person or location in Awkward Guests but you might not get much, or anything useful. For more gamey games, I compared Sleuth to Alchemists and P.I. which are both deduction games.

The card exchange thing is really fun. Someone might have a 5 which is great, that is a lot of value. But maybe you already traded with them recently so are you just getting the same cards back?

Also, do you go for the value 5 pile with 2 cards or the pile with 4 cards in it? More cards equal more information but those higher value cards can give more accurate information. Sometimes picking up 1 or 2 value piles from several people works best.

Then when discarding what do you keep? Cards from the Police and Staff give real, verified information so do you keep those for the entire game? Keep that info for yourself?

It’s a game of giving and taking there but you just need to do what it takes to get the info.

Are deduction games like this my thing? No. But this is a very fun game that gives you a lot to think about.

Jesta ThaRogue