Blood on the Clocktower First Impressions
Blood on the Clocktower is a very extravagant social deduction game.
It’s basically overproduced Werewolf.
In the quiet village of Ravenswood Bluff, a demon walks amongst you…
Blood on the Clocktower Game Overview
Quick Rules Summary
Players are each assigned a role, secretly.
At night, players are each woken by someone running the game to use their character power. This could be to mess with people, learn some information etc
Then during the day, players can break off and discuss what they know, or think they know.
Each day, people can vote to lynch someone if they like and each night, after the usual eyes-closed shenanigans, the demon can kill someone.
How do you win?
If the demon survives, the demon player and their helpers win. If players kill the demons, non-demons win.
Main Mechanisms
USP
The USP is the overproduced and expensive massive box of components that aren’t really needed. Not to this level. They’re mostly only used by the one player running the game and hidden to everyone else.
Theme
There’s a Demon/Werewolf/Cylon and the only way to deal with them is to kill people every day. Yadda yadda. It’s been done before.
Setup
As a player, I get a sheet and a token. job done.
As the game runner person, it’s a whole thing that I don’t care to go into. (Because I don’t know)
Components & Artwork
The components are obviously good but as I said earlier, it didn’t need to be like that and cost so much. The art is minimal.
Ease of Teaching
As with any hidden role game, it’s tough to teach. Luckily in games like this one where someone is running the game they can always take them aside for a quick rules chat.
I would still start with a smaller game like One Night Ultimate Werewolf if someone hasn’t played a social deduction game before.
Similar Games
Werewolf obviously.
Blood on the Clocktower Review
Positives
The character roles in the game change for the scenario you’re playing making you think differently for different games.
As with any of these games, it’s really fun to be the big bad a lead people down the wrong path.
If you like the hidden role and table talk thing, this is for you, however…
Negatives
…a lot of chat is done secretly in groups. I prefer this to be all around the table and fairly open.
It seems this game has a way to play it correctly and if you stray from that path you get shouted at by those that play it more often. This mostly comes from people all watching the same streams of the game being played I believe.
It’s frustrating when you have to deal with people that just reply “well you would say that” to everything rather than taking what you say into consideration.
Is Blood on the Clocktower worth it?
If you enjoy games like Werewolf or any social deduction game with a lot of table talk and bluffing then you will probably like this game.
There are a lot of these games around so you need to decide if this is the one for you. At somewhere between £70 and £100+, you need to be sure that you’re going to like it.
How long does Blood on the Clocktower take?
A game of Blood on the Clocktower can take anywhere between 30 minutes and 120 minutes. It all depends on the scenario, the game runners’ style, the about of table talk and of course the player count.
As a rule of thumb, I would say you’re looking at about 6 minutes per player but this will vary from game to game.
Where can I play Blood on the Clocktower?
There are several places you can play Blood on the Clocktower.
The first is to buy the game yourself and play with your friends or in your game group. Ask if anyone in your game group has a copy and if they’ll bring it. That’s obvious. You can also look online for specific in-person meetups near you or at a convention you’re attending.
If you want to play online, there are groups via Meetup, Facebook and Discord all over the world that play online (and offline). There is also https://clocktower.online/ that has a virtual town square and grimoire you can use to play online and make it look pretty.
Summary
It’s not my kind of game but it’s a good version of this game that isn’t for me.
Jesta ThaRogue
