Night of the Ninja is a Ninja themed social deduction game.
But does it belong in the same House as similar games? or is it an outcast Ronin?
A fast-paced game of deadly secrets, midnight assassinations, and paper-thin alliances. Your mission is to defeat a rival ninja House …if you can figure out who they are!
Night of the Ninja Game Play
Based on the number of players, get an even number of Crane and Lotus House cards starting with rank 1. So in a 6 player game, you’ll have the rank 1, 2 and 3 from each clan. If there is an odd number of players add the Ronin card. Shuffle them and deal 1 to each player face down.
Each player also gets a standee.
Next, deal three Ninja cards to each player and draft them clockwise with all players discarding the last card.
Next, each Ninja card is called out by name, then by number. So Spy 1, Spy 2 etc Then Mystic 1, Mystic 2… When a player has the called card, they can play it.
This is the order…
1. Spy
2. Mystic
3. Trickster
4. Blind Assassin
5. Shinobi
The earlier cards like Spy are information gatherers, allowing players to look at the House and Ninja cards of the players. The latter once are more based on killing players, eliminating them from the round.
The Trickster cards are different with some that react to other players playing cards on you.
After all the cards have been resolved, any living players reveal their House card. The House with the highest-ranked surviving player wins the round. Every member of the winning House draws one Honour token which is kept face down. The Ronin will draw one if they survive.
A new round begins.
At the end of a round, if a player has 10 points on their Honour tokens they win the game.
Theme
Ninjas and their houses are always fun. But, as with a lot of these games, it could have been anything really. No reason for it to be Ninjas, nothing is specifically Ninjery about it.
Setup
Shuffle and deal. No problem.
Components & Artwork
I do really like the artwork. I think it’s from some famous dude that specialises in this style and the effort and cost to get this done has really paid off. It’s really pretty.
Ease of Teaching
As with any hidden role game, there may be speed bumps. It is difficult to ask questions, especially if you’re not familiar with the genre. The rounds are fairly short and you’ll be playing a few of them so mistakes can be made IF the player learns from them of course.
Ninja cards are revealed so players can advise on their options before they activate them.
Night of the Ninja Summary
I do like social deduction games and there are a lot of them. This is a cross between Dead Last and Blood Bound so it’s fun, but is an overdone genre.
I like games like this where you play several rounds and alliances change the whole time. Like playing several games of One Night Ultimate rather than one game of Avalon.
But, it sits in the pack and doesn’t stand out for me.
Jesta ThaRogue