On The Horizon: The Last Banquet...

One major issue that always seems to occur on games night is when there are too many people for the intended games.  My partner laughs at me when I invite a couple people over with a certain "4-player only" game in the back of mind.  And then they ask if they can bring a friend and I laugh nervously whilst in the back of my mind I'm racing through my good 5-player games.  And then he springs it on me that he's invited so and so whose bringing their partner and by then I can't hide my disappointment and anger...  "Stupid party game AGAIN!"

Once you hit 7+ people there aren't that many good strategy games you can play and the last thing you wanna do at someone's gathering is split in to two separate groups.  One recent find that we have pulled out a few times now is The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow, a game for 8 or more players where each player is given a secret identity card which may include a special power.  Most of the players are villagers but a few are werewolves.  The goal for the villagers is to lynch all the werewolves during the day (when everyone's eyes are open) and the werewolves are trying to off the villagers during the night (when everyone closes their eyes).  It's all very paranoid and thoroughly enjoyable, especially when you convince everyone to lynch your best friend who then turns out not to be a werewolf as they so vehemently proclaimed.

Well, another team game, The Last Banquet, looks to be released very soon and can be played with up to 24 people (the more, the merrier!)  In this game the players split into two teams who secretly elect one of the members to be the assassin.  One player is the King/moderator and everyone tries get their team's secret assassin to be seated beside the King by the end of the round.  If so, they kill the king and their team wins the game.  There's a few more rules than that, like the fact that every player has a special power to let them rearrange the players in some way, but in general it looks pretty lighthearted and a lot of fun.  And it's mean-spirited and murderous so I get the feeling my group of friends will eat it up.