Town of Salem

Town of Salem
Blank Media Games
PC/Mac

I’ve had Town of Salem for awhile now. I bought it based on a suggestion from Noah of +2 Comedy, as we were talking about my love of Werewolf the board game. Both are similar to Mafia. If you don’t understand anything I just said, that’s fine. I’ll explain.

Town of Salem is a 15 player game. You and 14 other people form a town and you each have a role to play. Depending on what version of the game you play, you could be anything, but let’s talk about classic mode. 

In classic mode, you have the following good guys:
Sheriff (interrogating others to find out what they are)
Doctor (healing people)
Investigator (investigate for clues on a person’s role)
Jailor (interrogate and possibly kill a person)
Medium (can speak with the dead)
Escort (can block a person from doing their job)
Lookout (stalks people to figure out what they are)
Veteran/Vigilante (can kill people, hopefully for good)
Random Townie (can be anything)

Your bad guys are: 
Godfather (in charge of the mafia, orders the killing)
Framer (can plant evidence on other townies)
Executioner (whole job is to get one particular person lynched)
Mafioso (does the killing for the Godfather)
Serial Killer (kinda self explanatory)
Jester (tries very hard to get him/herself lynched)

I know that is a lot to take in, but that isn’t even half the roles in the game.

So, you 15 are in this town and have one of the above roles. You either have to kill all the good guys or kill all the bad guys, depending on which side of justice you’re on. During the day, you have to convince the other townspeople of your innocence and another’s guilt or lie through your teeth to get someone else killed. During the day the town votes on a person to lynch and at night murder and mayhem happen.

In the game, you are given tools. You have a Will that you can use to keep track of what you’re doing. If you are a jailor or an investigator, you can use this tool to record what it is you see or hear. By doing this not only do you keep a track of what’s happening but also, if you die, this is made public to everyone. Your second tool, if you’re a bad guy, is a death note. This can be useful, even if you’re evil. If you are the mafia and find someone is immune to killing attacks at night, they are most likely the Serial Killer. You can put that in your note, hoping that the town pays attention when you kill your next innocent and hangs your rival.

Besides classic mode, there are several other play modes. My current favorite is Chaos Any mode. You have no idea what the roles are and anyone could be anything.

I think the graphics are adorable. You have little avatars and houses that you come out of each morning. With coins, or cash, you can change your avatar, house, pet, method of death (I get struck by lightning) and even the playing arena.

I love playing this game. I bought it on Steam for $5 and it was some of the best money I ever spent. Despite my love for this game, however, I can’t stand most of the people who play. Unless I am playing with a group of friends, I get annoyed very quickly. It boils down to the maturity of the people playing, really, and most of the time it’s low. A great deal of the time, people will leave if they don’t like their role or if they die they will abandon the game, which pisses off the medium.

Fortunately, they seemed to put a cap on my biggest issue: the entire game would be filled with racist and sexist jokes. Thankfully, they put a filter on so it says something cute, like “tarnation,” when people are being douches. I’ve seen people get around it by adding spaces, but it is a step in the right direction. Of course, we are still left with people being idiots in game, so it makes it increasingly difficult to make proper deductions. This feels like one of the unfortunate things you will just have to deal with because, as we all know, playing online subjects you to all sorts of people.

If you don’t have this game, you should. You can play it for free at BlankMediaGames.com or you can purchase it on Steam. Feel free to add me to your friends list!