Players: 4-8
Playing Time: 20-40 minutes

Summary of Components

The Castle of the Devil is primarily a card game, though it also includes a few cardboard tokens. Everything is attractively designed and features terrific art by Eckhard Freytag and Lukas Zach.

Quality: All the components are top rate, with medium-weight linen-textured cards and sturdy linen-textured tokens. 5 out of 5.

Beauty: Freytag and Zach's artwork is beautiful and shown to good effect on the cards. Some cards, like the characters, features full-card images. Others, like the objects, still include big pictures on the top half of the cards. Even cards like the professions which are all text have very attractive graphic design. 5 out of 5.

Usability: The most important elements depicted on the cards are the bonuses given to attackers and defenders in duels. These are clearly depicted with a pair of symbols that are carried throughout the design of all the cards. Everything else is conveyed with text. Though the text was general pretty clear, some of the concepts were complex enough that players had to refer to the rules during the game. Fortunately, there's a "guide to the objects" book, separate from the main rules, which made this easy. 4 out of 5.

Theming: In The Castle of the Devil, players take on the roles of members of two secret societies that are trying to find out who their friends and fellows are, while simultaneously trying to collect certain objects. This theme meshes well with the various antique objects found in the game and with the whole concept of conspiracy and limited information that underlies the game. 4 out of 5.

Overall: The components in The Castle of the Devil vary from good to great. On the whole, I like how everything came together, so I've let the game eke in a "5" out of "5" for Style.

Summary of Gameplay

The object of The Castle of the Devil is for your team to collect three of a certain object--keys or goblets. However, you don't know who is on your team or what objects anyone has.

On your turn, you can do one of three things: spy, trade, or duel.

Spy: You look at a random object from someone's hand.

Trade: You offer up an item for trade to another player. If they accept it, they give something back.

This is really where most of the game is because (rather cleverly) many of the objects have powers that activate when they're traded. Most notably two "bags of secrets" let the trader draw a new object card, slowly bringing the entire set of objects into the game. There's also a "monocle" that lets you look at the secret society card of another character.

Beyond that there are a variety of quirky items. For example: one that keeps you from declaring victory, one that lets you declare victory on your own (rather than with your team), and lots more.

Duel: You declare an opponent. Everyone lines up behind you or him, which improves the attack value of the appropriate character. Players can then play objects, reveal professions, or play tokens, all of which further impact the results of the duel. Finally, when everyone is done, all of the attacker and defender points are added up to see who won.

A tie lets the attacker draw a new object. Otherwise the victor gets to either steal an object from the loser or look at his secret society card.

Ending the Game: A player ends the game by proclaiming victory.

This is usually done by pointing out the members of your team who have the objects required for victory. Clearly, you need to have not only figured out who is on your team, but also what they're holding. There's also an alternate victory where you can win by proclaiming that your opponents have what they need for victory (and pointing out who they are).

If you get it wrong, the other guys win!

Relationship to Other Games

The Castle of the Devil was previously released by Adlung Spiele in a multilingual edition called Die Kutschfahrt zur Teufelsburg. As is often the case with Adlung Spiele games, the cards were language-free, which made them much harder to use. daVinci's new edition of the game is a big step up.

The game fits into the general category of hidden role games that originated with "Werewolf" and also notably includes Bang!. Castle resolves many of the problems of those older hidden role games, because there's no player elimination and information is very carefully managed.

The Game Design

This is essentially a game of hidden information and in my experience it offers just the right amount of information to be dangerous.

You're trying to figure out who is on your team in two ways: first, by direct discovery (looking at secret society cards), and second, by indirect assessment (seeing who supports who in duels and otherwise how they interact with each other). In my experience you never have quite enough information to nail everything down, but you have enough to make a pretty good educated guess. Which is a really nice line for the game to walk.

There's also a very nice balance of playing for information (which requires trading of cards) versus playing for victory (which requires holding on to them). If you're too stingy with your items, you're much less likely to know what's really going on. But you don't want to give the other team what they need either.

The limited information also allows for some delightful bluffing and obfuscation. You can try and trick opponents into thinking that they're on your team and otherwise hide your true intentions in ways that still are beneficial to you.

Finally, I'll note the alternate victory conditions that allow you to declare a win if your opponents could have won. They're great. They allow a real chance for the "losing" team to come out on top through careful understanding of information … and that's exactly what the game is all about.

Overall, I think that The Castle of the Devil is one of the best offerings in the hidden role genre. I've given it a "5" out of "5" for Substance.

Conclusion

The Castle of the Devil builds on light hidden role games like "Werewolf" and Bang! but surpasses those earlier offerings by better control of information and overall better-considered game mechanics. It's the top of its class if you're looking for a light game of the sort.