How to play Quest of Shadows

Five quests, and a public record of every vote

Most of you are loyal. Two or three are not, and they know each other. Each round a leader proposes a team and everybody votes on it at once and in the open.

The whole record of who approved what stays on screen all game, because that record is the loyal side's only real instrument.

The rejection clock, which is not decoration

Reject five teams in a row and the traitors win outright. Without that clock the honest play against every suspicious team is to reject and think again, for ever; with it you have five chances to compose something you can live with.

Every real game is played in its shadow.

Face down, and counted rather than read out

On an approved quest each person plays a card in secret. Loyal players may only play success; a traitor may play either. One fail sinks a quest — except the fourth quest at seven or more, which takes two, so a lone traitor on that team can do nothing at all.

You are told how many fails came back. Whose they were is the one thing this game never tells anybody, at the time or afterwards.

And the dagger

One loyal player knows every traitor from the start. If the loyal side takes three quests, the Assassin gets a single guess at who that was and takes the whole game if they are right.

So the one person who knows everything has to steer three quests home without ever being seen to know anything. Tables who want the plainer game can take both cards out in the lobby.

Questions people ask

Does anybody get knocked out?

No. There is no elimination in this game at all — every person votes on every team from the first quest to the last, including the people everybody is certain about. A game that sits somebody out for fifteen minutes has ended for them.

Do the bots work here?

They hold a card, go on quests, vote, and can sink a quest as a traitor — but they do not talk, cannot bluff and never explain a vote, and the talking is most of this game. One or two among five people is a real game. Four bots and one person is a demonstration, and the lobby says so.

Does anybody have to install anything to play Quest of Shadows?

No. It runs in the browser everyone already has open. One person opens a room, reads out the six-character code or pastes the link into the channel, and everyone else is at the table in a couple of seconds.

Do we need accounts?

No. There is no sign-up, no password and no email address anywhere in the flow. You pick a name when you sit down, and that is the whole of it.

How many people can play Quest of Shadows?

5 to 10 — best with seven. A room seats up to 12.

How long does a game of Quest of Shadows take?

About 20 minutes, which is the length of a coffee break rather than the length of a games night. Nobody is the host in the sense of holding the controls, so a round finishes whether or not everyone is still looking at it.

Does it work over a video call?

That is what it is for. The game is on the screen and the talking is on the call — nobody has to describe a board to anybody, and the parts that must stay private stay on the server rather than being read out.