Last weekend, five of my friends and I were in a mood for a party game with secret roles. Instead of playing one of our classics, we thought about trying a new one; and that’s how I ended up reading Secrets’ rulebook... Now, Secrets is a 4-8 players, fast and simple-bluff game with a lot of “push your luck”, “deduction” and “take that” elements. The general idea is that most of the information is hidden and what you’re basically trying to do is to understand the players’ identities in order to give the right cards to the right ones.
At the beginning of the game, players are assigned a hidden identity token from either the CIA or the KGB team and they’re trying to collect as many points as they can, via cards that they offer to each other. Additionally, one player assumes the role of an anti-establishment Hippie who is working for himself and his goal is to have the fewest points when the game ends. Of course, no one knows who their teammates are or who the Hippie might be and here’s where the fun starts! Let me explain a little more.
On your turn, you randomly draw 2 agent cards and you choose 1 to offer face-down to another player. These cards are worth +/- points and have varying good or bad abilities, which ultimately give information to the players about what’s going on... The player who receives the card can either accept/flip it, in which case they score it, or refuse it, in which case the card returns to you and you score it. The game ends when a player has collected 5 cards, after which the identities are revealed; the two teams sum up their scores and the highest one wins unless the Hippie has the single lowest score, in which case they win! Sounds fun, right? Well, after a couple of rounds we started losing our interest in the game.
The game idea is fun indeed and the game components are of great quality, which is very positive for the whole experience! But on the other hand, the game's strategic part is so simple that, while this makes it easy to teach and accessible to casual gamers, it also feels like it lacks substance. There's no pro-play, super-clever move or best strategy. The game ends in 30-40’ or so and you can never know all the information you might want for planning your actions. So, in many turns, you end up doing random offers, having the illusion of an actual strategy. The bluffing part of the game is fun, but to us it seemed like there’s too much randomness, coming from the mix of luck and a lot of secrets.
At the beginning of the game, players are assigned a hidden identity token from either the CIA or the KGB team and they’re trying to collect as many points as they can, via cards that they offer to each other. Additionally, one player assumes the role of an anti-establishment Hippie who is working for himself and his goal is to have the fewest points when the game ends. Of course, no one knows who their teammates are or who the Hippie might be and here’s where the fun starts! Let me explain a little more.
On your turn, you randomly draw 2 agent cards and you choose 1 to offer face-down to another player. These cards are worth +/- points and have varying good or bad abilities, which ultimately give information to the players about what’s going on... The player who receives the card can either accept/flip it, in which case they score it, or refuse it, in which case the card returns to you and you score it. The game ends when a player has collected 5 cards, after which the identities are revealed; the two teams sum up their scores and the highest one wins unless the Hippie has the single lowest score, in which case they win! Sounds fun, right? Well, after a couple of rounds we started losing our interest in the game.
The game idea is fun indeed and the game components are of great quality, which is very positive for the whole experience! But on the other hand, the game's strategic part is so simple that, while this makes it easy to teach and accessible to casual gamers, it also feels like it lacks substance. There's no pro-play, super-clever move or best strategy. The game ends in 30-40’ or so and you can never know all the information you might want for planning your actions. So, in many turns, you end up doing random offers, having the illusion of an actual strategy. The bluffing part of the game is fun, but to us it seemed like there’s too much randomness, coming from the mix of luck and a lot of secrets.
Final thoughts:
Fair enough for a light party game and a good introduction game to new gamers for the genre. Although, if you’re looking for something deeper strategically, more complex and engaging, then I guess you should look somewhere else.
Have you ever played Secrets? I’d love to know your final thoughts about it and which game would you compare it with.
Written by: Yannis, Concept Artist at Odd Statue Games
