Obscurity

Some time ago, I wrote about the game Mysterium, and the unique way it synthesized inspiration from other games into a new experience. Part Clue, part Dixit, and all cooperative, the game was about players trying to solve a mystery together. Now it seems someone has taken that game and spun off a new creation of their own: Obscurio.

Obscurio sees players teamed up, trapped inside a sorcerer's magical mansion and looking for the right doors to escape. A "grimoire" player non-verbally tries to lead them to the right doors, offering clues through surreal illustrations on cards. So far: Mysterium, with a different story draped over the top. But then the big difference: one of the players on the team is secretly a traitor, trying to mislead the team and keep them trapped in the mansion long enough to win alone. The grimoire knows the traitor's identity, but can't tip off the team; instead, they must hope their own clue-giving is strong enough to best the traitor.

The difference between a fully cooperative game and a "team-vs-a-traitor" game is substantial -- enough that the game doesn't really need any other changes to be a different experience. But there are a handful of differences. But in my group, at least, each adjustment chipped away at what made Mysterium fun, resulting in a weaker game. That includes the traitor mechanic itself. The illustrations in the game are simultaneously hyper-detailed and quite open-ended. Giving an effective clue is hard enough without having a traitor in the mix who gets to pick other cards that also seem like plausible answers. Perhaps this game is for people who have played Mysterium so much that they now find it trivially easy?

There's a timer mechanism in Obscurio. Players have 3 minutes to debate the meaning of the grimoire's clues. But after each single minute, they're penalized for being slow to act: in the next round, some sort of obstacle will be added to limit the grimoire's clue-giving. It's a mechanism that really doesn't work at all. The penalties are so harsh that even one makes clue-giving essentially impossible. Any player who would dare to bring a penalty into the game through one minute of inaction is going to look like the traitor -- it's that simple. So no one will ever risk looking so guilty, and thus there's no reason for the time limit to ever be more than a minute. (As for whether even a one minute time limit is required, that likely depends on how prone your group is to analysis paralysis and endless debate.)

Collectively, the group has a certain number of wrong guesses before they lose. When they get near the end of this pool, the players have the chance to vote on which of them they think is the traitor. If they're correct, the traitor is expelled from picking doors for the rest of the game (though they still get to rig incorrect clues). If the group is wrong in pegging the traitor, they lose some of their few remaining guesses, shortening the fuse even more. And they must keep voting until they either identify the traitor correctly, or burn all remaining incorrect guesses.

Like with all the other new elements of this game, it's an extra degree of difficulty that simply isn't necessary. The game is short enough that it's quite difficult to build evidence on who the traitor is. By the time the vote comes, no one really has enough information to go on -- unless your traitor is particularly bad at laying back in the weeds and letting players make mistakes on their own. (And if they're bad at disguising themselves? Well, this game probably wasn't for you anyway.) I suppose this "accusation" phase is good for accelerating the inevitable ending of an unwinnable game. But the problem is that the game is essentially unwinnable to start with. Again, it feels like it's designed for people who played Mysterium to death and now need something harder.

Your group might love traitor games. Based on how mine has reacted to them, they possibly have a niche audience. We're only able to get Secret Hitler to the table -- sometimes -- because there, the traitors themselves are a team working together. In my group, not many enjoy being the one person whose fun comes at the expense of everyone else's. Perhaps you have a gaming group that thrives on this sort of competition.

Yet even if you do... I simply can't find anything to this game that Mysterium doesn't do better, and more simply. Obscurio feels like a game made for the design team who built and playtested Mysterium, and hardly anyone else. It has some pretty art, and some fun flavor... and that's about it. I give Obscurio a D+. If you're thinking of getting it and don't yet own Mysterium, you should absolutely get Mysterium instead.