The state of Social Deduction games...

I think we need more trouble in those terrorist towns.
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Today I talk about social deduction video games that I like or don't like, among us, deceit, Project winter, Trouble in terrorist town (TTT), Jackbox push the button, and among us VR all come to mind. Among us VR definitely look more fun than base among us or Trouble in Terrorist Town because it has proximity chat, I really want to get Pavlov VR to try playing Trouble in Terrorist Town with my friends in VR. Among us died and so did all the other social deduction games, and there are 4 reasons why. Friends, today I’m calling an EMERGENCY MEETING to answer one of life's most important questions: Is Red SUS?! I know we’ve all pondered these questions as we’ve played round after round of Among Us and no one could come to a definitive answer, but today I will! I’m here to prove once and for all that red is the most sus color in Among Us!
This video is protected under fair use, no copyright intended. Please don't sue me...

[@TheStellarJay]

I DON'T HATE TOWN OF SALEM. Good god your community is fucking annoying. I literally mentioned ONE thing I think it could improve upon, the gameplay gets a little stale. Stop spamming me pls and thank you.

[@danielsurvivor1372]

What are "strandlikes" games? 0_0

[@danielsurvivor1372]

Social Deduction Games? Hah, REAL Gamers play SCP CB Multiplayer and Secret Lab, the, ermmm idk what kind of genre it is, but it's cool

[@gg4life579]

You shoulve talked about the Hide N Seek Gamemode its really fun

[@LaCaemis]

I've played a lot of forum social deduction over the past around 15 years, and my biggest issue with a lot of these ToS like games is that the social deduction aspect is extremely weak. Having everybody be a power role and having the deduction be almost entirely on determining who's lying about their actions makes the game focus more on logic and luck than actual deduction. At least with Throne of Lies before it became a total joke, they tried to fix this so you couldn't just confirm people's actions and vote out everybody that's the odd man out. Very few things confirmed somebody as town and the risk of conversation meant they weren't confirmed for long. This is far more engaging than playing as a bad guy in ToS and just hoping that my fakeclaim I had to make up random results for wouldn't get me caught the moment it's my turn to claim my role.

[@kakyoindonut3213]

One of us in this comment section loves among us. There is an imposter amo-

[@mariostoynov]

In my opinion one of the biggest reasons Among us blew up rather than another social deduction game is its simplicity. It's perfect for casual players who have no experience with video games, it's incredibly easy to understand and doesn't require any skill when it comes to gameplay. The tradeoff here is that a game this simple will drop hard once people get bored of it which is inevitable.

[@Jpeg_skeleton]

Among us requires skill though?

[@mariostoynov]

@@Jpeg_skeleton Not when it comes to the gemeplay mechanics. Walking around, clicking the murder button, venting, tasks etc. Even a kid in kindergarten could do it easily. The part that does require skill is the deception and mind games but that's not directly part of the gameplay, it's something you can be good at without being good at video games.

[@Jpeg_skeleton]

@@mariostoynov gameplay wise yes but the mindgame part of it is extremely fun especially when it comes to trying to fake tasks or position yourself well to be able to kill but also not be overly suspicious or as crew trying to find out the killers tricks and habits, tasks are just there so that you split up and while better tasks would be nice they are just meant to be simple distractions so the impostor can find you when you are split apart and shapeshifter makes it even better. Idk I just really love mindgames and so I may be biased but I think among us does have skill needed and while better tasks would be good it can be excused by the fun of deception and the fun of finding holes in people's stories.

[@Apate-]

he basically said that in point 4

[@corystarkiller]

​@@Jpeg_skeletonYou have to make house rules, because any group that's played the game, understands that anyone that's crew can just follow very basic rules and win every game. All crew sticks together, stopping at each task for any players to complete it. Congratulations, now the impostors will always lose. The easiest way to win is to remove the entire social deduction from the game. You need to have a group that's willing to not group up, to allow the impostors to even have a chance to win.

[@brodiemorris2081]

The fact that #4: "Appeal to children" has become a legitimate strategy not only in this genre but in the horror genre is disgusting to me.

[@arnox4554]

#4 is now pretty much the entire """AAA""" playbook.

[@rafaelcastor2089]

That's a bit weird to me tbh. Don't know how it's like in other countries, but here in Brasil there is a pretty wildspread children's game called "Detetive" (Detective) that is pretty much this type of game but has been around at least since the 50s considering my grandma used to play it too. So like... How can it be disgusting to appeal to children when this has already been a childhood game for generations?

[@Khepriwashere]

@@rafaelcastor2089 I think that the OP means with "disgusting" is the appel to children in horror games, like FNAF or Poppy Playtime

[@hollowknightenjoyer]

Tbh the horror he genre deserved it

[@hollowknightenjoyer]

@@arnox4554 AAAs are usually stuff like elden ring, the only exception I can think of is botw

[@myanrueller91]

“They made bureaucracy a video game.” Papers Please is a masterpiece, thank you.

[@DanielBrazRPM]

the worst concept, made into a hell of a fun game

[@brittlekneesmgee3674]

@@DanielBrazRPM that's Lucas Pope's whole thing surprisingly fun paperwork simulators just look at his other major game return of the Obra Dinn which is a game about doing insurance paperwork in the 1800s and yet it is the single best murder mystery game I have ever played

[@modernmajorgeneral4669]

@@brittlekneesmgee3674 And "The Republia Times" is literally all about just being an editor, but is also a very good game.

[@thealientree3821]

Glory to Arstotzka!

[@godricktheminecrafted3113]

So is death and taxes

[@nunote2362]

my main issue with social deduction games, are that no one wants to be social in them. it's like the people who play it want to actively avoid talking. you walked towards someone, so now you're accused and instantly voted out without even the time for a rebuttal.

[@anonymous-wk1nh]

Exactly why I dislike these sorts of games. Your experience HEAVILY relies on other players and it makes it very hit or miss. Most of time you either have to gather some friends to play or spend more time looking for actually decent teammates than actually playing the game itself

[@khoatic414]

This is why I play among us with god damn Voice Chat, cause if I don't either nobody will talk or they'll say the most random stuff ever

[@brad1426]

Funnily enough I feel like people most attracted to the concept of a game with emergent, socially driven gameplay, deep role play, etc. are also likely to be introverted lmao

[@antares3518]

Sounds like you play with discord mods

[@lisatroiani6119]

EXACTLY especially when playing with randoms. ive played a lot of public among us lobbies, and while yes, sometimes people are being actually competent and talking with each other, and when they are, it’s really fun! it almost feels like you’re playing multiplayer ace attorney (for those who know of that series) but most of the time it goes like: “where was the body” [dead silence] [everyone votes at the same time]

[@kevinl4837]

One mention about the Among Us multiplayer system. IIRC The developer Innersloth did not expect the game to blow up as it did. In fact, the game started without an online multiplayer system and it was meant to be played with your friends in person. The matchmaking system was their rushed attempt to make it playable online, which was done poorly.

[@robob4465]

The matchmaking is even more horrendous in 2022/2023 since half the lobbies are just named "h4rnygirl" or something along these lines and you'll immediately get kicked if you have the audacity to ask the host to start the game instead of getting groomed by them

[@jimskywaker4345]

@@robob4465 well if the host is trying to groom you do you really want to play among us with them?

[@robob4465]

@@jimskywaker4345 I don't care either way just give me a lobby where 5 people don't leave at the very start

[@fentom92]

yeah the matchmaking was ok when it first started cause all the adults joined in one map since u had to pay for it and kids couldn’t afford it. now it’s a bit different

[@TikiShades]

they were in the middle of making a sequel when the game blew up in popularity, and they had to make this impossible decision between abandoning the playerbase with a new game, or trying to update a very old, amateur codebase with new ideas and fix any bugs that come from that friction.

[@christopherjobin-official7440]

The simplicity of Among Us was arguably one of the best parts of it. I wouldn't say Among Us was even created to appeal to children, and that's super clear when you look at the history of its development. Another thing, Among Us just had a ton of style, so yeah.

[@stonalisa3729]

It was easy for anyone to understand

[@aquamarinerose5405]

Said this in my own comment but yea, saying Among Us is popular appeals to children doesn't seem fair since it seems to be much more focused on appealing to the Flash Generation than to Current Children.

[@eragon78]

Honestly, a lot of games that do appeal to children werent targeted towards children to begin with. Like I dont think a game like fornight was targeted towards children for example, its just that a lot of kids ended up liking it so it became associated with that. And maybe since they its tried more to appeal to kids, but it wasnt originally that way. And the same goes for games like among us. It just happened to appeal to kids and thats why people associate it with kids. Pretty much any simple fun game that's extremely easy to play is going to appeal to kids because kids arent going to want to play complicated difficult games. They're going to want to play games they can win regardless of their skill level because of how much chaos or randomness is in the game. A FFA like fortnight anybody can make top 10 if you hide the entire game, its trivial to do no matter how bad you are. Or a game like among us, you can just randomly throw out accusations or kill people randomly and sometimes youll just get lucky and win regardless of your skill level. This makes it appealing to kids. The games arent designed to appeal to kids, its just that i think simple games generally appeal to kids by their nature of being simple.

[@TheseUseless]

Among us didn’t have a ton of style. It had the least style possible. It was just a bit shit

[@mdwis6106]

Yeah the simplicity and accessibility of among us is what made it popular.

[@jakejohnson718]

"Trouble in terrorist town is ground zero for social deduction games" The boardgame mafia: am I a fucking joke to you?

[@finesseandstyle]

I'm sure he meant social deduction *video* games

[@aze94]

@@finesseandstyle Pretty sure Space Station 13 predates TTT.

[@finesseandstyle]

@@aze94 I'm sure he meant *modern* social deduction *video* games

[@Kevin-cf9nl]

@@finesseandstyle There's still a good number of those! SS13 probably being the most popular (and to this date the most complex and interesting, I'd argue)

[@Kenionatus]

@@aze94 I wouldn't really say SS13 is a social deduction game at its core. (Well, I can only speak for modern SS13. Not sure how it was in the olden days.)

[@pepperypeppers2755]

"TTT is the basis for all social deduction games" Mafia: "Am I a joke to you?"

[@Saxton_Hoovy]

Most are based on Mafia , and Mafia is where a lot of issues come from , not ttt. In Mafia, it's a whole lot of discussion and pointing and not much else. ttt is alot more hands on with how dealing with traitors since you have to kill them yourself instead just voting them off.

[@jimskywaker4345]

i think werewolf might have been even older

[@ezracohen6020]

@@jimskywaker4345 Mafia was the first, made in 1986, but if you read the Wikipedia page for it it does say it was also known as werewolf so I think it’s likely it was often flavored that way even then

[@noahdavid5258]

there are lots of good sites to play mafia on, like mafiascum

[@absolutezerochill2700]

Basis for all online video game social deduction games

[@HotlineMilwaukee]

i love town of salem tbh, its the perfect game to play when just chilling and the fact that it doesnt have too many players means you dont meet lobotomized monkeys too much

[@prod.nine88]

ToS is a game I personally suck at but still play because it’s just fun. I want to improve so I don’t lose every single time I’m Evil but my tiny monkey brain can’t hold anything more than two dog images in my memory at a time

[@DodgeThatAttack]

speak for yourself, every game ive played has like 3 leavers and at least 1 townie doing an impressively good job at looking like an evil role

[@HotlineMilwaukee]

@@DodgeThatAttack Coven All Any is where the magic happens, classic always has some questionable things happen

[@DodgeThatAttack]

@@HotlineMilwaukee word 😂

[@meethepie]

Ya, I don't fully agree with his point that social deduction games need "video game" aspects. Mafia works perfectly fine without, idk, shooting people with nerf guns or whatever.

[@LordofTimeLords]

Barotrauma's traitor mode is still my favourite social deduction game simply because the objective of the traitor is randomised each time. So you both don't know *who* the traitor is *or* what they're trying to do. It really adds to it all.

[@markkuminov9772]

I think a major flaw of the Barotrauma traitor mode is that it requires both parties to collectively follow the intended gameplay of the mode. It's similar to Among Us in that unless you're playing with a trusted group of people, you are going to meet traitors in public lobbies who just put 4 fuel rods in the reactor and call it a day.

[@TooFewSecrets]

Space Station 13 was a heavy inspiration for Barotrauma, you might like it.

[@NoobsofFredo]

@@TooFewSecrets I was just about to mention SS13! Pain in the ass to play, but really cool shit. Glory to Cargonia!

[@Ben_of_Milam_Music]

@@NoobsofFredo SS14 on steam is a lot easier to play

[@NoobsofFredo]

@@Ben_of_Milam_Music Huh, hadn't realized that existed. I'll have to take a look!

[@unwritten_zephyr]

Most fun I ever had with Among Us was at a small party. We had about 10 people, so we all just played it on our phones. Was a lot of fun to yell eat each other and actually have to have a poker face. Definitely the closest I’ve ever gotten to something like Mafia or Werewolf.

[@Kevin-cf9nl]

Not surprising, considering that was explicitly the experience it was designed for! It's quite good at what it was originally built to be.

[@solutartxiv]

havnt played werewolf in years

[@absolutezerochill2700]

It's pretty fun when you're with the people you're playing with irl. It is boring as SIN with randoms.

[@daredevil6980]

Ima be honest. Town Of Salem is fun because its just voting and stuff. No extra stuff you get to focus on either figuring out who is good vs bad or attempting to reach your goal. The abilities help prevent sitting still and doing nothing or they help quicken the pace.

[@josephkeen7224]

I recall hearing somewhere that Innersloth didn’t even want to add online matchmaking originally because of it being designed specifically for playing in the same room. This isn’t meant to exude this, it’s just a possible reason that the matchmaking is so bad.

[@InfamousGameplaysPT]

it's not like they had 4 years to make it better since the game released.

[@someguy198]

I'm gonna complain about a game that mid because that will obviously make it better.

[@JuulietPod]

It sucks playing in the same room, because you have to sit in dead silence. in-game audio cues outs imposters, and talking outside discussion without limit breaks the game in numerous ways.

[@silverpotato4272]

@@InfamousGameplaysPT and a work force of like 3 people working on multiple games

[@InfamousGameplaysPT]

@@silverpotato4272 valheim was developed by 5 people, stardew valley was developed by 1 person. That's not an excuse, the game was pretty much in the same state for like 2 years, they only made changes when the game got popular, and even then, the changes were too little and came too late.

[@Du5tey]

I feel like First Class Trouble (a social deduction game) fits all your requirements. 1. Smart Match Making -- FCT pairs you up with 6 people based on Language and Cross-Play preferences 2. Needs engaging gameplay (long section)-- FCT needs you to either find 3 keycards per level to open an elevator to the next level while dealing with various hazards; (fire, water pits, airlocks, freezers, pools) and working together to overcome them (helping extinguish fires [some require 2 people to extinguish aswell], keeping a bridge activated so friend(s) can cross, or holding the airlock or freezer door open so you friends dont die) all while keeping the total oxygen from running out so you can all breathe. There are also crew logs which give you information so you can deduct who is good and who isnt, only you can see them until the meeting before every level in which the game rolls a dice and determines if a log should be revealed, and if so which one (incase multiple logs are found) which encourages lying but at a risk. Honestly the gameplay is a bit hard to sum up so I'd recommend watching some YT videos or getting it on Epic games store (it's free right now) 3. Keep traitors involved -- Personoids (traitors) are supposed to either kill all residents (crew) or make it to the final level and 'help shut down' C.A.I.N (evil robot AI). if even one makes it to the end, Personoids will win. Personoids can also drain total oxygen when sabotaging but you can see the total oxygen meter go down; if the crew is paying attention they'll know. This encourages smart gameplay. Personoids also cant kill together then normal way (2 players can kill a player together if one holds and the other chokes, if both players attempting to kill are the personoids it will make the killing sounds but it wont actually kill the resident) so they must use Overdose Syringes which you must sneakily grab (out of the big cylindrical containers) which takes a few seconds to grab. You can also push players into hazards and throw objects to push them from afar. All of these factors combined created a situation where Personoids must work together to do some Hitman style takedowns. For instance, I was playing with 5 of my friends on one of the second levels (Resort, aka pool map) I was a personoid with a friend and we both had OD-Syringes. 3 people were next to a pool, so I shoved one in (so he'd drown) and then we syringed the other 2 in sync. If this is too long -- Engaging game on large ship in space with evil robots and funny moments that isnt marketed towards 10 year olds. Also the game has ragdoll physics, so ya'know.

[@Haz4ler]

The best part of all of it is that the rounds don't last 40 or so minutes which is one of the fatal flaws project winter has

[@playr1077]

heavily agree, been having a blast with this game ever since I got it

[@nomad3988]

It's free on epic at the moment

[@kowal2486]

this game is awesome, the only problem is that playing with randoms (at least for me) isn't fun at all. Most of them are either quiet or if they'll be parasenoid they will just straight up not do anything only to get to cain and win the game this way

[@playr1077]

@@kowal2486 yeah it'll probably be that way for a while until the people from Epic start learning how to play. As a resident though, you can really take advantage of inactive personoids by looting all the scanners in the airlocks on the second floor as well as the passenger logs to pretty easily find them all out

[@too_oden2199]

Town of Salem is very engaging, It doesn't need additional fluff because the amount of roles and actions that can take place each night is enough to keep you thinking

[@doomyboi]

I'd probably have dropped it a long ass time ago if it required additional gameplay segments between voting sessions. Keeping up can get hard enough as it is with the massive info dumps days can turn into.

[@mujiescomedy279]

The discussion period was too fast for my liking

[@LineOfThy]

It's basically langrensha, the chinese ultimate social deduction game.

[@notcatisa]

used to be an extremely active town of salem player. loved the game BECAUSE it felt like i was being smart and minigames or whatever the fuck wouldve been such a fucking chore that wouldnt add to that

[@ShadowDior]

@@doomyboi Yeah, TOS has this pretty cool thing called a chatlog. It only takes a few seconds to click someone at night, to which you have almost a minute to go through everyone's messages and claims. You can also filter based on player, and you know, read the chat during the day. TOS isn't really that hard to play or keep up with, you just have to learn to skim through stuff that doesn't matter and since everyone formats stuff the exact same way it's easy to see when someone posts a will.

[@darth_dan8886]

Among Us may have also risen to popularity due to its developers already making a name for themselves with the Henry Stickmin games and attracting the initial audience to spread the word this way.

[@AdmiralTails]

It goes further than this. Henry Stickmin is basically the *entire* reason Among Us took off. It released in 2018. It flopped. Henry Stickmin's final episode came out with direct references TO Among Us, and THEN it took off. The pandemic probably helped too, but yeah, Henry Stickmin pulling marketing for Among Us is the *biggest* reason it took off.

[@Jaegulhi]

I feel like Social Deduction board games such as One Night/Werewolf, Coup, Cryptid, Avalon/Quest, and Unfathomable are better than most Social Deduction video games

[@Calzone407]

Yeah, this is what I'm sayin'! The in person games are just so much better than the online ones

[@StripedJacket]

Werewolf/Mafia is so much fun especially the rules in my home 😂 We play in groups of 15-20 people (sometimes hitting 50. Large extended family) with 2-3 killers An emphasis on everyone play by the rules b/c cheating ruins the fun Multiple roles like detective/doctor So much fun

[@mrhatsy]

Yes, Coup is a must have. I've also playe One Night Super Villians a couple times and it is really fun.

[@ofresco2]

of course! in person is always better. Also, nice pfp

[@JHamron]

And Secret Hitler! So good

[@StripedJacket]

My fav social deduction games were assassin creed online where you hunt and are hunted but you have to figure out where your target is and they can even hide among npc’s, transform leave your sight and become part of the crowd. This isn’t exactly “social deduction game” but I got reminded lol

[@verycoolguy0]

Black flags was peak imo

[@alexterrieur5800]

man everyone hated this mutiplayer. but love it so much lol. wish I could still play it. I was a beast in the end

[@StripedJacket]

@@verycoolguy0 I loved brotherhoods cause that was my first and I was so good in later games Black Flag was sooo much fun but didn’t have my fav character the Barber

[@verycoolguy0]

@XxcoolsagexX oh damn i forgot about brotherhood multi-player. Didn't play it much but I loved the plague doctor dude.

[@fraby2710]

I was too anxious to be a good imposter in among us, so watching at good imposters on KZbin was kinda fun. The reason I played it was that it was a good excuse to spend time with non gamer Friends during the pandemic

[@insertnamehere9242]

The video just stopped loading right at 1:17 when he was complaining about lag, I thought it was a joke.

[@testcorecom]

Blood on the clocktower. Fucking great board game. All social deduction board games of the past 10 years have been fucking excellent.

[@officiallyaninja]

Based

[@comma_thingy]

I help run a university social deduction society and we've recently (2 months) started playing BOTC at some session. Ugh I do not enjoy it, and having spoken to some others they don't too. It can be fun but only for the first few times you play it. Custom mafia/werewolf/salem whatever you call it games are often way more fun with far more simplicity

[@modernmajorgeneral4669]

Secret Hitler is also a heck lot of fun. Granted, I've only played it with 5 players, but it's still awesome.

[@amrell2240]

been playing that for about a year now, its really fun, but as nice as the new app they made is, for some reason they refuse to add certain fun features to it that the old app had, that made the game more fun

[@lycanthewerewolf6801]

@@comma_thingy Are you using the same script every game, or changing scripts every so often? What about writing your own scripts? That might fix some of your problems. Sure, playing nothing but Trouble Brewing over and over can get boring, but that's why there are over 150 characters and counting!

[@mnb128]

When playing mafia with friends (the party game, not video game) my favorite part is being the narrator and coming up with elaborate and crazy stories as I go. I think if there were a social deduction games that allowed the killer to come up with complicated and interesting ways to kill other players (like the Hitman series) and that people not only had to deduce who it was through actual evidence, but then also act to apprehend them I think that would be fun.

[@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece]

I also know it under the name ""mafia" and I first played it in chat. They have a bot for that.

[@ezracohen6020]

Absolutely, hosting a game of mafia is really fun and I love coming up with stories for the deaths

[@jjmj4971]

play 'Deception: Murder in Hong Kong', it is literally what you're asking for.

[@mnb128]

@@jjmj4971 I'll check it out, thank you

[@sikerscry6865]

My favorite social deduction game is Dread Hunger. It's a group survival game with two traitors. Since it is in the artic the traitors have a harder time surviving out in the wilderness due to warmth and food (though possible). It is a difficult game though, even without the traitors and that means the traitors usually expose themselves at the most dire times and usually wins. Also the matchmaking is usually all in Chinese servers.

[@BoomSki-pn9lb]

Same bro but i quit cus of the chinese servers and i think its kind of dying right now

[@KnekoKcat]

There was actually a single player Social Deduction game that was released a while back that I recommend you try. It's called "Gnosia." Although, as a veteran to social deduction games I found certain edge cases to be very limiting in what I could do to deceive and obscure certain aspects of information (as well as reveal certain aspects of information) given the options I had, but it is a fun experience with an overarching story that I have a full vote of confidence for.

[@jjmj4971]

gnosia! gosh I hope that sequel comes to fruition.

[@TheIron_Stomach]

I remember playing Deceit years back. My favorite perk was detective because it let you see when exactly the blood was drank and gave you the opportunity to deduce who was operating in that area.

[@k0lpA]

it's now part of the game, everybody has it. Although they made the drinking sound much lower. I recommend trying it again it's pretty different but still good in my opinion

[@giraitnagamer]

Imagine saying "Social Deduction Games started with TTT" when Werewolf/Mafia is RIGHT THERE (1986)

[@tjlnintendo]

👴🏻

[@zacktheslayer6564]

Video game

[@olivermorrison7127]

Yeah, I found it really hard to take this video seriously. The reason there's lots of social deduction videos that are focused more on the social deduction part than the video game part is because they AREN'T inspired by some mini game in Gary's mod.

[@ryap1]

@@zacktheslayer6564 The ship.

[@tomarts774]

Indeed. I'm pretty sure I played mafia clone in starcraft2 arcade in 2010. Also Among Us is a stright up simplified clone of space station 13 (from 2003). Absolutely clueless video lol.

[@chardude297]

This is gonna sound crazy but one of the coolest social deduction games that I’ve seen in recent times is actually a mod for dark souls made by this guy called inferno plus. The premise is you and your friends go through an area and defeat the boss at the end but while that is happening one of the people your playing with is actually a traitor who has all these items and abilities that make this part way harder and even if you beat the traitor you still have to beat the boss at the end so it’s definitely challenging.

[@colorfulchameleon9891]

The thing is that in person social deduction games have the added benefit of facing down your other players. It's so personal and tense which makes up for lack of gameplay video games might suffer with.

[@v0xl]

Among us was actually pretty good in 2019, it had a small but pretty cool community, and the game was fun BECAUSE of it's simplicity

[@DylanoRevs]

I remember Teosgame being one of the first streamers to play it before it got popular

[@thepioneer1525]

Exactly

[@laffytaffy1467]

@@DylanoRevs also Kaif and SR

[@scarface5856]

StellarJay you've gotta try Blood on the Clocktower (I know it's technically not a video game, but it can be played online). As someone who's been playing social deduction games for years, this is objectively the best in the genre. It's in the same vein as Werewolf and Town of Salem, but it's very well designed.

[@Brettastic8740]

Sorry for commenting 11 months later but Yes thank god someone said something BOTC is so goddamn good

[@scarface5856]

@@Brettastic8740 funny enough, I think we've played together. I'm alonelytaco on the Unofficial

[@MrHyped12]

Ever since I finished all of Shammy's back catalog, I've been looking for a new funny bird man to monologue about video games at me. Nice.

[@YaBoiDoi]

I think amongus got so popular not just because it was cheap and streamers played it, but because of how simple it is to get into a match. Just click on a lobby and it works.

[@robbierotten2024]

I now want a super violent and in depth combat mixed with social deduction, where you’re a group of Inquisitors trying to root out the heretics on a forge world

[@Chiesty_Mike]

Think you should try Unfortunate Spacemen if you want combat with sprinkle of social deduction

[@firelordeliteast6750]

Ah crap, who invited the Alpha Legion?

[@josharcher2718]

I actually love the jacking in push the button , there’s only limited hacks so if u claim hacked everytime it won’t fly. If u play this a lot with the same group it gets wild with the meta gaming it’s amazing

[@rgbtoaster9409]

TTT is a game that sucks online with randoms, but with friends who actually want to play it's tons of fun.

[@doctorsam9200]

Completely agree with you on Project Winter. I loved it back when I got it about 2 years ago, but now I feel like any fun got removed after people with over 1k hours thought it was too easy catching people who play casually

[@k0lpA]

this is the bane of social deduction games. People get too good at it and casuals don't have a chance then they often dumb it down to make it easier for casuals and the old players leave.

[@noaharthere1026]

@@k0lpA Im really feeling this. Recently tried to play Blood on the Clocktower at my local gaming cafe. As a newb, all the experienced players rolled their eyes at most of what I did. I misplayed roles or misunderstood what I was supposed to do. And if I made my own fun by lying or asking silly questions, they hated it even more. Alright, gatekeepers, I have been gatekept. Farewell!

[@dj_koen1265]

Yeah the convolutedness of blood on the clocktowers is also one of the reasons why I don’t think its actually a good game

[@elvastan]

This is why Unfortunate Spacemen is so good, once you figure out who the traitor is, there's actual gameplay afterwards. It's great.

[@Chiesty_Mike]

Glad to see a Fellow Unfortunate Spacemen Enthusiast

[@weeb_dweeb]

Only problem i have with it is that it's incredibly complicated, most times i can't even find my objectives.

[@Chiesty_Mike]

@@weeb_dweeb like which tasks?

[@weeb_dweeb]

@@Chiesty_Mike i don't remember, but i rememeber that finding my way around the map was really hard, the trash disposal one was the easiest to do and it was still kinda confusing, i don't even remember how you're supposed to do the others.

[@Chiesty_Mike]

@@weeb_dweeb like for me to name them and how to do them?

[@TooColeD]

Damn bro I remember the first time I recorded a video with you and I come back and I gotta say man I love the work ethic and how you've grown, keep up the good work man 🔥

[@Dexter037S4]

and this is why Space Station 13 is a masterpiece

[@Electabuzzgl]

"TTT was the first social deduction game." Werewolf: Am I a joke to you?

[@summbuddie9120]

Yeah this guy didn’t actually research, he did a rant for a few minutes where he complained about there not being enough interaction(Town of Salem, Among Us), or too much interaction(Project Winter, Deceit) and made the declaration that children ruined it. Dude didn’t even consider the fact that Among Us became popular due to how easy it is to run, how cheap it was, how easy it was to play, and that streamers started playing it for the same reasons.

[@catjayp]

@@summbuddie9120 He was talking about the Social Deduction and Gameplay. He had no reason to talk about how easy Among Us is to run because he was not talking about that aspect.

[@Gerpar_]

One of my favourite social deduction games has gotta be SS13 (Space Station 13), not a very popular game, but one where every single person has roles to fulfill in a sort of RP environment on the station, be it anything from your regular security you'd expect in a TTT like game, to a cook, and people do have hunger, so the role is essential gameplay wise too. And for the antagonists (aka traitors in most games) there's plenty of roles for them too. There's your standard traitor role, where you have a few specific tasks to carry out, like killing specific players, stealing certain items, etc. And then you also get some wacky shit, like a space cult writing messages in blood to perform rituals and spells, eventually trying to sacrifice themselves to summon their lord and destroy the station. Favourite one has gotta be nuke operatives though, instead of being stealthy like most other traitors, the station gives a warning about them at the start of the round, and everyone on the station starts arming themselves to the teeth to prepare for the attack to try and prevent them from planting a nuke on the station. That or the blob, which turns the game into an RTS for the antagonist :D

[@kiro1469]

GET THAT FUKKEN DISK!

[@candycaneannihalator2708]

eyy i was looking in comments for ss13 mentions, great game despite the *steep* learning curve and broken nature of byond

[@Gerpar_]

@@candycaneannihalator2708 Oh man tell me about it, I remember fumbling around trying to figure out the controls for like at least my first 10 rounds lmao. Haven't played the game in a year or two, but god, even watching videos of it I can feel the hotkey memory in my brain :P

[@kiro1469]

@@candycaneannihalator2708 I wouldn't call it a learning curve. I'd say "Cliff" is more apt.

[@hotlinerevachol5436]

That's not even mentioning the insanely in-depth nature of the jobs, like atmospherics, genetics, chemistry, xenobiology, hell even bartending can be challenging at first. As well as the countless custom servers like Colonial Marines, all those Fallout servers.. and Lifeweb and Farweb.

[@coolturtle5116]

I will say, my greatest experience with Project Winter was almost escaping, only for the last objective to be sabotaged, and hearing the traitor saying "He he he" on a radio as the mega blizzard comes

[@superluigio8576]

I really like this quick-to-the-point format ⏳

[@MCsupernova22]

Based on your comments for the last game I reckon First Class Trouble would definitely be the balance you’re after. I haven’t played it since summer but it ticks all the boxes

[@MCsupernova22]

It’s also free on Epic atm so you don’t need to pay to test it out

[@stew4050]

nothing compares to playing mafia/werwolf/killer (however you call it) card game in real life whit a group of friends

[@molopower2354]

Town of salem imo comes closest, because it's exactly that but with more roles. That said, I guess It can't replicate a group of friends.

[@Ramsey276one]

Trying to make a deckbuilder version, Werewolf Mafia

[@lynxhunter]

Well, I don't have friends...🗿

[@kadenyt6623]

@@molopower2354 tos2 is better tho

[@SourSourSour]

Absolutely gutted to hear about Project Winter, I've wanted it for ages at thos point but learning about that balancing is gonna keep it on my wishlist forever at this point

[@anchovyacquirer]

yeah its not even worth buying at this point, even if they do fix all the balancing issues it takes forever to find a match despite the good matchmaking system cuz it peaks at around 120-200 on weekdays and around 250 on weekends. i boot it up once a month before losing patience waiting for a game

[@Electrical010]

Look, I'm not smart myself but the real reason why deduction games aren't fun is that some people don't take it seriously or even makes smart moves. When watching among us videos the people playing play the game how it's supposed to and getting that experience with public people is extremely hard when one person or many make constant stupid decisions.

[@Craft2299]

Dread Hunger is a good one. Or at least, when I played it. The game requires you to be a lot more involved with it, and learn how to actually survive. It is very Killer sided, but once the Survivors learn to work together and get the ship moving. The killer is legitimately better off staying covert for as long as possible even if they can abandon the ship. You will deduce based off of gameplay. Shame that none of my friends wanted to play much of it and that there werent many english players playing the game.

[@EpicEthra]

I think Dread Hunger had the best room for creativity and different play styles but that got neutered over time once a meta developed and just like all other games the matchmaking sucked.

[@king124kine]

Love this game, you can come play with me and my friends!

[@Zero001LP]

The biggest problem I have with these games is the players. It's either some sweat that will screw you over instantly and trash talk you (one of the reasons I'm just too afraid of getting into Town Of Salem again, haven't played in years and I'm too afraid to try) or someone who just follows the herd without asking anything, which is why I prefer to play with friends, at least to the point the lobby is filled with someone I know. As long as me and my friends share the single braincell we have, it's fun for me.

[@ezmoney4598]

I like your use of visual gags in this video. For example, when you said “look at any successful game” you used a short clip from Overwatch 2. That’s a good laugh.

[@notilluminati1295]

There was a cool Star Craft themed custom map way back on Warcraft 3, where the players were terrains Fending of Zerg attacks, but one (or more) of the players was an Infested Terran. Its been years since I played that, but I remember that being a pretty decent social deduction game.

[@ElizabethRS]

The social deduction genre of game in the current state of things work so much better as a tabletop game, and no one yet has not really figured out how to adapt that genre into a video game format. This is probably why there are so many games where everyone is just standing in circles.

[@eragon78]

idk, I think it actually works less good as a table top. Its usually too easy to solve the game when most of the information is too easily available to everyone. Stuff like Mafia, Secret Hitler, Resistance, etc are all just far too easy to come up with a consistent gameplay that works nearly every time and after a while with experienced players, every game just feels stale. With online social deduction games, you have the ability to have another aspect where people actually move around a map and engage with the map while killers go around and screw things up but may or may not be seen doing it. This adds another layer where everyone has their own perspectives and information to add and you have to actually make decisions on whether or not to trust people based on their stories. And even if you do trust them, you need to figure out how useful the information they have actually is. This also leaves the door open for killers to manipulate people to vouch for them even when theyre actively sabotaging things but are doing so without getting caught. That aspect of the game means that there is fresh variability with every playthrough. There are always things you cant account for by yourself, and requires the help of everyone keeping an eye out to actually get the information you need to win. This forces discussions between players, and means you have to figure out who to actually trust since everyone's stories may be relevant, but also may be lies. The table top social deduction games pretty much never have this extra layer of depth, and everything about the current boardstate is split into knowledge that innocents have vs knowledge that killers have. There is rarely knowledge that one innocent has that another doesnt in table tops unless you have special rolls or something, but the strategy for dealing with those special rolls is always the same.

[@nihili4196]

Tabletop works better only because you always play with people you are comfortable with and who know what they're doing. Most online games consist of half of the lobby who knows all meta strats, and half lobby who can't do anything. No matter what title you play.

[@DkKobaADV]

Just play forum mafia Gdi lol

[@DkKobaADV]

@@eragon78 it's not stale if people are evolving their skills between games

[@eragon78]

@@DkKobaADV yea, but the issue is once you find out the optimal strategy, its just the optimal strategy. There is no more evolving once you figure out a strategy that works every time with virtually no counterplay. This is always going to be the issue when every player on the same team has access to nearly all the relevant information. The only way to fix this is to add special rolls into the game, but even that only helps so much, because everyone who doesnt have a special role still has the same info as everyone else without one. Compare that to an online social deduction game where people are physically in different locations in game, which means they are all gathering information independently of each other, and so when they come together to discuss things, they all have something they can potentially add using their own unique perspective. This is just not something table top games can add. Ive played games like Mafia, Secret Hitler, and Resistance quite a lot, and they ALWAYS end up with some stale consistent optimal strategy. And since we all know the strategies, anyone who doesnt follow it is trying to derail the game because theyre on the evil team, so its trivial to beat them. This is how basically every table top social deduction game always ends up that ive ever played. It starts out fun while people are figuring out strategies, then we quickly find a strategy that is optimal and then the games become extremely stale very fast. I mean, for mafia for example, it seems like a game that could have a ton of counter strategies, but it really doesnt. When I play mafia with my friend group these days, we have basically solved it to the point that its pretty much impossible for killers to win unless we add in a million special rules to make it harder for town. At least with among us, while there are a lot of really dumb optimal strategies as well that make it very hard for killers, at least you can house rule in a few things and its MUCH easier to keep dynamic and fresh compared to the table top games.

[@TJM990]

The roles and proximity chat mods that are prominent in probably the highest viewed and most frequent among us lobbies on Twitch definitely make it more enjoyable to watch. I got sick of trying to play with the strangest people though. You 100% need an organized lobby like those. It's like Mario Party in that you truly need friends to enjoy it with.

[@Gandhi_Physique]

Yes, playing with randoms is, in my opinion, absolutely horrible. Every "social deduction" game I play is full of the dumbest or trolliest people. If I had a group then it would be better. Even a discord group because they actually want to play, though I would prefer people I actually know.

[@n0thingnothing317]

There’s a wild combat focused social deception set of games in the StarCraft 2 arcade- if you want one with a bunch of people screaming curse words that is more in depth than most deduction games go there, and look into the various games whose title starts with parasite or is called fall of aphadia (the best deception one)

[@milanletic1772]

Enjoyed the video and despite many things i could comment on, instead i'll just praise your music selection.

[@maragazh9993]

As a regular among us player, something I'd like to say: I like Among Us for being the rawest social deduction murder mystery game out there. You keep track of where everyone is, trying to see who was with who last, and trying to compile all the evidence to build a case against someone, while also trying to prevent the ship from exploding. Alternatively, you keep track of where everyone is, sneak up on someone, close the door behind them, kill at the perfect time in the perfect place, and go back to acting normal. This gameplay is something I love, and it is especially great as a playable mobile game. Oh also, I like how there is no prox chat (without mods), talking to people is hard :c

[@trickytraveller3272]

Yeah, one of my favorite aspects of among us and tos is the lack of voice chat, so it isn't expected to have

[@Boiled_Pizza]

it's used to be so fun to just went all Sherlock Holmes as a crewmate and expose the impostors based on subtle clues you've been gathering, but it all changes ever since fucking shapeshifters were added

[@maragazh9993]

@@Boiled_Pizza Shapeshifters can be dealt with by getting everyone's location, or by following the SS until they unshift.

[@terepipipes2675]

My experience with the game has been rather varied, to the point of people legit just harassing and bullying you for no reason and it is one of the many things that turn me off from multi-player games in general.

[@ionruskio1717]

@@trickytraveller3272 cringe

[@Popejohn3]

I feel like the fun of tos was the fact you actually had to think about you and other peoples decisions and try to understand how to trick people. I don’t think writing down notes and pressing buttons was the main point.

[@kadenyt6623]

ya tos2 is about figureing out how every role interacts with every other role and ho you keep to the end to win while steying alive

[@BootupProcess]

Town of Salem isn’t just voting- there is a whole night system where you can do actions specific to roles, calculating stuff, finding info to use in the day. Silly to dumb it down.

[@benji-menji]

It seems like a lot of problems could be fixed with some house rules like no hacks in Push the Button. It might not work but who knows, maybe an actual social deduction game could be played despite the balance issues.

[@bigcoolboy96]

The big reason is that the interest in social deduction games caused people to get into ones irl when covid let us meet up again. Murder mystery parties went out of fashion for a long time and had a resurgence because of among us lol

[@Cheaper79]

It's only been 5 seconds into the video and your already spilling facts

[@juicetube3259]

SOCIAL DEDUCTION IS SO MUCH BETTER IN VR because all of the ones i've tried are so good murder in vrchat, ttt in pavlov, and amogus vr seems good

[@nunyabiznes7446]

hot damn. entertaining commentary, good points on game design *and* the Sonny Boy OST? channel DETECTED boys

[@dunite9821]

I am currently developing my own social deduction game. You make some great points. I think the game I'm developing matches most of your criteria for a good social deduction game. 1) I am planning a couple features to make finding good matches easier. One is the ability for server hosts to tag their server with intended environment, like you can filter servers based on tags like "role-playing","just for laughs","edgy","for noobs","for pros","mic-required" and so on to attract specific types of players who have different attitudes towards the game, much like Smash Ultimate's arenas. And I want a quick join system like old TF2 where you just have to press one button to instantly join with a random populated community server of your filtered tags/rulesets. I want to have a special premium edition of the game called the Host edition, which lets people who are on your friends list join your server even if they don't own the game. This makes it easy to convince friends to try the game. I know how frustrating it is to have a friend group and try to convince them all to buy a game. The game will also be optimized to be the most fun with 6-8 players. Because 10 players is pretty annoying to coordinate with. 2) My game in the early game will focus on secret messages. But the gameplay gets really engaging and intense through the midgame-endgame because it morphs into an arena-shooter fps. It will have mechanics like rocket jumping and bouncing projectiles. 3) My game will have prox chat and ragdolls. 4) In terms of the "keeping traitors engaged" thing, that doesn't really apply because my game is structured in a very innovative way. There is no "good" or "majority" team at all. It's more like a race to find one other player you can trust. I can't get into it more without giving away the whole game idea.

[@kingofsea34]

that sounds good

[@nandanthony]

Sounds good, time to comment to be reminded to check it out once its released

[@modernmajorgeneral4669]

Could you tell the game's name?

[@Sharky..]

What is it called? Where can I keep up with its development?

[@Abigail92749]

Commenting for updates

[@geodude03]

Project winter is definitely the best of this genre especially considering the objective is fun.. even without the traitor stuff.. it also is extremely customisable so you can easily fix any balance issues yourself and save it as a preset.

[@maskedfoxx7173]

This has me thinking about my very last Among Us match. I was a normie and these two guys were so obviously the imposters. At this point in the game's lifespan "Red sus" was a thriving meme and I was red cuz... well it's my favorite color. The game starts and literally ten seconds into the match one imposter calls an emergency meeting and they both dive on me saying I was faking tasks and they saw me vent (again, ten seconds into the match). Everyone voted me out. "Red was not the imposter" across everyone's screen as my lifeless body floated away into the cosmos. I closed the game and never opened it again.

[@themajor1493]

There’s a game called deducto, it is REALLY GOOD. It has the impostor actually engaging in the real world without sabotaging, proximity chat, it is 3d with funny ragdoll physics and multiple roles. Even the tasks aren’t just screen-chores; you need to interact with the world to actually do the tasks

[@ksf1209]

To be honest, i think barotrauma fits your criteria quite nicely. It even has proximity chat and battery powered radio.

[@mr.universe7049]

one game that i think is really good is mindnight, sadly it never really took off and oftentimes my friends and i are literally the only people playing it at that time. it's basically a free to play steam version of resistance as far as i know, but if you like social deduction games and have 5-7 friends, it's worth checking out. it is one of those "sit in a circle and vote" kind of games, but i do think its pretty fun because even the innocents have something to do instead of just sitting around waiting for stuff to happen

[@ironcastlive]

One social deduction game that seems to check all these boxes is first class trouble

[@HotSocket]

The sheer volume of mental gymnastics shown in the Discord screenshot towards the end of the video is insane.

[@johnny4560]

I miss my favourite KZbinrs playing TTT... (or playing anything for that matter, they either stopped with gaming or devolved into toddler content)

[@XMysticHerox]

Yogscast still play it regularly.

[@christophernoneya4635]

The big issue i see with social deduction games is pretty simple, only the bad guys get to play a game, everyone else is just setting around waiting for something to happen, then discussing for a minute or two. This makes playing pubs even worse because people will quit if they don't get the badguy role. On top of that, if you die you just sit and watch for 5-10 minutes. I think my ideal social deduction game would focus on making all roles be just as fun, instead of just being a waiting room for the survivors. Like imagine a game where you're in a cult and need to choose someone to sacrifice, but you all get a hidden power and goal/target that will contradict other players, you spend the game working toward a final confrontation. No one gets killed until the end of the game avoiding the boring sitting out, and since everyone is a traitor it means everyone gets to play the game part of the game. The problem comes from figuring out who's goals are opposite or adjacent to your own and working with/against them.

[@anusaukko6792]

The Town of Salem in question:

[@scarface5856]

The game you just described is Blood on the Clocktower. It's amazing

[@christophernoneya4635]

@@scarface5856 never heard of it, thank you for the suggestion! Its rare to find a new one

[@Marx-bj1sm]

What is the music at 5:18 ? I know the song but I can’t remember where it came from and it’s annoying me to no end

[@chrislidis6664]

I know you spoke a lot about social deduction video games. But I’d recommend you check out Blood on the Clocktower. Really diverse social deduction gameplay with endless replay ability.

[@VulpineFox7]

I love among us, not for its social deduction aspect, but for playing online and making freinds and enemies with random strangers

[@glyveozone7303]

Exactly!

[@DelRae]

It’s not even really good at that though

[@gabrielsilverio2294]

I recommend first class trouble, it's kind of janky but it is so fun playing with 5 other friends

[@bubbleburster2813]

Just played this with mates today; I second your recommendation.

[@bibisebi]

I really like the concept of dread hunger, where you have to navigate a steam ship through a frozen arctic straight, while periodically stopping to scavenge for supplies like fuel and food. All the while the imposters try and pick you all off one by one or stop the ship. The match making is pretty bad though

[@JuhanLiiv1547]

This is probably lost, but thanks for including Enemy On Board atleast slightly in the intro, i believe that fits all the categories you listed, but the game died around the time wasd movement was introduced.

[@ikcikor3670]

Have you ever heard of our lord and savior Space Station 13?

[@Thor_the_Doge]

If you want a really good game that, at it's core is a social deduction game, full of content and even older than among us, try space station 13 Although the game at it's core is social deduction, because there are imposters called antagonists in the game who are allowed to grief, most of the game is you doing whatever you want. There are endless possible scenarios and activities possible, too many to get into, and if that's not enough, you can get the admins involved and let them spice something up in the round. For example, one time, i got murdered by the chef as he was worshipping a cake god, so when i got murdered, i asked the admins to turn me into a poltergeist so i could roleplay as cake god, and they turned me into a wraith. I just think more people should try the game out. When new, i suggest playing on goonstation as a staff assistant.

[@candycaneannihalator2708]

ey another spess fan the games going thru a flood of players thanks to the ss14 trailer yesterday too ^^

[@Thor_the_Doge]

@@candycaneannihalator2708 there was an ss14 trailer??? Edit: looked it up, seems like the channel is pretty big, sounds cool af

[@Ben-pf9wx]

I forgot what the game was, but I remember there was a game like agrou, but you don’t even know if you are the traitor. and you have to figure it out, and everyone says, if I was wherewolf, I would eat ____, and the wherewolfs actually have their prompt come true. It was so much fun

[@a-blivvy-yus]

It's worth noting that this genre comes from tabletop gaming, and there were boardgames of it long before videogames. It started with Mafia and/or Werewolf, nobody seems to be 100% certain which one was first, and nobody's sure whether it first showed up in 1985, 86, or 87, and both games are credited to the same person, so it could easily have been both at the same time. A more recent tabletop social deduction game I'm a huge fan of was Saboteur in 2004, and that's available online through boardgamearena, along with its expansion "sequel" Saboteur 2. Much like Among Us, the game started out with just "digger" and "saboteur" (crewmate and imposter) roles, instead of a full selection, and Sab 2 added more variety in the roles as well as a selection of game modes and optional rules (the roles themselves being included as optional). It's worth mentioning that a lot of social deduction games *don't* have the flexibility of Among Us and Saboteur in choosing not to include certain roles and other mechanics in your game if you don't like those elements. Imagine if all of Project Winter's mechanics you don't like were options you could add or remove to change the way the game plays, or if there were restrictions a game's host could place on players only having access to a limited number of those special traitor tools, instead of being able to collect all of them. To a degree, Among Us has that, and so does Saboteur with its expansion. Also worth noting, which Saboteur does differently from almost every social deduction videogame, and a significant majority of other tabletop social deduction games, is the *lack of player elimination* in the game. You don't kill people or get killed in Saboteur. Figuring out that someone is a saboteur doesn't let you kick them out of the game, even if everyone agrees they're the saboteur. You just know that their plays aren't being made to help the group, so you can block their actions or try and reverse them with your own. And they can't kill off the diggers either, so they have to be careful when they tip their hand with a too-obvious play that shows which side they're playing for. A shared feature of most social deduction tabletop games which is notably absent from most videogames is the idea of variable traitor counts. This isn't always missing in videogames, nor always present in physical games, but it's more prevalent on the tabletop than on PC. It can become extremely interesting with small playercounts, where you have only 4 people in the game, and might have 1 trraitor, or might have *NOBODY* as a traitor - but you're still paranoid about that possibility of betrayal at the end. In larger playercounts, with 10 or 12 people, not knowing if there's only 2 traitors, or maybe 3, can make for a much trickier game when you know who *ONE* of the traitors is, but not only don't know the second, but aren't even sure if the second is the only other traitor...

[@0hate9]

you know what social deduction game didn't fall off immediately? space station 13.

[@killette2]

Facts

[@reecev2087]

to be fair it's core audience isn't very broad

[@candycaneannihalator2708]

tho its more of a tight knit community

[@FirEBeast]

Town of Salem will forever be elite

[@Cjoudan]

Project Winter is probably the best social deduction game. it has it all, gameplay, voice, and challenge, oh also social deduction.

[@rune7894]

Surprised you didn't mention dread hunger or first class trouble. They are sooo good

[@KindofBradAtThis]

ah yes, my perfect cameo, on 4:20

[@AidanS99]

Among Us with the Roles mod is still by far my favorite content to watch on KZbin. It’s impossible to play because you need 10 friends to download the Role mod and the proximity chat mod, but it’s definitely still fun to watch Chilled turn invisible and and say “Large breasts” before killing his confused friends. 🤣

[@sboy2044]

If you’re talking by about the “Town of Hosts” mod, only the host of the lobby needs to download it

[@metawarp7446]

Thanks for the recommendation, I've watched all the alpharad mongy monday vods (also town of us), and this also seems like a fun group =)

[@metawarp7446]

​@@sboy2044 It's town of us, and everyone has to have it downloaded (sadly). It ports the TofS roles to among us Town of us seems very similar to Goose goose duck tbh

[@RightyRonaldo]

THANK YOU for making this video

[@meeeberperson]

Most of these points are covered by a game thats now unfortunately hidden called Unfortunate spaceman, even gives the traitor an excuse to be sneaky by letting them disguise as another player but keeps them as squishy as a player so they cant just shoot people to test them

[@molopower2354]

Nice opinion there, but as someone who's played more than 400 hours of town of salem. I don't think you need much more than basic game play for a social deduction game. Because that's whats fun, socially deducing who's the threat.

[@igorkoskin5214]

The problem with Push the Button from Jackbox is that it's already leaning towards aliens in terms of balance since you have to pick both aliens simultaneously or you loose... which is something pretty much no social deduction game does. Hacks only make things worse. The game tries to balance it with a bioscanner... but it's nigh useless most of the times since it takes a lot of time, it can be easily sabotaged if an alien manages to slip through and you can't really trust the results of the scan anyway.

[@alonsoaranda4385]

Holly shit it took me way too long to find your channel, this shit is fire

[@ceanyflamingo5127]

I think you might like Space Station 13, it's a little old but it doesn't have a lot of the problems that these games have

[@killette2]

yeah I was surprised this whole video he didn't know anything about it

[@candycaneannihalator2708]

yeah its fun

[@Poyni]

While I never had friends to play TTT with, I still to this day watch the Yogscast play it since theres a lot of them they always have enough people to play and they always keep things interesting by adding new roles and weapons and banning OP items and RDMing the games are actually enjoyable to watch. They also show to the viewer who has what role but only after it is revealed in game so you as the viewer can keep track of who's who while also having the mystery of who is the traitor

[@jabdroid197]

Hey what do you think of Dread Hunger? You didnt mention it on the video so i thought you forgot/dont know about it

[@wish5615]

Try first class trouble, ive played alot of the games listed and that one is prolly my favorite. its only 6 people which means easyish to get a group, the gameplay involves finding keycards locked behind traps that require co-op to get around. Town can only kill by a 2 man strangle, but imposters can grab syringes which let them kill alone, however they cannot kill by strangle with their imposter teammate. while imposter aren't entirely fucked if they're outed, it is 100% in their best interest to conceal themselves in the crowd. They also offer a lot of customization options in custom games.

[@rerdak4334]

Social deduction games are a niche that grew outside its community momentarly thanks to how popular Among Us was. 90% of the playerbase is people following their favorite streamers' moves. It's not a popular genre, as with traditional turn-based RPGs. "SD" games just boomed at the right place, at the right time.