Customer Reviews

Werewolves of Millers Hollow

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For any gathering of 8-18 people, this game is a must have. A role-playing game, Werewolves is a game of deception and trust where everyone must decide who is lying and who's telling the truth. Everyone looks as thought they are townspeople but some people (through radomly passed out cards) are secretly werewolves that are trying to kill all the townspeople. Every nighttime the werewolves kill and every daytime the town must decide on someone to kill, hoping that person is a werewolf. With many different variations to the normal townsperson (hunter, fortune teller, cupido, little girl, witch, and theif) which all have unique special abilities, the game never gets old. For those of you who remember Mafia, this game is very similar but more well balanced and polished. I hope you have as much fun with it as I have!

Every year at Christmastime, my rather large family (my parents have 10 kids, plus all the grandchildren) get together at my parents' house to laugh and play board games, and maybe have a couple of cocktails. Our usual game of choice is Trivial Pursuit, as most of us fancy ourselves trivia savants. ;) This year, I thought I would change things up a bit, not that I don't enjoy a good game of Trivial Pursuit, but I just wanted to try something new and see how things went.

I brought Apples to Apples (which was also new to us and very well received), Clue (a classic favorite), and The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow. When I pulled out the small box and explained the premise of the game, basically a role-playing game, many a sigh and discouraging comment was thrown my way. I must say, I was also a bit hesitant to even bring the game out, having never played it myself and the term "role-playing" rousing comparisons to games like "Dungeons & Dragons" and "World of Warcraft"...not that those are BAD games, necessarily...but certainly not the type of game that would interest my siblings or my parents.

Finally, having heard enough, and after playing about 100 rounds of Apples to Apples, I pulled "Werewolves" out once more. Apparantly after a few drinks my family is a lot more open to try new things...they all said "Well, I guess we could try it and just see how it is. If we don't like it we can always quit." And with that, our Christmas quality family time changed forever... :D

To put it simply, my entire family LOVED this game! No one, perhaps, more than my own mother, age 62. The first round had us all laughing so hard we could barely breathe. And we all found out that my Mom is a bit of a thespian, sending us often into bouts of hysterical laughter throughout the night with her convincingly serious accusations and pleas for her life. We started with 9 players and ended with 12...and even incorporated my 11 year old nephew and my 12 year old son (who strangely seems to be a lycanthrope more often than not!), allowing them to stay up until the very end...it was Christmas vacation after all.

I can't say I have ever played a game where we could include the "tweens" and the grandparents in one hilarious grouping. I highly recommend this game to everyone. Guaranteed to be a night filled with theatrics and aching sides. If not, I'd say your group must have a collective stick up the you-know-what.

And if you think it was the booze doing all the entertaining, it may have helped, I'll admit, but the next morning my Mama was still raving about the game...so don't let the "role-playing" description turn you off, give it a chance and I almost GUARANTEE you will find it worth every penny! The only down side is that it is only fun if you have a large enough group, which we were fortunate to have...SUPER FUN!!

Where I work we try to de-stress by playing card & board games when we can. My boss bought Werewolves Of Millers Hollow and we tried it one day. It's now "THE" game to play before a holiday or long weekend. It's the type of game that causes my coworkers to stop dead in their tracks and say "Werewolves????... did someone say Werewolves???" and all pile into the conference room where we play and chow on pizza and Buffalo Wings.

We love this game! The best part is that it created an environment where my coworkers, that wouldn't normally associate with each other, laughed and had fun with each other. I highly recommend playing this at company parties! I like it so much, I'm going to get it for playing at home with my friends and family.

This is a variation of the Werewolf / Mafia game that came out of colleges in the early 90s. Briefly, a large group of people all play the residents of a medieval village. There are werewolves among you, and every night the werewolves kill another villager. During the day, the villagers must try and figure out who the werewolves are.

The details of the rules can be found online, and are common to many different forms of this game, so for this review I will primarily focus on how this compares to others variations of the same game: "Ultimate Werewolf" and "Are You A Werewolf?" (For brevity: "Ultimate Werewolf" = UWW, "Are You A Werewolf" = AYAW, and "Werewolves of Miller's Hollow" = WMH)

1: WMH is the most stylishly designed of all the different versions. Both UWW and AYAW have a straightforward picture of the card's character, and text stating the character's title. WMH just has a stylized design on each card, which may lead to some confusion among newer players. The designs are pretty distinct, but you have to make sure people know what they ALL are before you pass them out.

2: WMH and UWW are printed on good card stock. AYAW is on cheaper paper stock, (which makes sense considering its budget price). WMH cards are square -- the size of the long side of a regular deck of cards; UWW cards are standard card size and shape. AYAW are a bit smaller, but also standard card shape.

3: The IMPORTANT part: Gameplay. While the rules are very similar, the card sets are what make the biggest difference in these games.
a) WMH has the standard villagers, seer, and wolves, plus a handful of extra characters (witch, hunter, cupid). Unique to this set is the Little Girl character -- her special ability is that she is allowed to peek during the "werewolves awake" night phase. I have not come across this character in any other version of the game.
b) AYAW is a very simple, budget set with only standard characters.
c) UWW is an "everything plus the kitchen sink" set with a very large number of unique cards and characters, including Vampires, Masons, Sorceress, Diseased, and a lot more.

Overall, I think I like the Ultimate Werewolf set the best, but it's a very slim margin over Werewolves of Miller's Hollow. Miller's Hollow also has an expansion that adds some interesting new characters, and a deck of "event" cards that add a lot to the game. The "Are You A Werewolf?" game is a very straightforward set that is very playable, and a such a low price that it's a no-brainer to at least try the game out, and "upgrade" if you like it.

This game is a must have for everyone who likes party games. It is for 8-20 people, but is most fun when you are 12 or more. What is it all about? Werewolves and villagers. What character you are is determined by a card that you draw in the beginning of the game. Werewolves try to kill all the villigers, villigers try to get rid of the werewolves that kill amongst them during the night. Daytime and nighttime are determined by weather you have your eyes open or not. One of you (the moderator) will lead you through the game (preferably one who already knows it). One kill during the night has to be revenged during the day. As werewolves appear as ordinary people during the day, you cannot distinguish them from everyone else. This being said, you (that is the whole community) have to consent on killing one person of the community. Werewolves will try to kill another innocent, as villigers try to make out the werewolves. The trick: werewolves know each other. Villagers only know their very own card. The whole situation is simplified a little for the villigers as there are special characters with special abilities: the fortune teller can look at other people's cards, the witch has a healing potion and a poison to resurrect or kill someone, cupid makes two people a couple that wins or dies together, and many more..
I've played this game at least 20 times and even the ones that were most reluctant to play loved it in the end.
Go get this game. It's awsome. I promise, you'll love it. Anyone who knows the old "Mafia" will have an easy start as the rules are more or less the same.

The cards are self-explaining, no writing, with very nice pictures. The game never gets boring. Each game is different as chance determines your character and you might be a different one each time.
One downside though: the spelling in the little booklet could do with some corrections, however, that doesn't really influence the game, eh?

I wanted a fun game for an adult Halloween party and found this one via a search engine. All the reviews were positive so I ordered it and it arrived in about a week.
The party was starting to split off into two groups--friends of my boyfriend, and friends of mine. I grabbed the game and problem solved. Everyone played for at least 2 hours taking turns being the monitor. Lots of laughter and fun! There were 11 of us altogether and every guest made a point of telling me how much they enjoyed Werewolves of Miller's Hollow.

I admit I sorta thought I was too cool for a role playing game. NOT SO!!! After months of trying, some friends who had this game finally convinced a bunch of us to play one time when we were having a bbq and ...we wound up playing for four hours straight. I went home and bought myself a set that very night. The next week, we organized an evening with about 13 people for the distinct purpose of playing the game. That was two days ago...and I'm already itching to play again. SO FUN! We're all in our mid to late 20's but I think this would appeal to a broad range of ages.

lots of fun, party game, just a 3"x3" box of cards...
we really enjoyed this version of the game, with a little girl and some soldiers and a witch etc.
if you buy it beware of head cases that like to cheat and lie. like my wife. SHE IS NOT THE WEREWOLF!!!!

Bought this game after watching a group of 12 or so teens play it intensely for a couple hours. Game has a simple narrative structure: town invaded by werewolves and every night (players close their eyes) the werewolves decide one team member they "kill" who is then out of the game. Everyone "wakes up" and votes someone off the island, so to speak, trying to target the werewolves and rid themselves of them. But since the werewolves look like ordinary friends and neighbors during the day, it becomes tricky to figure out who is mortal and who werewolf. The game itself is a pack of cards which are dealt out all around. Some cards provide special powers (the "little girl" card allows its holder to peek while the werewolves are meeting--but the holder has to be careful not to be caught peeking) and these add to the suspense and intrigue.

After we purchased it we played with another family whose kids are the same ages as ours--mostly teens. They have one younger son--about 10--for whom it was a bit of a challenge. He wanted to protect his mom and favorite sister at all costs and wasn't really able to be objective about who might really be a werewolf (his mom). So I think there are age limits on the game. Since we have bought this game, the kids grab it first when they head out to parties at their friends' houses, since it is a big favorite.

We have purchased the add-on game, but since the game requires a rather large crowd (8 player minimum)we have not yet had the chance to try it out--only 5 in our family. It appears to make the game a bit more advanced, with additional roles, possibilities, and cards. In looking it over, it seemed it would be perfect for a crowd who had some experience with Werewolves and wanted to ramp up the action.

Very fun, entertaining, smart game. If you've got teens in the house--they'll love this.

Other reviewers have done a good job of describing the game, so I will simply say this:
I picked this game up a few days before our gang got together for our annual-to-semi-annual game night. It is a month later, everyone is still talking about it, and the family who usually hosts game night has announced that we will now be having game nights on a monthly basis. How's that for a glowing recommendation? The game is also very compact, portable, and affordable. I have never been so pleased with such an inexpensive purchase.