Suspicion and Influence: Salem 1692

Had a lot of fun at Great Escape Adventure in Horseheads, NY tonight. My daughter and I played some Centauri Saga and managed to win for the first time in the game playing the Safe Passage mission. We also got a chance to meet up with Dan Hundycz of DPH Games and try out their new prototype, "Suspicion and Influence: Salem 1692" (working title). It is a resource management/area control type of game based on the Salem Witch Trials.

Note - all images are a very early prototype and not final components.

Throughout the game, you can take two actions a turn from a selection of special townsfolk across the top of the playing area, or attempt to rally some of the various random people to your cause.

It was a very interesting game with some fun mechanics. You basically have to raise up your influence in order to convince people to join your inner circle, or arrest them and take their land.

Along the way, you can weaken the various villagers by accusing them and putting suspicion tokens on them, making them easier to arrest. You can also spend your influence to remove suspicion from someone. Each of the villagers has (will have) some sort of special ability that will aide you if you have them in your group.

Arresting people grants you victory points as well as land tokens (which can be turned in at the end of the game for victory points). It also prevents players from being able to use their special abilities. Generally villagers are more useful in your inner circle, but are worth more points arrested.

Unfortunately, we had to call the game early as the store was closing. My daughter finally win in the end, but it was a very close game. Definitely and interesting game and I will be keeping an eye on it and doing a full review when it gets closer to a finalized version.