Home | Post In English | Gry rodzinne | Disciple Detective – Biblical Hanabi with a twist

Disciple Detective – Biblical Hanabi with a twist

Disciple Detective
Designer: Lance Hill
Number of players: 2-5
Age: 14+
Playing time: 20 min
Publisher: Funhill Games (2020)
Ranking BGG: 7.3/10
Read this in Polish

Shall we play Hanabi?

Disciple Detective is a game with biblical themes based on the mechanics of Hanabi. It’s not a reimplementation, but anyone who has played Hanabi will notice the similarity. The essence and common part of both games are three elements:

  1. players don’t see their cards
  2. during the game, they provide information to the other players about their cards
  3. based on the information obtained and their own deduction, they try to guess what cards they have

Unlike Hanabi, we do not convey explicit information about the value or color of the chosen cards. In Disciple Detective – as the title suggests – we have cards of disciples (these are Christ’s disciples). And each disciple has 6 characteristics:

  1. Even/Odd – each card has a number (from 1 to 17) – it’s a question of whether the card number is even or odd.
  2. Alias – this indicates whether a given apostle/disciple was also known by another name. Surprisingly, a few such cases can be found in the Bible. Bartholomew is Nathanael, Peter’s name is Simon, Paul was formerly Saul, Judas is known as Thaddeus, and the apostle Thomas was called Didymus (meaning twin).
  3. Origin – indicates whether the place of origin is known. Peter and Andrew, as well as Philip, came from Bethsaida, Matthew from Capernaum, Paul from Tarsus, and Mark from Jerusalem.
  4. Father – do we know the name of the apostle’s father? Simon Peter was the son of Jonah (according to St. Matthew) or John (according to St. John). Similarly, Andrew who’s Peter’s brother. James and John were the sons of Zebedee. James (called the lesser or younger) was the son of Alphaeus. However, we do not know the names of all of them – we do not know the names of Philip’s, Simon the Zealot’s, or Matthias’s fathers, nor do we know Paul’s or Luke’s.
  5. Occupation – do we know what their profession was? Paul made tents, Luke was a doctor, the first four disciples (Peter, Andrew, John, and James) were fishermen, Matthew was a tax collector.
  6. Writer – which of Christ’s disciples contributed to writing the New Covenant? Here we have four evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Paul, on the other hand, is known for his letters. However, Peter also wrote letters

In their turn, a player can do one of three things:

  1. Provide all other players with information about one of the 6 characteristics. For example, touch all cards that are even. Or indicate all disciples whose fathers are known. It’s important: all of them! Unlike Hanabi – such information is shared with all other players, not just one chosen person.
  2. Arrange the cards in hand for each of the other players (from the lowest to the highest number).
  3. Try to guess one of their cards – if successful (confirmed by other players before the player sees the card), the card is played; if not, it returns to the hand, and a token (see below) goes into the box.

Each time you provide information, you place a token in the box. When you successfully guess the name of the apostle, you have the right to remove a token from the box (or provide information „for free”). This is the same mechanism as in Hanabi, with a slight modification. There are no „penalty” tokens. Simply put – if you guess wrong, you move the token as if you were providing information (because it is actually very valuable information for others), and the card returns to the hand, and the game continues.

These six characteristics allow for an easier version to be played, and starting with that version is definitely recommended. However, the more difficult version is the „wow!” version.

Sample disciples’ cards

Quirks that make a 'wow!’

Some apostles have additional abilities, known as „Quirks”:

  1. Peter is fearful, so when arranging cards, despite being number 1, he’s always the last one.
  2. James and John – sons of thunder – wanted to be the first to sit at the right hand of the Son of God. In the game, James, who has number 3, pretends to have number 2 and is also classified as even. John applies to be number 1 and should be marked as odd.
  3. Bartholomew, also known as Nathanael. „Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” (John 1:47). In his presence, no one dares to lie. Bartholomew cancels the „quirks” of all apostles in the player’s hand – Peter is no longer last, James and John remain with their numbers, Thomas is no longer skeptical, etc.
  4. Thomas. The doubter. If he doesn’t touch, he won’t believe. Therefore, Thomas is „touched” every time information is provided. If you indicate even cards, you touch Thomas (which isn’t strange since he’s number 8). If you indicate odd cards, you still have to touch Thomas. Known origin? You touch Thomas. Father’s name? You touch Thomas.
  5. Judas Iscariot. The one who betrayed Him. A liar. He always tells lies. He has number 12, so if you indicate even cards, you don’t touch Judas. If you indicate those who wrote the Gospels/Letters, you touch Judas.
  6. Paul. For the name of Christ, he was whipped and stoned, narrowly escaping death. Therefore, in the game, he is wounded. While wounded, he cannot practice his profession or write. So, as long as he is wounded, when asked about „occupation” or „writer,” the answer is negative.
  7. Luke is a doctor. He treats Paul. In other words, if he is visible together with Paul (even at different players’ hands), Paul is no longer wounded: he has a profession and is the author of Letters.
  8. Mark. A deserter. He left Paul during his travels. Therefore, if he is visible together with Paul, he behaves as if he were not there. We know nothing about him – he has no alias, no origin, he is not a writer.

These „quirks” seem extremely hardcore. I played several initial rounds without them, not daring to delve deeper. In other words, I was sure it wouldn’t work. But it does! And it works BRILLIANTLY! You can actually deduce whether you have a „weirdo.” These are fragments of information. Sometimes, failure in guessing the apostle. Sometimes, however, intentional action (e.g., Thomas can be easily identified  – unless he appears with Bartholomew ;)). Because there are so many configurations, I cannot say whether you will always succeed in winning. I also never played with 5 people, so I never played with Paul, Luke, and Mark, who seem quite difficult to me. However, the gameplay with the first 13 disciples with quirks, was truly fantastic and not as difficult as it initially seemed.

It’s worth mentioning that the game also has a competitive mode. The gameplay is similar to the cooperative one – except instead of providing information, we demand specific information from others – and the winner is the one who discards cards faster. However, I haven’t played in this mode; somehow, cooperation in this particular case is closer to my heart, and every time we preferred to cooperate.

Player aid – all in one place. It also allows you to make notes with a dry erase marker.

Design

All of this information we receive from others doesn’t need to be remembered. We receive dry erase markers along with the player aids and the disciples’ cards, which are designed for them, allowing us to jot down all our observations and conjectures. Similarly, the backs of the cards are constructed – traits that can be crossed out or, on the contrary, marked as present. The only thing missing is dividers. Although we have a dedicated card for crossing out characters, which should be kept in hand together with others, it’s much more convenient to cross out apostles on the player aid (which fortunately is also made of that laminated paper)

Summary

The game is fantastic. The twist with the quirks is simply brilliant and one of a kind. I really like this expansion of the Hanabi mechanics. I appreciate the combination of mechanics with the theme. If we wanted to use this game for educational purposes, the knowledge simply sticks in your head because it’s essential during the game. You can never „unsee” that Judas lies, Peter flees, Luke heals, and there’s no deceit in Bartholomew.

The instructions are excellently written – succinctly, objectively, with examples. And with explanations – why each character has certain quirks. At the end, we receive a brief summary – where they came from, who their father was, what their occupation was, etc.

I sincerely recommend taking an interest in the game.




 

Złożoność gry (4/10):

Oprawa wizualna (8/10):

Ogólna ocena (8/10):

Co znaczy ta ocena według Games Fanatic?
Bardzo dobry przedstawiciel swojego gatunku, godny polecania. Wady mało znaczące, nie przesłaniające mocno pozytywnego odbioru całości. Gra daje dużo satysfakcji.

Przydatne linki:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Ta strona korzysta z ciasteczek aby świadczyć usługi na najwyższym poziomie. Dalsze korzystanie ze strony oznacza, że zgadzasz się na ich użycie.
Cookies settings
Accept
Privacy & Cookie policy
Privacy & Cookies policy
Cookie name Active
wordpress_test_cookie

Privacy Policy

What information do we collect?

We collect information from you when you register on our site or place an order. When ordering or registering on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your: name, e-mail address or mailing address.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways: To personalize your experience (your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs) To improve our website (we continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you) To improve customer service (your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs) To process transactions Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering the purchased product or service requested. To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other site feature To send periodic emails The email address you provide for order processing, will only be used to send you information and updates pertaining to your order.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order or enter, submit, or access your personal information. We offer the use of a secure server. All supplied sensitive/credit information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted into our Payment gateway providers database only to be accessible by those authorized with special access rights to such systems, and are required to?keep the information confidential. After a transaction, your private information (credit cards, social security numbers, financials, etc.) will not be kept on file for more than 60 days.

Do we use cookies?

Yes (Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computers hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the sites or service providers systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information We use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart, understand and save your preferences for future visits, keep track of advertisements and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve our business. If you prefer, you can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies via your browser settings. Like most websites, if you turn your cookies off, some of our services may not function properly. However, you can still place orders by contacting customer service. Google Analytics We use Google Analytics on our sites for anonymous reporting of site usage and for advertising on the site. If you would like to opt-out of Google Analytics monitoring your behaviour on our sites please use this link (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/)

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Registration

The minimum information we need to register you is your name, email address and a password. We will ask you more questions for different services, including sales promotions. Unless we say otherwise, you have to answer all the registration questions. We may also ask some other, voluntary questions during registration for certain services (for example, professional networks) so we can gain a clearer understanding of who you are. This also allows us to personalise services for you. To assist us in our marketing, in addition to the data that you provide to us if you register, we may also obtain data from trusted third parties to help us understand what you might be interested in. This ‘profiling’ information is produced from a variety of sources, including publicly available data (such as the electoral roll) or from sources such as surveys and polls where you have given your permission for your data to be shared. You can choose not to have such data shared with the Guardian from these sources by logging into your account and changing the settings in the privacy section. After you have registered, and with your permission, we may send you emails we think may interest you. Newsletters may be personalised based on what you have been reading on theguardian.com. At any time you can decide not to receive these emails and will be able to ‘unsubscribe’. Logging in using social networking credentials If you log-in to our sites using a Facebook log-in, you are granting permission to Facebook to share your user details with us. This will include your name, email address, date of birth and location which will then be used to form a Guardian identity. You can also use your picture from Facebook as part of your profile. This will also allow us and Facebook to share your, networks, user ID and any other information you choose to share according to your Facebook account settings. If you remove the Guardian app from your Facebook settings, we will no longer have access to this information. If you log-in to our sites using a Google log-in, you grant permission to Google to share your user details with us. This will include your name, email address, date of birth, sex and location which we will then use to form a Guardian identity. You may use your picture from Google as part of your profile. This also allows us to share your networks, user ID and any other information you choose to share according to your Google account settings. If you remove the Guardian from your Google settings, we will no longer have access to this information. If you log-in to our sites using a twitter log-in, we receive your avatar (the small picture that appears next to your tweets) and twitter username.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.

Updating your personal information

We offer a ‘My details’ page (also known as Dashboard), where you can update your personal information at any time, and change your marketing preferences. You can get to this page from most pages on the site – simply click on the ‘My details’ link at the top of the screen when you are signed in.

Online Privacy Policy Only

This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our website and not to information collected offline.

Your Consent

By using our site, you consent to our privacy policy.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.
Save settings
Cookies settings