DEDUCE OR DIE
Imagine this: You and your lawyer buddies decide to go on an awesome cruise to have some fun and unwind. But here’s the kicker – in the dead of night, a crazy storm hits and you all end up stranded on a mysterious island. As if that wasn’t bad enough, you wake up only to discover that one of your friends has been brutally murdered. Yup, someone on the island is a cold-blooded killer!
Lucky for you, being trial lawyers, you’ve got the skills to crack this case. It’s time to put on your detective hats and figure out whodunit!
GAME SETUP
Alright, here’s what you gotta do to get started. Grab the aces through nines of Clubs, Spades, and Hearts – that’s 27 cards in total. Shuffle ’em up, and take two of those cards and set them aside, face down. These two cards are gonna be the Evidence cards.
Let’s start the game by dealing out the cards. The number of cards each player gets depends on how many people are playing. If there are three of us, we each get eight cards. For four players, we get six cards each. With five players, we get five cards each. And if there are six players, we’ll get four cards each.
Now we need to make the Interrogation deck. Take twenty-seven cards from the other two decks and set them aside. Shuffle those cards up and place them in the middle of the playing area. This deck will be used throughout the game. Alright, we’re all set to start playing!
It’s Time to Play
When we play the game, we have two Evidence Cards that determine who the murderer is. We don’t know the identity of the murderer until we know the values of these two cards. Once we have the Evidence Cards, we can easily figure out the identity of the third card.
This third card is called the Murder card. It represents the actual murderer in the game. The rank of the Murder card is the total value of the two Evidence Cards. If the Evidence cards have the same suit, then the Murder card will have the same suit as well. But if the Evidence cards have different suits, then the Murder card will have the other suit.
If the Murder card is already revealed, then the player who has a card that is one rank higher than the Murder card becomes the new Murderer. Their goal is to falsely accuse someone else and win the game.
So here’s how the game starts: we all gather together and make our statements. Each person tells the group which suit they have the fewest cards of in their hand. Then it’s time for the first player to grab three cards from the Interrogation deck and show them to everyone.
Now, the fun part begins. The player gets to pick a low card and a high card from those three, and that’s the range they’re going to interrogate the rest of us about. If both cards are from the same suit, the range is limited to that suit. But if they’re from different suits, anything goes! The range covers all the suits. Now, if the player has two cards that are not only from the same suit but also have the same rank, they have a choice. They can either interrogate all the cards in that suit, or all the cards with that rank. It’s up to them!
In this game, I get to be an interrogator and ask another player how many cards they have in their hand. The catch is, I can only ask about a certain range of cards. The player I ask has to tell me the truth when they answer. Everyone else can listen in and keep track of the answers.
Once the interrogation is over, the next player clockwise gets a turn to be the interrogator.
If I don’t want to continue with an interrogation, I can choose to stop. And sometimes, players can have a special kind of interrogation called a Secret Interrogation. But we can only use this special move once per game. When we do a Secret Interrogation, we have to announce it, throw away the interrogation cards, and come up with a new range of cards to ask about.
We keep playing like this until someone figures out who the murderer is. If I guess wrong, I lose the game and have to leave. But if I pick the right person, I win!
The End of the Game
The game ends when someone makes a correct accusation. They write down who they think the murderer is and what cards they think are the Evidence Cards. Then, they secretly look at the Evidence Cards to confirm. After that, they have to ask the person they accused to show them their cards. If they’re right, they reveal the cards and win the game!