First Thoughts: The Castle of the Devil

Note: Jason and I try to play a game at least 4-5 times before writing a full review of it.  However, I thought it would be a good idea to share some initial thoughts after we've tried a game for the first time.

Castle of the Devil is a "hidden roles" type of game, where you're working with a team to achieve a goal, but you don't start off the game knowing who's who.  It sounded like a it might be similar to Bang!, a favorite around here.  It's also supposed to be a bit shorter, with the box claiming 20-40 minutes (though it took us over an hour, but it was our first time).

My initial impression is that this game is a lot tougher than it seems.  It was really hard for me to figure out a strategy.  Jason and I were on the same team, and there were several times that he was trying to do something and I wasn't really catching on.  Of course, this might change after we've played a few times, but it seems to me that it's still the type of game that I will probably never be very good at.  It will probably be better once we're familiar with the cards as well - there were some nasty ones in there that I wasn't expecting!  I also got into a bit of a rut, unable to really do anything useful on any of my turns for the first half of the game.  I'm not sure why this is and if it could have been preventable.

We also played with four people, the minimum amount required.  It seems that it would be more interesting with more, as we were able to figure out who was on our team pretty quickly.  I also think more people will much it much more difficult, and it seemed hard to me already!  Overall I'm intrigued by this game and want to play it more to see if I can develop a good strategy, but I don't think it's going to be one of my favorites.