Mafia, also known as Werewolf, is a Russian social deduction game created by Dimitry Davidoff in 1986. The game models a conflict between two groups: an informed minority and an uninformed majority. At the start of the game, each player is secretly assigned a role affiliated with one of these teams. The game has two alternating phases: first, a night-phase, during which those with night-killing-powers may covertly kill other players, and second, a day-phase, in which all surviving players debate and vote to eliminate a suspect. The game continues until a faction achieves its win-condition; for the village, this usually means eliminating the evil minority, while for the minority, this usually means reaching numerical parity with the village and eliminating any rival evil groups.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse is a role-playing game of the Classic World of Darkness game series by White Wolf Publishing. Other related products include the collectible card games named Rage and several novels. In the game, players take the role of werewolves known as "Garou". These werewolves are locked in a two-front war against both the spiritual desolation of urban civilization and supernatural forces of corruption that seek to bring the Apocalypse. Game supplements detail the other shape-shifters.
Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ZZT (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games.
An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms, including PCs, consoles and mobile devices, and span many genres, including first-person shooters, strategy games, and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). In 2019, revenue in the online games segment reached $16.9 billion, with $4.2 billion generated by China and $3.5 billion in the United States. Since the 2010s, a common trend among online games has been to operate them as games as a service, using monetization schemes such as loot boxes and battle passes as purchasable items atop freely-offered games. Unlike purchased retail games, online games have the problem of not being permanently playable, as they require special servers in order to function.
Garry's Mod, commonly clipped as GMod, is a 2006 sandbox game developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve. The base game mode of Garry's Mod has no set objectives and provides the player with a world in which to freely manipulate objects. Other game modes, notably Trouble in Terrorist Town and Prop Hunt, are created by other developers as mods and are installed separately, by means such as the Steam Workshop. Garry's Mod was created by Garry Newman as a mod for Valve's Source game engine and released in December 2004, before being expanded into a standalone release that was published by Valve in November 2006. Ports of the original Windows version for Mac OS X and Linux followed in September 2010 and June 2013, respectively. As of September 2021, Garry's Mod has sold more than 20 million copies. A successor, Sandbox, has been in development since 2015.
Bézier Games, Inc. is a privately owned American tabletop game publisher, known by hobby gamers for Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Suburbia, and known to casual gamers for the One Night Ultimate Werewolf series, Werewords, the Silver series, and Ultimate Werewolf. It was founded in San Jose, California in 2006 by Ted Alspach upon publication of Start Player. In 2013, the company was renamed Bézier Games, Inc. when it incorporated. The company moved to Louisville, Tennessee in 2016 run by Ted & Toni Alspach.
The Resistance is a social role-playing card-based social deduction party game. The game's premise involves a war between government and resistance groups, and players are assigned various roles related to these groups. A King Arthur themed-variant with additional roles is marketed as Avalon. Like other social deduction games, The Resistance and Avalon rely on certain players attempting to disrupt the larger group working together, while the rest of the players work to reveal the spy working against them.
Fortnite: Save the World is a looter shooter survival video game produced by Epic Games, part of the game Fortnite. It is a cooperative and sandbox-style game with elements of tower defense and played in hybrid-third-person, described by Epic as a cross between Minecraft and Left 4 Dead. The game was initially released as a paid-for early access title for macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on July 25, 2017, with plans for a full free-to-play release announced in late 2018. Epic eventually opted to move the game to pay-to-play in June 2020. The retail versions of the game were published by Gearbox Software, while online distribution of the PC versions is handled by Epic's launcher.
Ultimate Werewolf is a card game designed by Ted Alspach and published by Bézier Games. It is based on the social deduction game, Werewolf, which is Andrew Plotkin's reinvention of Dimitry Davidoff's 1987 game, Mafia. The Werewolf game appeared in many forms before Bézier Games published Ultimate Werewolf in 2008.
Secret Hitler is a hidden identity social deduction party game developed by Goat, Wolf, & Cabbage LLC, manufactured by Breaking Games and distributed by Blackbox. The board game was designed by Max Temkin, Mike Boxleiter and Tommy Maranges, with artwork created by Mackenzie Schubert, and first released on August 25, 2016. In Secret Hitler, players assume the roles of liberals and fascists in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic, with one player becoming Hitler. To win the game, both parties are set to competitively enact liberal and fascist policies respectively, or complete a secondary objective directly related to the Hitler role.
A battle royale game is an online multiplayer video game genre that blends last-man-standing gameplay with the survival, exploration and scavenging elements of a survival game. Battle royale games involve dozens to hundreds of players, who start with minimal equipment and then must eliminate all other opponents while avoiding being trapped outside a shrinking "safe area", with the winner being the last player or team alive.
Fortnite Battle Royale is a 2017 battle royale video game produced by Epic Games. It was originally developed as a companion game part of the early access version of Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative survival game, before separating from it and then dropping the early access label on June 29, 2020. Fortnite Battle Royale is offered under a free-to-play model funded by microtransactions and is updated as a live service game; originally released for macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, it has since been ported to iOS, Nintendo Switch, and Android, and later as a launch title for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. Fortnite Battle Royale and its various modes are part of the overall Fortnite platform.
Fortnite is an online video game and game platform developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in seven distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same general gameplay and game engine: Fortnite Battle Royale, a free-to-play battle royale game in which up to 100 players fight to be the last person standing; Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative hybrid tower defense-shooter and survival game in which up to four players fight off zombie-like creatures and defend objects with traps and fortifications they can build; Fortnite Creative, in which players are given complete freedom to create worlds and battle arenas; Lego Fortnite, an open world game collection divided between survival game Lego Fortnite Odyssey and social game Lego Fortnite Brick Life; Rocket Racing, a racing game; Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game; and Fortnite Ballistic, a tactical first-person shooter currently in early access.
Fortnite Creative is a sandbox game, developed and published by Epic Games, part of the video game Fortnite. It was released on December 6, 2018, for Android, iOS, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, and in November 2020 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Town of Salem is an online multiplayer game with social deduction and strategy elements. It was developed and published by indie game developer BlankMediaGames, and released on December 15, 2014. Early alpha and beta versions were browser-based and free-to-play. On October 14, 2018, the game was released for iOS and Android mobile devices after a successful and long-supported Kickstarter fundraiser.
The Fortnite World Cup was an esports competition based on the video game Fortnite. It took place between July 26–28, 2019 at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City, United States. A total US$30 million prize pool was available across the various competitions.
Among Us is a 2018 online multiplayer social deduction game developed and published by American game studio Innersloth. The game allows for cross-platform play; it was released on iOS and Android devices in June 2018 and on Windows later that year in November. It was ported to the Nintendo Switch in December 2020 and on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in December 2021. A virtual reality adaptation, Among Us VR, was released on November 10, 2022.
Blood on the Clocktower is a social deduction game created by Steven Medway and published by The Pandemonium Institute. The game was released in 2022 after a successful Kickstarter campaign.
The Chameleon is a deception party game designed by Rikki Tahta and published in 2017 by Big Potato Games. All players except one—the "Chameleon"—are given a secret topic and attempt to identify the Chameleon, while the Chameleon attempts to identify the topic, using social deduction.
