Welcome one and all to the Beast’s glorious masquerade! As you can see, Beast has had the castle enchanted for the occasion so that every friend who enters magically transforms into another friend from The Grimm Forest! Be stealthy and try to reveal others’ identities before you’re ousted yourself! We sure are in for a wonderful night! Let’s start the party!

What Is It?

A bluffing and set collection game where players try to gather artifacts they need to win (boon) and attempt to avoid bad (bane) artifacts that would reveal their true selves. Above all, players try to keep their masks on the longest and guess who their opponents are in order to arise victorious!

Who Is It For?

Fans of fairy tale characters are sure to be drawn to this one because the theme and art are really cool and work nicely with the game. I think that fans of bluffing will enjoy this because you really  need to keep your identity hidden and it’s difficult not to reveal any information turn to turn. On the other hand, if you’re more partial to deduction over just bluffing, this one would be harder to recommend because there is not much to deduce since there’s a lot of luck in what artifact cards people get.

The game says ages and I think that that’s fair since, again, a lot comes down to luck of card draws. So ultimately it’s pretty light and younger audiences would easily be able to handle it.

Contents and Quality

There’s actually a fair amount in this game, mostly cards, but it has nice production quality overall.

Cards – We have artifacts, actions, wagers, characters, and special abilities. All have really appealing art and color schemes and are of average card quality.

Cardboard Tokens – There are rose tokens (points) and mirror tiles (to place over unmasked characters) which are all pretty sturdy and nice. There’s also the always available “Point the Finger” action which is nice and also designed nicely to give a place for the other available actions each round.

Wooden Evidence Markers – These are also your average quality for this type of components, and come in some nice colors.

Board – The board is pretty average quality as well, but a weird size since it’s a small rectangle instead of just a square that fits the size of the box. Mine does seem to be a little warped at the corners, but that may very well be circumstantial, and you don’t interact with it a ton, so it’s still absolutely fine for placing your evidence markers on it.

Box/Rules – Average size box, again with really nice art. The insert is just some flimsy cardboard but everything fits in it easily. If you choose to sleeve the cards, you would probably need to take the insert out since they’d probably sit above it at that point. The rules are laid out really nicely and provide plenty of info and details that you shouldn’t have any issues playing or teaching.

PROS

  • Nice art
  • Fun theme
  • Easy concept
  • Nice level of tension with the bluffing element
  • “Eliminated” players still get to participate and try to earn points which is a huge plus because player elimination can be rough
  • Plenty of variety with the actions that get changed each round (and come out in different pairs each game), and the advanced rules with wagering, special abilities, and treasures that add a lot to play
  • The variant works with 2 players. I think that more players makes for a better game, but it definitely isn’t bad with 2 and I would play like that easily. It changes certain game aspects and lets you vary your play style.

CONS

  • The round winner points go from 1 to 3 to 5, and since the rounds don’t really change much (especially if you aren’t using wagers or special abilities) the increases don’t make a lot of sense to me. It seemed like winning the 3rd round won you the game most of the time, which made earlier rounds feel a little pointless. Again, the add-ins I mentioned can balance that a little bit because it gives more chances for people to get points, for instance, but overall I just didn’t see a need for that increase
  • There’s a lot of luck than it originally seems like, so you can end up unmasked really quickly if you just get unlucky with what someone gives you and/or what you draw and there doesn’t seem like a great way to mitigate that, but luckily you still get to participate after being unmasked which is at least still fun

Difficulty

I would probably give this about a 3/5 for difficulty. I think that the first few plays are a bit tricky as you learn the best bluffing strategies with the mechanics, but since the game is mostly luck with the action combos and artifact draws, there’s not a lot of planning to be done. If you’re familiar with and a fan bluffing games, you’ll catch onto this one easily.

Final Thoughts

I kind of went back and forth with this one a bit. I definitely thought it was cool and after Grimm Forest, I was excited to see what else could come from this theme/universe, and this was a really fun take on those familiar fairy tale characters. I think the theme and art are on point, and it has some unique elements for a hidden role type game, my favorite thing because that there’s no complete player elimination. I also think it’s great that the game has kind of an “intro mode” and then you can add in all the extras once you understand how things are done.

At first, I felt like there was a lot more strategy to it, because I felt like I was supposed to be deducing more, but really it comes down to more luck and bluffing (i.e. spending 2 of your boon artifact just to psych people out) than any real deduction. Which is fine! It just made the game lighter than I originally thought. My biggest issue, though, was still that gradual increase of points won each round, because in each play I just never saw it as necessary.

But, overall, it was a neat game and I would definitely say give it a try if you’re interested in the mechanics it offers.

My Final Rating: 6/10

Happy Gaming~

Additional Information:
Designers –  Tim Eisner, Ben Eisner, James Hudson
Artists –  Lina Cossette, David Forest
Publishers – Druid City Games, Skybound Games
BGG
BGA

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

If you like what I do, consider Supporting Me.