Pitchfork-wielding villagers hunt hairy shapeshifters in One Night Ultimate Werewolf

Do you have a cunning plan?

Furry fury fun

Day phase is when all the players open their eyes again. The catch, though, is you can't glance at your card to see what it has changed to.

Maybe you were the drunk, who blindly swapped cards with a middle card. Maybe the seer saw it and knows your true identity. Or maybe, it's exactly the same card you started with, and you're a werewolf.

The point of the daytime phase is to start flinging around accusations, or revealing tidbits of information to try to work out who's lying.

Play-testing this game resulted in some heated debates and wild stories being made up on the fly, and, for my money, it's this aspect of One Night Ultimate Werewolf that makes it really enjoyable. You don't know who's on your team for the majority of situations, and your gut instinct will most likely prove unreliable.

Once the timer has counted down to zero, everyone votes on who the group is murdering. Voting is carried out by a simple finger point – democratically, the most fingers gets it. In the event of a dead heat, all tied players are killed.

The winner is determined by who carked it. As long as at least one werewolf died, the villagers win. If the werewolf body count is zilch at the end of the game, the shapeshifting creatures are victorious. If dying is too harsh, you could always say the victims were taken to a farm to live out the rest of their days.

There are 16 cards in this game and 16 round tokens that match the cards. These are used as a reminder of what cards are in the game and can be pushed around the table when sleuthing the players' roles in the day phase.

I found that the surface of the cards started to wear slightly only a few games in, but that doesn't really affect the game as the tops of the cards remain unscathed by how the game plays. If you really want to keep the cards pristine, invest in some plastic card sleeves. Instructions – if you really have to go there – included are well written and easy to follow, with a clear breakdown of each role, which will probably be referred to while learning the game.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf has a free companion app, available on Apple's iOS and Google's Android. I highly recommend using this, as it reads out all the roles for the night phase and gives clear instructions for everybody to follow, while setting the mood rather fittingly. The app lets you select which cards are in play, along with customisation options allowing for some rule and time adjustments.

I've played this game many times over several sessions, and it's one of my favourites. Each game is different, as the roles get mixed up between players, or different roles are added and removed from the game. It’s easy to utter the line "just one more game!" and this was heard frequently. It's a game you want to have another shot at, especially as you know it will only take ten minutes.

As far as longevity goes, no one that we play tested with became tired of the game. Even if you do get screwed over in some outrageous way, the next game will surely be different. The game is for three to 10 players, but best played with four to eight people.

I'd recommend One Night Ultimate Werewolf to anyone who is vaguely interested in a fun, furry game of outfoxing – or even outwerewolving – their mates. Price wise, it's at the lower end of games and you should get value for money (retails at around £20 in the UK). It can take a few playthroughs to really get it, as knowing the roles really helps when you're pretending to be the werewolf ... or are you? ®