When I started playing Town of Salem, I was instantly hooked. Town of Salem is a mafia style game where you are given a role, and based on the role you have to perform certain tasks that correspond with your job. Even though this game came out at the end of 2014, it has made a strong recurrence in the Jefferson population.

The game is all about strategy, luck, and how well you are able to identify the signs that someone is lying or not. Being extremely interested in logic games, I find this game to be addicting to the point where I could play at least 10 games back to back. The way the game blends in a concept of the original Mafia games, but also the aesthetic of multiplayer gameplay makes it one of a kind.

The game has three basic modes, normal, custom, and chaos. The normal mode is the simplest form of the game, with only four “teams”, the town, mafia, serial killer, and others. The townspeople, who want to remove all evil, the Mafia, who must kill anyone who does not surrender to them, the Serial Killer, who is out for himself and kills one person every night, and the others such as the Executioner and Jester who both want special tasks to be taken out for themselves. As you get to custom and chaos modes, more characters/teams arise, such as the Arsonists, Vampires, Witches, Survivors, and Werewolves. For custom mode, you can pick and choose which characters you want to be randomly assigned. For chaos, the character list is unknown and you are assigned a random character. My personal favorite is the chaos mode, because it adds suspense to the game, where you could have three of the same character, and none of one, and you would never know.

After you are assigned in a character in whichever mode you chose, nightfall will start shortly. You will most likely have a night task, for example, if you are the Serial Killer, you may pick one person to kill, or a Jailor, who choses a person to lock in jailor to talk to them, and may chose to execute them or not. Once the night is over, the players discuss who they believe is each role, and can chose to lynch one player of their choice. This cycle continually repeats until all of the town members are dead, the mafia are all dead, or everyone but a specific team are dead.

My favorite characters to play are either Jester or Executioner. Jester wants to be lynched by the town. My personal strategy at this is to subtly act like I am the Mafia, in order for people to falsely accuse me. For Executioner, the goal is to lynch your target at any cost. Once that task is achieved, your role changes to the Jester. In order to do this, I usually act as a different character such as an Investigator or Lookout, falsely accuse my target, and play as Jester thereafter.

There are a few changes that might make the experience better for players, such as an addition of characters, like Zombies, who cannot be killed at night, and can cause the player they target to randomly change their night ability. Although the few additions the game could use, the game keeps me entertained for hours, whether it is to play my favorite character, or just go on a winning streak. This game is definitely worth your time and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good gaming experience.