Night of the Ninja

My early exposure to modern board games happened during college where I learned to play social games like The Resistance and Munchkin. These were very simple games of take that and social deduction. Not bad for first entries but also understandable why these didn't really skyrocket my interest in board games. Plus, at the time I was very much chasing video game development as a dream, so I didn't look closely at the analog counterpart. I'm glad I eventually got into the broader modern board game since there's absolutely interesting and creative designs out there.

Night of the Ninja replaces games in similar vein, such as The Resistance, Werewolf and Avalon. It does so via very quick rounds of play and creates interesting decision spaces during play. It also has meaningful player elimination that doesn’t feel bad since rounds are so quick. Compared to the previous examples, Night of the Ninja doesn't need any "setup" round of finding out who is on your team - in fact, you typically don't learn who is on your team unless you use certain cards to peek at player's faction card.

The ability cards are very powerful, from your standard "eliminate a player" to wild trickster abilities that let you swap people's roles or play a discarded card. Since you're drafting, you'll know what two cards you're passing to the player next to you, even though you won't know if they're friend or foe. Add in the fact that cards have priority you can get into some fun choices of "do I take out the person I know is bad" or "do I remove someone who will act after me in order to not get targetted by them".

Overall, its a really well designed game, quick to play and teach, and allows for very social and interactive sessions. Definitely a keeper in the library.