Deductio – What’s Eric Playing?

Base price: 11.95€.
2 – 4 players.
play time: ~20 minutes.
BGG Link
<a href="https://publishing.brain-games.com/products/deductio-family-board-game” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Buy directly!
Logged plays: 2 

Full disclosure: A review copy of Deductio was provided by Brain games Publishing.

Yes, I know, I’m always surprised when I review something from Brain games and it’s not ICECOOL. I know they make other games; it’s just that that one is my favorite. It’s nice to have a favorite, but they publish plenty of stuff! They’re usually pretty fun and zany (see Pigasus), so, I’m usually down to clown, as they say. But yeah, prepping for Gen Con so I’m also trying to cover relatively recent releases where I can. With that in mind, let’s see what Deductio has for us!

In Deductio, you’re all about secrets! Clues, hidden numbers, the whole thing. The problem is every turn, you have to give up a bit of information. That’s just the way of the world, unfortunately. Your goal remains simple: guess your opponent’s secret numbers before they can guess yours! Pretty straightforward. Which of you will end up being the super sleuth?

Contents

Setup

Not much, here. Prepare the Clue cards by removing the Reveal a Number cards (the red ones with the icon) based on the player count:

• 2 – 3 players: Use all Reveal a Number cards.
• 4 players: Place two Reveal a Number cards back in the box.

Then, shuffle the Clue cards:

Reveal three face-up. Shuffle the Reveal a Number cards back in. Shuffle the Secret Number cards, dealing each player one. You should be ready to start!

Gameplay

This one’s pretty straightforward. Your goal is to guess three of your opponents’ Secret Numbers before they can guess too many of yours. How do you do it? Each turn you’ll give a Clue about your number or Guess a Secret Number of your opponent. Just make sure to guess right!

If you want to give a Clue, take one of the Clue cards from the center and play it face-up in front of you. It must apply to your Secret Number (you cannot take >= 7 if you have a 5, for instance). Some have additional effects, like letting you look at cards from the top of the Secret Number Deck and then place them on the bottom or giving you a free guess of an opponent’s Secret Number. If none of the Clue cards apply to you, you must take all three and place them horizontally to indicate this. When you refill the Clue cards, if you get a Reveal a Secret Number card, discard it and play the top card of the Secret Number Deck face-up. Any player who had a Clue card saying their number was +1 or -1 any number in the middle (played horizontally) discards it.

If you instead want to guess an opponent’s Secret Number, pick an opponent and give it a go. You can guess any number between 1 and 20, inclusive, though you may not want to guess a number everyone can see. If you guess correctly, they reveal it, give it to you to play face-up, draw a new Secret Number, and discard all of their Clue cards. If you guess incorrectly, you immediately take two Give a Clue actions. Rough.

play continues until any one player has gotten three Secret Number cards. That player wins!

Player Count Differences

There aren’t a ton beyond having more information swirling around and being able to target different players. With more players, there’s a bit more luck infused into the game, just because there are more possible outcomes that can happen between your turns. For instance, I’d be frustrated if, after my turn, the player following me took three Clue cards and then the player after them guessed their number correctly. I could have done that! And worse yet, now I have to take another turn without getting any additional information from anyone, which means I will likely be next on the chopping block. It’s not my favorite outcome. There’s an equilibrium that will likely still settle out over time, but there will potentially be things like this that will pop up. I tend to stick to two players just to keep that ebb and flow relatively consistent, though you’ll have more deduction to do with more players. Worth keeping in mind!

Strategy

• If you’re going to give away too much information on your turn anyways, you might as well guess an opponent’s number. I figure guessing at least entertains the notion that you might be right and then, as a result, leak no information, whereas taking three Clue cards is definitely going to get your opponent a lot closer. It doesn’t always make it a slam dunk, but it’s a whole thing. Might a well shoot for the moon.
• Try not to leak information. You can leak information in a number of ways, like counting off what cards your opponent might have and omitting your number (since they obviously cannot have your number!). If I’m listening and I hear that, well, suddenly I’m a bit more suspicious about why you’re discounting a card that I haven’t seen yet.
• Keep track of your information somehow, both public and private. I usually count silently with my fingers to keep track of how many numbers their card could be. It helps me stay consistent without saying anything out loud.
• Watch your opponents to see if there are specific cards they’re avoiding taking. They might not be able to take those cards. Clue cards, that is. You may be able to read into that, though I wouldn’t trust experienced players to not just do that to throw you off.
• Similarly, try to take cards that will limit your opponents’ options. If you only leave them not-great cards, you might get lucky and end up in a situation where they can’t take any! That’s always ideal.
• It’s not always a bad idea to take cards with abilities; they can be pretty useful. They tend to leak more information than other Clue cards, so the abilities correspond to the dev’s idea of balancing it all out. Sometimes it’s good to take those cards, though; they can give you a ton of information!
• Sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war. You’d be hard-pressed, in an even game, to end up having lost no Secret Numbers, so you might need to sacrifice one or two (especially given certain Clues) to get your opponent to take enough Clues that you can get them.

Pros, Mehs, and Cons

Pros

• A nice and quick deduction game. Very fast! 20 minutes or less, which is always nice.
• Very portable! It’s in one of those tiny small boxes, which I really like for transporting small games. I prefer the form factor of Oink, but these are still pretty efficient.
• Fairly language-agnostic, which is nice. The icons aren’t too tough to learn and the ability cards don’t have any text on them, which is great.
• Pretty easy to teach, which I appreciate. I got through a teach of this in a couple minutes! Super fast.

Mehs

• Humorously, there wasn’t an English rulebook with my copy. Oh well. It happens sometimes! Just funny; I managed to find one online.
• Thematically, a bit bland. Sometimes the games are a bit more thematically abstract. It’s not a big deal, but I love big theme-y deduction games.

Cons

• It’s usually pretty irritating if you can’t play any Clue cards; you leak so much information by having to take three negative clues. You don’t necessarily give the whole thing away, but it feels like it does,
• This is one of those fairly tight games where if you make a wrong move, you may not be able to recover. Plan accordingly. This is common for a lot of types of games. You’re going back and forth, guessing and clueing and guessing again. If you end up on your back foot, your opponent can get you with a lucky guess and either you lose or you’re 0 and 2 and it’s not looking great. That can be rough, but it’s better to know.

Overall: 7.75 / 10

Overall, I like Deductio! It’s a compact little deduction game that plays quickly and doesn’t leave a lot on the table. I don’t think it’s really designed to take the place of some of your more complex deduction games, like The Search for Planet X or anything like that. Instead, it fits nicely into that niche of quick and simple deduction games where you’re looking to solve a quick puzzle and figure something out. Closer in weight to games like The Shipwreck Arcana than something like Cryptid, though that reminds me that it’s been a while since I’ve played Cryptid and I’m looking forward to getting back to that. Regardless, this also works as a way to teach younger players logic and math skills or as a nice warm-up for a more deduction-heavy game night. I’d be down for that. I do wish that the punishment for bad luck (having to play three Clue cards horizontally to indicate that none of them apply) was a bit less severe, since it always feels like I’m basically giving everything away, but it does keep the game fast and loose, so I’m not going to complain too much. If you’re just getting into deduction, you’re looking for a quick game, or you just like guessing numbers, you’ll probably enjoy Deductio! I have had fun with it.

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