In Intrigo the players are pirates on a pirate ship. Half of the ship's crew is loyal to the captain, but the other half is plotting to kill the captain and take control of the ship. Who will come out of this struggle victoriously?

At the start of the game each player will receive a card. On this card is a unique role and a team indication (either red or blue). Many of the roles have some sort of special power. Players do not show their role card to others. Only one player will reveal his role immediately: this is the player which has the captain role (and who is on the blue team).

The blue team wins if they succeed in killing all of the players in the red team. The red team wins if they succeed in killing the captain. However, as long as the blue player with the bodyguard role is alive, the captain cannot be killed by red players.

The game plays in night and day phases, just like in Werewolf. In the first night, the captain and bodyguard will get to know each other. Also, the players on the red team will get to know each other, but only partially: one player on the red team is the team leader. This player will open his eyes ("wake up") and will make eye contact with other red players one-by-one. This means that the red team leader knows who all of the red players are, but all the other red players will only know the red team leader but none of the other team mates.

In the game, players are eliminated at night by roles that become active then (usually red players). Players are also eliminated by day, as at the end of each day usually one player will be nominated to "walk the plank" (and will thus be eliminated). The captain can never be nominated to walk the plank. There are various player roles which can perform special night and day actions. These actions include finding out more about other players, kill them, or protect them.

What sets this game apart from Werewolf is that most of the night actions require the player performing them to actually touch the player to which it is directed. This not only makes it harder to kill players further away from you, it also increases chances that some kind of noise or movement will be felt by the other players (which have their eyes closed during the nights). This in turn gives players during the day 'evidence' to accuse other players of being on the red team, and thus a good candidate to 'walk the plank'!

Intrigo shares game mechanisms with Werewolf (e.g., two teams that battle for victory, day/night phases, hidden roles with special powers) and BANG! (hidden roles and only one role is known to all players).

The game is language-dependent: the texts on the cards are in the Dutch language, and currently there is only a Dutch rule set available.

Games