Group Therapy

A group session is held with five patients, three patients may be eccentric but are considered sane by the therapist, two players are truly insane though. None of the players know who else is sane or insane. The objective of the sane players is to identify the insane players before the end of the game, either by logic or observation. The insane players will try to misdirect suspicion though, so be aware who to trust..
Jam Site: 
Saxion University of Applied Sciences
Jam year: 
2017
Platforms: 
Non-digital game (board game, card game, physical game, sport, etc.)
Credits: 

Rules of the game

How the game starts:

Players get:

  • A personality and accompanying player tokens
  • Crazy/non-crazy card
  • 10 colored cards

First Round:

  • The first session card is drawn
  • The oldest person starts as the therapist in the first round and chooses the first three players to take part in the session
  • All players vote whether they agree with the team selection, if a majority disagrees, the next player becomes the therapist and can choose a new team
  • All players participating in the session place their brain wave tokens in the middle column of the board
  • The first session card is revealed, card will have a predominant colour (e.g. an orange sunset) and two backstories for the insane patients A and B in different colors.
  • All sane players have to play the predominant colour card. However! Insane players A and B play the crazy colour listed on the session card. Once every game, the insane players can choose to mask their insanity and can play the predominant colour instead.
  • All cards must be played blind, don’t reveal your cards to anyone else.
  • The played cards are then shuffled and revealed to all by the therapist

Second to fifth round:

  • Discuss the results of the previous round! Try to deduce who can be crazy or try to misguide the other players if you are the crazy one!
  • The next player in a clockwise direction becomes therapist this round and tries to construct the best team to find out who are the crazy guys.
  • Remember the crazy patients can lie for just one round, don’t let this fool you!

The group of patients:

Hans Gruber is a hard working first generation immigrant. Hans is full of ambition but has a crippling fear of heights and despises cowboys. He has been in therapy since a traumatic event in the late eighties but hopes for some good news from his therapist.

Sarah has had a rough life, her cats no longer understand her like they used to. She feels the relationship is very uni-directional. After the therapist suggested taking a dog instead she has been quite hostile but maybe this session will be better.

Duck has been in an identity crisis since she was a little chick, she feels like a lesbian woman in a duck’s body. Currently duck is living on top of Sarah’s niece Mary. Life is good for duck but both families can’t except the relationship. Duck hopes to resolve her own identity crisis and the relationship with both families.  

Dave enjoys holidays in the far east. He fully commits to anything he starts and is a true optimist, he will push through where other people may stop. He is an inspiration to the group but may still have a bit of a dark side..

Horse feels like the world is against him. He can’t stand children, conversations and most of all laughter. The therapist’s could only come to one conclusion: Horse is a bit of an asshole...

 

Team