Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2020
Stellar Factory Werewolf Detailed Review
I’ve played all of the commercially available werewolf games, so this is more of a comparison review. If you want to play werewolf, you have two options: make your own cards, or purchase a set of cards/rules/accessories from a publisher. Making your own cards requires either (1) substantial time and effort printing, cutting (and maybe designing) cards, or (2) adapting a deck of cards you already own, such as a traditional deck, to be able to play werewolf. Purchasing a set of werewolf cards tends to be more common, as you can get a deck for about $10-$20.
There are four different publishers that produce werewolf games that can be purchased on Amazon (there are undoubtedly more, but a search for “werewolf game” usually brings these to the forefront: Stellar Factory Werewolf, Werewolf a Party Game (WAPG), Ultimate Werewolf, and Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow. One Night Ultimate Werewolf will also make that list, but it is technically a different game. There are a few other werewolf games available, such as Lupus in Tabula and Are you a Werewolf, but they suffer from a myriad of issues that make them unplayable relative to the other games.
In terms of popularity, Ultimate Werewolf has the most reviews, followed by Miller’s Hollow, then Stellar Factory, then WAPG. However, one thing you’ll notice in that aforementioned search (as of mid 2020), is that the word “Sponsored” appears next to Stellar Factory and WAPG, so the makers of these games have paid for their games to come in at the top of the search, where as Ultimate Werewolf and Miller’s Hollow appear at the top of the search organically. This is one reason that the number of reviews isn’t always a clear indicator of what’s best; just what publishers have paid for in order to get their games to appear at the top of search results.
So how does Stellar Factory Werewolf compare to the other three games? Unfortunately for them, not so well. Here are some of the ways this version of werewolf compares to the competition.
The card quality is very good, but that’s par for the course for all of these games, with the slight exception of Miller’s Hollow, whose odd square shaped cards are definitely of a lesser quality. The art on the cards is minimalist and pleasant, but unremarkable. The cards have very small text on them, and almost no explanations for the roles. The cardbacks have white edges, which is a plus for card games where the cards are constantly handled and shuffled, but that’s mostly irrelevant here as players should really never be handling their cards more than a few seconds each game. The cardbacks suffer from the same issue that Miller’s Hollow does, but even worse: there’s a werewolf on the backs of the cards, so new players often confuse the front and back of the card, and may think they are a werewolf because of the werewolf picture on the cardback. This sort of thing can totally wreck a game, oftentimes quite a bit after the game has been running, which is frustrating for everyone involved. Regardless of the team, the cards all look the same (white background, black text), so to compensate for this low budget printing, the cards for the special roles say “Villager & Seer” or “Villager & Witch”, which is confusing because players will then need an explanation that they are on the village *team*, but they are really a Seer or a Witch, not a plain villager. The art doesn’t make it clear what team the players are on either, though the werewolf team consists of only werewolves, so that makes it pretty obvious for players.
The box the game comes in a tiny, thin card-stock tuck box in which the cards barely fit. It’s the cheapest looking and feeling box of the bunch, and won’t stand up to many plays without tearing (mine tore while I was putting the cards back in the very first time). Also, the box is white, which might make it stand out from other werewolf games, but it’s the opposite of the black cardbacks. On the plus side, it’s the most portable of all of the games, though due to the lack of printed rules (see details below), that benefit is questionable.
One of the biggest issues with this version is that there are no printed rules, aside from some cards that provide a high level summary in very very small text on a few cards. The rules are online only, and while you can print them, they aren’t formatted in a way to make that work well, or that make it so you can fold them down and take them with your cards and tuckbox. The rules themselves are very basic, and will get you playing after reviewing them. There’s a link to a very very short video on how to play, but it’s not very helpful except for providing overall context to the structure of the game.
The game comes with the fewest roles of any of the four games listed above. There are 7 unique roles in the game: Villager, Werewolf, Alpha Werewolf, Seer, Witch, Drunk, and Doctor (I’ll get to the Doctor issue in a second). There are two copies of all of the non-villager/werewolf roles, but nowhere in the rules does it say that you actually can’t use those in the same game. They probably have them there in case you need a backup for a damaged copy, which is a nice thought. There are twenty villager cards, and 10 werewolf cards, both of which are way too many to make a decent game (a game without a reasonable number of special roles gets old really fast). The Drunk role, as per the rules, is broken: The player may not speak, so their role is known instantly as the game begins, thus giving the werewolves a slight advantage, and making the player who has that role pretty much worthless. The Drunk can’t engage in discussions, the werewolves won’t kill them until they find the Seer, so that player is simply an observer. And then there’s the Doctor. The Doctor is a role brought over from Mafia, and really feels out of place in any werewolf game. It does 1/2 of what the Witch does, and causes conflicts with the Witch role if both are used in the same game. The Alpha Wolf is a copy of the Teenage Werewolf from Ultimate Werewolf, without the context or the flavor of the original’s role.
There are extra cards with the game, including 8 cards where you can add your own role (presumably one from one of the other games that have more roles). The unfortunate thing about these cards is the design of them: There’s a generic illustration on them that takes up much of the card, as well as text that says “ Add your own Special Role”, which makes it harder to write the name and description of that special role on the card. In contrast, Ultimate Werewolf comes with blank cards that are actually blank and can be used for this purpose. There are also Game Moderator cards, which can be used to randomly decide who moderates the game. Be careful when using these, as moderating a game well is key to a successful werewolf game, and a player who isn’t good at running things, can’t track night activities well, or who doesn’t pay attention 100% of the time could sour the experience for all involved.
Overall, I’ve given this game two stars. If there were no other werewolf games, it would get more, because the gameplay is still solid, like in all werewolf games. But it’s the worst of the bunch in many ways, and as the price is about the same as the competition, it’s hard to see why anyone would choose this over the other werewolf games that are available.
