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A corrupt city, subject to vice and avarice, is under the control of vile characters. The seat of power is vacant and waiting for you to take it — unless someone else takes it first.
In Complots, as in the original game Coup, you control two characters and start with two coins, and through trickery, manipulation and bluffing, you want to eliminate all other players who stand in your way, possibly by having them eliminate one another along the way.
The 24-card deck includes four copies of six different characters, each with a unique set of powers:
Duke: Take three coins from the treasury. Block someone from taking foreign aid.
Assassin: Pay three coins and try to assassinate another player's character.
Contessa: Block an assassination attempt against yourself.
Captain: Take two coins from another player, or block someone from stealing coins from you.
Ambassador: Draw two character cards from the Court (the deck), choose which (if any) to exchange with your face-down characters, then return two. Block someone from stealing coins from you.
Inquisitor: Draw one character card from the deck and choose whether or not to exchange it with one of your face-down characters, or force an opponent to show you one of their character cards (their choice). If you wish, you may then force them to draw a new card from the deck. They then shuffle the old card into the deck. Block someone from stealing coins from you.
(Either the Ambassador or the Inquisitor can be used in a game, not both.)
On your turn, you can take any of the actions listed above, regardless of which characters you actually have in front of you, or you can take one of three other actions:
Income: Take one coin from the treasury.
Foreign aid: Take two coins from the treasury.
Coup: Pay seven coins and launch a coup against an opponent, forcing that player to lose an character. (If you have ten coins or more, you must take this action.)
When you take one of the character actions – whether actively on your turn, or defensively in response to someone else's action – that character's action automatically succeeds unless an opponent challenges you. In this case, if you can't (or don't) reveal the appropriate character, you lose an influence, turning one of your characters face-up. Face-up characters cannot be used, and if both of your characters are face-up, you're out of the game.
If you do have the character in question and choose to reveal it, the opponent loses a character of their own, then you shuffle that character into the deck and draw a new one, perhaps getting the same character again and perhaps not.
The last player to still have a face-down character wins the game!
- Follow-up to the successful 'Stuff & Fables'.
- Refined system based on learnings from 'Stuff & Fables'.
- Expected to be released towards the end of the year.
- Subject matter is more mature, not aimed at families with young children.
- Psychological exploration
- Internal mental landscape
- Book system for scenarios
- Stuff & Fables
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- scenario-based — Gameplay progresses through distinct scenarios presented in a book.
- Storytelling — Uses a book system for scenarios, similar to Stuff & Fables.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- one of the actions that I love most from dreamscape with the insight and but now he's added a dice and everybody knows how much I love my dice
- my strategy didn't pay
- The more I played, the more I liked it
- Okay okay okay okay okay now I kind of see the appeal of it
- The rules that I didn't catch and you and Joel played again because I there are some rules I hadn't caught the price time through and it definitely made a big difference to our experience
- He said you don't know how much that means to a person when they and you don't know what's going on but I just wanted to thank you for just brightening up a couple minutes of my day every couple of weeks going through a rough time
- You just never know how you affect people
References (from this video)
- Strong core design due to adherence to design pillars (two-player duel aspect was core to experience)
- Schotten Totten
- Lost Cities
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Blackjack mechanism — The game incorporates a Blackjack mechanism at its core.
- Card game — It is a card game that was designed for two players only.
- lane battler — The basic concept was to create a lane battler in the vein of games like Schotten Totten or Lost Cities.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Design pillars exist so you can reject good ideas.
- Your design pillars are there to serve your intended audience, to ensure that the game is relevant to them, your desired publisher, to make it fit their catalog, and you, to keep you motivated.
- Note that a pillar is quite different to a hook.
- If you do change your hook, it must always be to make the game stronger, to make the hook more appealing in the eyes of publishers and players.
- Playtesters have two important roles: identifying the most enjoyable aspects of your game, and identifying problems.
- Playtesters are often very keen to offer solutions as well, but really that sits outside of their role, and you're under no obligation to implement those suggestions.
- Only you have the full context needed to decide what changes strengthen your game and which transform it into a different game.
- Not every suggestion deserves your attention, and not every problem deserves a solution.
- You've got one job: build the best version of the game that you set out to make.
References (from this video)
- Engaging abstract puzzle feel with a visually interesting geometric theme
- Unique combination of spatial placement and dice-driven arithmetic
- Interactive tension through stealing plots and contesting coins
- Clear, consistent scoring with 10 points per triangle
- Introduction of polykite shapes as a novel component
- Significant randomness due to dice rolls, which can reduce strategic control
- Swinginess may be off-putting for players who prefer deterministic puzzle outcomes
- Learning curve associated with understanding polykites and the interaction between placement and arithmetic
- pattern building, area control, and competitive drafting with geometric pieces
- abstract geometry and spatial puzzle on a modular board using poly kite shapes
- none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- coin resource management — each player starts with a stash of 20 coins; coins are used in conjunction with the arithmetic outcomes to claim triangles and plots; the coin interplay with dice outcomes drives strategic decisions and can be disrupted by higher dice results.
- dice-based arithmetic — two six-sided dice generate numbers; players may multiply, divide, add, or subtract the dice results to reach a target number that interacts with coin-based resources on the board.
- plot/triangle claiming and stealing — triangles or plots on the board can be claimed by a player when the arithmetic target is met and the placement supports it; players may steal plots from opponents when conditions allow, shifting scoring opportunities.
- poly kite placement — players place 13-sided poly kite pieces on the board with the goal of forming triangles of their color, combining spatial reasoning with color control.
- Randomness and swinginess — dice results introduce significant randomness into the game, creating swingy moments that can shift the balance of power between players.
- Resource Management — each player starts with a stash of 20 coins; coins are used in conjunction with the arithmetic outcomes to claim triangles and plots; the coin interplay with dice outcomes drives strategic decisions and can be disrupted by higher dice results.
- scoring per triangle — 10 points are awarded for each triangle of a player's color, providing a stable scoring core that remains relatively constant across game states.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- poly kites which is which is a brand new shape that I knew nothing about that nobody knew anything about before 2023
- So it's very swingy depending on what rolls you get.
- We had a lot of fun playing this one.
- You've got the spatial equation of trying to create those triangles.