Town of Salem 2

I recommend for people who like to do games where lying is your main skill and are able to move the attention elsewhere to steal a win

Town of Salem 2 is a social deduction game, in a similar vein to more well-known examples like Among Us. It is a sequel, and the original game is active and has players just as this game does. The game is themed around Salem, Massachusetts and the Salem Witch Trials, but is lighthearted and goofy and not at all realistic or historically-accurate. Players are randomly assigned a role, which can be anything from a tavern keeper or town mayor to an investigator. These players are all members of the Town. Then there are various witchy roles that are members of the Coven, and both factions' goal is to eliminate all members of the other faction. Alongside the Town and Coven, there are also unique roles that belong to neither faction and have different objectives - the most common example of this is the Serial Killer, who is just trying to kill everyone. The objective of the game is to chat with other players and try to get information about their roles, while also trying to keep your own role somewhat secretive. You actually have to chat and participate with 14 other players, and sometimes lie or deceive others depending on which role you are given. Most roles also have special abilities, which you can use either during the nighttime or daytime in each in-game "day". Most actions occur in the nighttime, and in the daytime the players will all meet in the town square to discuss what happened overnight and vote on which player to hang, or whether to even hang anyone at all. ToS2 is not an easy game to play. There is a steep learning curve, and it takes many hours spent playing and learning the different terminology in the game to really grasp it. So obviously, it will not appeal to every sort of gamer. But the games are really starting to grow on me now. Probably the most important skill to learn in this game is utilizing your in-game "Last Will" to chronicle your actions or things you've seen each night during a match. ...Or else, being able to convincingly lie about this information and make it up as you go, which may take a while due to the understanding you would need to have of how every role works and how many players can exist from each role in the game at once. You will likely need to share your Will with other players at some point to convince them of your trustworthiness, and show that you can account for your actions the past few nights. I'm not great at ToS, but my buddy introduced me to the game a few years ago and we've played it from time to time. I finally tried ToS2 for the first time a few days ago. I'd have to say I like the sequel more than the original game, but there are pros and cons to both games. What are the advantages of ToS2 over the original? Well, you might not notice it immediately, but 2's graphical improvements over the first game are unmistakable. This game also has several different modes/variations on the in-game roles, whereas, people usually wind up with the same mix of roles in the original game. If you want more variety in your games, this is nice. Personally, I also like the customization options in this game better than in the original... To a point. You have more things you can customize about your character's house, and you can even buy furniture and decorate the inside of your house, which is just a fun thing to check out while waiting for 15 players to be found for a new game match. ToS2 is also free to play, whereas the first game has a price of entry. But you are limited to a certain number of games every so many hours, and each game costs one "key" out of the possible 5 or 6 you can accumulate at one time. You could still theoretically enjoy the game just fine without spending a cent on it, but if you enjoy it enough, chances are you'll eventually decide to buy a Town Deed and gain access to unlimited games and get some in-game currency to customize some things. ...But we can't talk about this game without also sharing its cons. And boy, there are a lot of those: Firstly, ToS2 is glitchy. Sometimes it will give you a hard time whenever you go to purchase something in the game, which is weird because why wouldn't they want your money? There is a "daily deal" option that pops up on the main menu, and mine offered me the middle-tiered Town Deed option for $1 off of normal price. Whenever I tried to take advantage of this offer, it wouldn't work. I had to instead buy the town deed through the usual menu you buy that from. (I just settled on the cheapest option.) My friend expressed similar issues with trying to buy in-game currency, and how it worked for him in some increments but not others. Secondly, no two players in a 15-player match can play as the came exact character. You can set your preference for who you'd like to join matches as, but it's all first-come, first-serve. Furthermore, many characters have unique skins you can purchase, but you still can't join matches as a variant of another character that is already in a match. So you will sometimes play games as characters you don't really want to be, but just settle on. Going along with that second point, ToS2 is also really lacking in character and skin options. I get that the first game was around a lot longer and built up a cult following, so of course it will have more content available in it. But the selection is fairly bare-bones. Though, maybe in time more stuff will eventually be added. You are also extremely limited on map variants for the town, as well as death animations. The game could really use fresh batches of content. Some roles were changed from ToS1, some were given different names, and some roles appear to be missing, entirely. A glaring example of this is the Mafia, a faction that dominated most matches in the original game, but now seems non-existent. There is still a Mafia bundle you can buy for this game, but this just includes Mafia-inspired character skins and other cosmetic customization options. The roles generally associated with the Mafia have been reworked into Coven roles for this game. Honestly, it makes more sense because the Town VS Coven theme makes a lot more sense than Town VS Mafia, but still, it would have been cool to have some of those beloved roles from the original game stick around. It's also somehow become more archaic to get into a party with your pals, requiring you to create a party and give your friend the code to enter the party, and then search for casual, ranked or special game types from there to join as a group. In some ways this is better, but in some ways it's a lot less simple than just sending your buddies a quick invite and having them join your queue. Lastly there's just the fact of the matter that the community for ToS and ToS2 are broken up between two different games. Many people may question the need for 2 different ToS games to exist simultaneously. But fortunately, both seem to have active players and both have their own pros and cons going for them, so choices are good! Despite its flaws, I have warmed up to ToS2 pretty quickly, and I seem to enjoy it a bit more than the OG. I would hope that people continue to support the game and stay active on it, and hopefully its team will be inspired to keep updating the game and releasing new content for it.