Welcome to the Ball, friends! We shall all transform beneath our magical masks…
2 – 5 Players | 20 – 40 Minutes | Designed by Tim Eisner,
Ben Eisner & James Hudson
The Grimm Masquerade sees players pointing fingers and throwing accusations, all while trying to keep their own identity hidden. It is a bluffing social deduction game, which doesn’t actually need a massive group of friends for it work well unlike a lot of other social deduction games.
Box Design
The box artwork is absolutely stunning! I find it draws me in so much! It is quite dark, which might make it less appealing to a younger audience, but I think it is still great. The box itself is a really sturdy, fully matte finish which doesn’t distract like a high-gloss box might.
I love the overall graphic design, and the introduction of a bit more colour on the back cover. It shows most of the components on the back, and gives a nice little overview of what the game entails. I don’t like the weird warning sticker as I find it SO distracting and I wonder why this info wasn’t just printed subtly on the box to match the rest of the graphic design.
Each of the inside edges have really subtle border artwork which is not distracting at all and adds a classy feel to the game. The game box was smaller than I was picturing compared to The Grimm Forest (very over-produced, but stunning!) but it still has quite a bit of spare space.
Rulebook
The cover of the rules has the same artwork as the box cover, like literally exactly the same – doesn’t even say ‘rulebook’ on the cover, which isn’t a huge issue or anything, but just seems a bit strange to me.
When you first open the rules, my first impression was “Wow, this is dark.” Like the contrast just seems so extreme in my opinion, which I don’t think needs to be the case, especially in the components images seen below.
As you move further into the rules, it does seem to brighten up a bit, which is strangely inconsistent. Overall, the rulebook is pretty thorough, but not overly long. The font size could maybe be a bit larger, but not a huge issue.
The character artwork is really amazing, and I like that it is spread throughout the rulebook for some added theme.
The back has a really nice group shot of each of the characters which is cute.
Components
All of the punchboard tokens are so nice and thick, and the finish of them is a really nice matte finish which I haven’t felt in many other games.
Everything feels like it is really good quality, which I love.
The cards are all pretty much the same artwork over and over, but they all look really nice and bright in comparison to the other darker elements in the game.
There are a bunch of different things you can add in such as special character abilities and wager cards once you become more advanced. The game also comes with player aid cards, but not only are there regular ones, there are specific ones for a 2 player game which is cool!
The character role cards are really pretty, and easy to understand. They show what character you are, what symbol you want (top left) and what your character wants to avoid (bottom right).
The player discs are pretty basic, but they don’t need to be anything more than what they are. They probably could have even just been cardboard discs.
Game Board
There is a small communal board which is used to track your guesses of who’s who. Players will be adding markers onto this board so others can keep track of which character you aren’t.
Insert
The insert is just a regular folded bit of cardboard to support the components in the middle, with the board going on top.
Thoughts
Overall, I am really pleased with the design of the game, as well as the gameplay! It is all really above average with its production and general graphic design, aside from the minor rulebook contrast complaints.
It is very different compared to The Grimm Forest as far as graphic design and production, as this is much darker and seems almost less family friendly. But that might be intentional from the publishers.
I really don’t have many huge complaints about this game, and I am very excited to play it a bit more soon!
Read Jeremy’s full gameplay review here!
The copy of The Grimm Masquerade used for this review was provided to The Boardgame Detective by Skybound Games
The Boardgame Detective 