"Are You Perhaps Team Rocket?" New hidden role card game

[Mathy]

https://www.pokemon.co.jp/ex/omaroke/

Card game where players battle Pokemon and attempt to win for their hidden faction. The Gym Leader must reveal themselves at the start, they and the Gym Trainer play together to defeat all other players. The Challenger attempts to defeat the Gym Leader, while Team Rocket must beat all non-Rocket players with the Gym Leader last.

We don't know much about the gameplay loop, but card images are available at https://www.pokemon.co.jp/ex/omaroke/assets/img/cards/card_XXX.webp from 001 to 058. You can see 30 different Pokemon (all from KANTOOOOOO); other cards include items, events, and the role cards. The battle system looks somewhat complex with all kinds of effects including status conditions and "weather checks" (which are likely related to the weather icons on item/event cards).

It released in China on July 14 and will drop in Japan on Nov 12. I hope it gets an English release, it looks dope.

 

[Lectrys]

Wow, this really sounds like a reskin of a certain card-"mafia" game I played quite a bit named "Bang!" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang!_(card_game) for more details):

• Gym Leader = Bang! Sheriff
• Gym Trainer = Bang! Deputy
• Challenger = Bang! Outlaw
• Team Rocket = Bang! Renegade

I recall never winning as an Outlaw in "Bang!", even though there are often two of them. It was by far the easiest to win as Sheriff/Deputy.

 

[Karxrida]

Wow, this really sounds like a reskin of a certain card-"mafia" game I played quite a bit named "Bang!" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang!_(card_game) for more details):

• Gym Leader = Bang! Sheriff
• Gym Trainer = Bang! Deputy
• Challenger = Bang! Outlaw
• Team Rocket = Bang! Renegade

I recall never winning as an Outlaw in "Bang!", even though there are often two of them. It was by far the easiest to win as Sheriff/Deputy.

Click to collapse...

God, I love Bang! Haven't played it in forever. A Pokémon-flavored reskin would be an easy avenue to get people to try it.

 

[TerrickTerran]

Bang! only works for the sheriff if he's sure who his deputy is. When I played 7 and 8 player games, trust me, the outlaws won more than they lost.

 

[Lectrys]

Bang! only works for the sheriff if he's sure who his deputy is. When I played 7 and 8 player games, trust me, the outlaws won more than they lost.

Click to collapse...

Yeah, once I finally got the opportunity to play in a 6-player game and I rolled outlaw, I won as outlaw and even was among the first to shoot the Sheriff and signal the charge (signalling has been nasty in 5-player Bang! in my experience).

The old iPhone app didn't let me play 6+-player (3-player has no Sheriff and is circular, 4-player has worse balance than 5-player), and schoolmates and university-mates back in the day were generally too low-staffed to go for 6+-player.

Looks like the most interesting part of the implied player balance in the Pokemon version is the implied multi-player Renegade team, though (the solo Renegade has to play as faulty Deputy with a penchant for spread attacks at first in my experience with Bang!, even in 4-player).