At the end of the game, the murder will have either been caught or will have evaded the investigators. If the murder evaded the investigators the murder and accomplice have won. If the murder was caught by pinpointing both needed pieces of evidence, then they have one more chance to win, they may discuss with their accomplice and choose a character they think the witness maybe if they are correct the murder and accomplice win. If the witness is left alive, then all investigators and forensic scientist win the game. VARIANT

Evidence collection– the Forensic Scientist places one of each of their six bullet markers on the six Scene tiles in front of them. They should put the marker on a word they think relates to the nature of the crime to tip-off the Investigators. The Investigators can freely discuss the evidence as it is laid out before them, while the Murderer must try and subvert their investigation. During the game, the Forensic Scientist is NOT allowed to hint to the solution with words, gestures, or eyes. The eight new scene cards also add a whole other avenue of discussion to the base game. Deception: Undercover Allies Unboxing Deception: Murder in Hong Kong Special roles like the forensic scientist have access to the solution but can only communicate using special scene tiles while the rest of the group interpret the evidence. As far as player count goes, we’ve enjoyed the game as much with 4 as we have with 9. With only 4 players it’s very difficult for the Murderer to escape. And with more players we love having an Accomplice and Witness in the game.The Accomplice is an optional role for games with six or more players. The Accomplice knows who the Murderer is, as well as the solution to the crime. The Accomplice and Murderer both win if the Murderer gets away with his crime. The next stage of set up involves the role cards. The number of investigators can change depending on the number of players. Overall, though, it’s incredibly fun and probably one of the best social deduction games out there. Players of all experience levels can’t help but get drawn into the theorizing, and it’s incredibly easy to learn, making it a great option for a mixed group. After The first round of investigation, a second round will begin. The forensic scientist will draw a new brown evidence tile and will need to replace it with one of the other tiles, it may not replace the purple and green tile. Once the tile has been replaced the forensic scientist will place the marker on the evidence they wish to present to the investigators. Inside Man, please open your eyes and point to any 1 player to have their Badge token removed". The Forensic Scientist should make a mental note of the player selected then say, "Inside Man, close your eyes", and verify that they have done so.

The Forensic Scientist announces, "Murderer, indicate the 'Key Evidence' and 'Means of Murder.'" The Murderer then points to one of their Clue cards and one of their Means cards. The set-up is pretty straightforward. Shuffle the blue ‘means of murder’ cards and the red ‘key evidence’ cards, and place four of each in front of each player. Then give each player a badge token. Put out the ‘cause of death’ tile and the four location tiles, before putting the remaining tiles face-down in a draw pile. Place the bullet markers on the table. At this point, each player is given their secret role card. That’s right, there’s a whole lot of cards in the box, and they’re all nicely designed. The tiles and tokens look really good, too, and are all made of really strong stuff, so they will easily be able to last many a high-energy game. The wooden bullet markers are a nice touch, as well. The Forensic Scientist should then say, "Lab Technician, close your eyes", and verify that they have done so.Typically at our monthly Guys Game Night we play a few different games during an evening. This month however, Deception ended up being the only game we played with the 8-person group. Speaking of time, there’s a lot of non-game time in Deception. Most of that is spent looking over all of the cards before the game actually begins. For the murderer to select cards that’ll provide a good challenge, they need to try to hide among similar cards. To allow for that, some time needs to be set aside for everyone to just…look. The box says the game plays up to 12 people, and if that’s the case you’re looking at nearly 100 tiny cards with frustratingly small text. Even with half the number of people and cards there’s a not-insignificant amount of silent staring at the beginning of the game where only one person really cares about the information gained. Then there are three entire rounds of discussion and guesswork without a whole lot of information gained before final guesses are due. A new phase (referred to as the Allies Phase) must occur between the end of step 2a - First Round of Evidence Collection and the beginning of step 2b - Second Round of Evidence Collection. Deception: Murder in Hong Kongis one of our favorite games. Over the last year and a half we have loved playing it at conventions and chatting with fans about their best investigations, biggest blunders, and more. The Forensic Scientist can place the bullets as fast or slowly as he’d like. In many cases it helps to wait for the Investigators to discuss current clues before adding more. This way he can direct the discussions toward the correct cards.

Deception has been such a hit in our family that it’s shot past a ton of other games on our “to review” shelf. The forensic scientist will then try to answer some questions about the crime to help all detectives find who the killer is, and what was their M.O. and which key evidence they left behind. The forensic scientist cannot say anything else to the detectives.To setup the scene all event scene tile (which have blue text and paragraph information on them) should be returned to the box. These are used for a variant which can be played with in later rounds. Having played it so many times in such a short period of time, you might think we’d be burned out. But we’re not! Murder in Hong Kong is a deduction-and- deception game for 4-12 players that takes about 20 minutes to complete. Players must assume the role of investigators in the game, attempting to solve a murder case while avoiding danger. One of the detectives in this case is the murderer. She’s also not a fan of bluffing games. Games that involve any type of deceit don’t go over well in her book. Yet for a game called “Deception” there isn’t any lying involved. The person who is the murderer isn’t telling people that he’s not the murderer. Instead, he’s simply suggesting cards in front of the other players that may incriminate them. The possible combos are always so varied.