What is One Night Ultimate Werewolf?
One Night Ultimate Werewolf (ONUW) and the Daybreak expansion are social-deduction card games published by Bézier Games. Due to circumstances outside of my control, I became addicted to these games on an island in 2024. They might be the greatest games ever created, but I'm not a scientist.
What is this?
This is a virtual web client I made to play a minor variation on ONUW with college and online friends, who don't need to read this preamble because either they already know or I'm about to explain it to them. I mean, I won't stop them, but they don't need to.
How do I play ONUW (traditionally)?
[open long answer]
It's based on the social deduction game Werewolf with the notable exception that it takes place over one in-game night, hence the title. And the subsequent day, also. Also there are more than two or three roles, and their individual actions are much more involved, so incriminating a player is more complicated than saying "hey, I heard Tommy shuffling around when the moderator said 'werewolves.'" Also there's no moderator. But there is a Werewolf.
For a game of N players, N+3 cards are selected. The cards are shuffled and distributed: one to each player, the remaining three face-down in the center. Everyone looks at their role in secret, then places it face-down in front of them and closes their eyes.
NightA voiceover from an app or an experienced player commands each role individually to open their eyes, perform a certain action, and close their eyes again. Some roles will be in the center rather than in front of a player, so not all roles will have their corresponding action performed. As instructed, players might view other cards, swap cards around, or distribute other pieces such as artifacts.
During the night phase, some cards will be swapped around, and players may learn that the card in front of them has changed. However, they will only ever perform the action corresponding to the role they started with. Each role's night action is described in the tooltip in this client. Significantly, werewolves in this game do not kill other players at night.
DayAfter every role has performed their night action, everyone opens their eyes. Some cards will have been swapped around, so some players may have a different card in front of them than they fell asleep with. However, players do not get to check their new roles. Instead, everyone discusses the events of the night phase to semi-collaboratively attempt to reconstruct the true state of the board.
No one player will have the full picture. Figuring out who you are is highly important, as each player's team alignment and therefore win condition is based around their role at this time. Maybe you were innocent as hell when you went to sleep, but some roles got switched around and now you're some evil lycanthrope. And maybe you don't even know it!
Anyone may lie, be honest, betray their team, be loyal, whatever they want. Total freedom, but you do have to be nice. The village, wolves, and tanner teams all have different objectives, and they will attempt to manipulate the discussion accordingly. Players have five minutes to come to a conclusion, and then everyone must vote.
VotingAfter five minutes have passed, everyone must simultaneously point at ("vote for") any player. Each player has exactly one vote, and it may go to anyone including themself. Whoever receives the most votes dies. If multiple players are tied, then all of them die, unless all players are tied (i.e., every player earned exactly one vote), in which case no one dies.
Win conditionsVillage team: At least one wolf dies. If there are no wolves, no one dies.
Wolves team: No wolves die.
Tanner team: Die. (You, specifically, not another tanner.)
And that is the end of a game of ONUW. One night. And the subsequent day.
How do I play your minor variation on ONUW?
[open long answer]
Well, hey, it's not just mine. Let's not discount Toadette and Malice and everybody. But it's the same as ONUW, except:
We don't do the "five minute time limit" thing. What's the rush?
The number of cards per player can vary, and also may be inconsistent between players.
In the night phase: players will wake up when any of their roles are called and perform the corresponding action. Descriptions of night actions within this client have been adapted around this idea, but function identically to standard ONUW in one-card-each games.
In the day phase: team is decided on a per-player basis rather than a per-role basis. Team alignment is decided based on the following hierarchy: tanner overides wolf overrides village. If the curator is in play, artifacts like Cudgel of the Tanner override team alignment. Win conditions follow from teams exactly as usual.
The number of cards in the center can vary.
With this, the Seer (who by default may view two cards in the center) can have her card-view-count altered.
The Curator and artifacts work a little different.
Optionally, we gave the Curator (who by default gives any player an artifact) the additional ability to reveal one un-given artifact in the center.
The Doppy‑Curator may then give the face-up artifact to any player, but it has to be face-down.
The Dagger of the Traitor artifact inverts a player's win condition. (Usually, it just makes you want someone on your team to die, so this is synonymous for the wolves team.)
What's all this Doppy business?
We use trochaic nicknames for most roles. Doppy refers to the Doppelganger, and Doppy‑Somebody refers to a Doppelganger who has seen and become that Somebody.
How do I use this client?
[open long answer]
This client is intended for use by 3-10 players communicating remotely, e.g. via Discord call. It relies on no network communication, instead depending on players to communicate small amounts of encoded information ("action encodings") at the end of each gameplay phase. The client emulates the setup and night phase, provides a board visual for the day phase, and emulates the voting phase.
Player data (names, card counts) are input on the left.
A selection of cards and artifacts can be chosen (click to toggle) in the center panel. For the game to begin, the number of roles selected must equal the sum of all player card counts and the center card count on the left.
A random seed must be input in the bottom panel. This determines how the deck is shuffled and distributed, so it should be changed every game. This panel also includes options for generating and loading savedata. Savedata concisely represents all setup information. You can copy and send savedata to your group, and their clients will load in the exact setup information you are using.
It is important that all players in a session are using identical setup information. If your client thinks there are three players in play and mine thinks there are five, the roles will be distributed differently.
Once everyone is ready to play, everyone should identify themselves in the bottom-right panel and click START.
Night
Example night.
The night phase operates through a terminal at the bottom of the client. At the start of the night, each player receives a list of their cards in the same order that they appear face-down in the center panel. Players are given instructions for their roles through this terminal.
The night phase is divided into up to six sub-phases: Sentry, Doppy, Seey, Swappy, Somny, and Twoppy. At the end of each* sub-phase, players must collect and enter all action encodings from all other players in the bottom-right panel. This allows all players' actions to be replicated on all other players' clients. For instance, if I Rob your Insomniac during the Swappy phase, the card will have been swapped on your client by the time you wake up to view it during the Somny phase.
* If the Paranormal Investigator is not in play, there will be no action encodings to report for the Seey phase.
Once all action encodings are entered, players may proceed to the next sub-phase. After all sub-phases are complete, the night phase is over.
DayAt the start of the Day phase, a button to lower the terminal (which contains all confidential night-action information) appears. Upon being pressed, draggable "pips" appear representing all roles in play. A player may choose to livestream their display and use these pips to facilitate discussion. (This creates a natural digital equivalent for the Shroud of Shame.) Pips can also be right-clicked to turn grey; you might use this to distinguish confirmed and skeptical claims.
Please enjoy this customary example pip. (Try clicking and dragging...)
VotingOnce all players are ready to vote, click "all players are ready to vote." Each player will be given voting options, which must be shared in the same manner as action encodings. The client tallies up the votes, determines who dies, and then provides the option to reveal all roles as of the end of the game.
The client is misbehaving! or: I have some question or suggestion for this!
Hey, I'm sorry to hear that, first guy. This is still a pretty early project as of writing. You can click here to visit the Neocities profile on which this client is stored, and you can leave me a comment there. Honestly though odds are if you're using this you know me, so you can just text me too.