Secret Identity Game Review

Reviewed by Claire Giles

As a family we love to play board games and the kids are always excited to try out new games. Secret Identity does not give away much about the game from the front of the box and it looked like it was aimed at adults rather than children. I wasn’t sure if it would be suitable for my younger kids age 11 but the box states it as suitable from age 10+. The game is for 3-8 persons and takes approximately 30 minutes to play.

The aim of the game is to “guess the hidden identity of your opponents while trying to make them guess yours. Represent your character to the best of your ability by using your Picto card, but remember that each round you will have a new identity and your Picto cards will dwindle. Will you be able to act as a skilled informant and a sharp observer?”

The box was quite heavy and the contents inside are well made from strong thick cardboard not flimsy like some game pieces can be and then end up broken and bent. Inside the box there is:
8 personal safes
64 voting keys (8 per player)
8 mystery keys
8 “30” scoring tokens
90 Picto double-faced cards
150 character double-faced cards
8 markers
1 main game board
Instruction booklet

Unlike the instructions you normally get in games which are unusually one colour and quite boring to look at, the instruction booklet is bright and colourful. It breaks down how to play the game into simple phases and uses pictures and examples to further explain game play. The instructions were easy to understand and after a quick read through I understood how to set up and play the game. They were probably the best instructions I have ever seen in a board game.

To set up the game you simply unfold the game board and place it in the centre of the table. Each person playing picks a coloured marker which they place at the bottom of the board and then get the corresponding colour personal safe and voting keys. Shuffle the character cards and place 8 on the designated spots around the board (cards can be replaced if some characters are not known by all the players). Place the remaining cards to one side as they will be needed throughout the game. Place the mystery keys with the numbers facing downwards on the board and mix them around. Shuffle the Picto cards and deal 10 to each player. The remaining cards will not be needed and can be placed back in the box.

There are 4 rounds per game and new character cards are drawn for each round. At the end of the 4th round the player with the most victory points wins. In the case of a tie the player with the greatest number of Picto cards left wins. To start a round each player picks a mystery key and secretly looks at the number. The number corresponds to a character card on the board and this is the character you will represent and try to get others to guess. You place the mystery key in your personal safe in the allocated slot under the magnetic tab. You then use 1, 2 or 3 Picto cards from the ones you were dealt that you think represent and give best clues to your character and place them in the relevant slots on your personal safe. Only one pictogram should be visible from each card, there are 4 pictograms on each card. On the personal safe there are two different sets of slots. The green slots where you place Picto cards that represent the character and red slots where you place Picto cards that does not represent your character. This seems easy but this all depends on what Picto cards you are dealt and finding ones that represent your character. You do have to get creative if there are no obvious Picto cards that link with your character and this makes it harder for those guessing. Picto cards can only be used once and then discarded and no new ones can be drawn so use them sparingly.

Once each player has put their Picto cards in their safe and shown them to the other players, each player has to vote to guess the characters on the safes. Each player uses their numbered voting key relevant to the character they think it is and places it in the relevant players safe. They do this for every player. Once all players have voted each player lowers the magnetic strip on their personal safe to reveal the mystery key which shows which character they were representing and each player’s voting key guess. If the numbers match, players score points. You score 1 point per opponent that guessed their character and 1 point per character they guessed correctly. You advance on the game board for every point you score. Once each player has revealed their safe and players have moved up the board accordingly the character cards around the board are swapped for new ones from the deck and game play begins again. This continues till 4 rounds are played.

Myself, my husband and our two 11 years olds played the game and all of us easily picked up the rules and game play began quickly. We didn’t need to keep stopping play to refer back to the instructions as often happens when first playing board games. At first look it seemed almost impossible to represent the characters from the Picto cards dealt but when you stopped thinking literally and really took in the cards you came up with some cards to use. The cards used often had guessers scratching their heads as to which character you were and lead to some amusing guesses. Even when you thought your character was obvious from your Picto cards it was often amusing what characters people picked. The game was a lot of fun for us all and the kids can’t wait to play it again. We did alter the game slightly as from looking at the character cards l could tell there were a lot of character cards the kids wouldn’t know so I separated the character cards and put all the ones the kids would know in one pile to use whilst playing with them. I would combine them again if playing with adults. There were a lot of cards that were child friendly characters. The characters are a good mixture including film and cartoon characters, singers, actors, musicians, sports persons, comedians and many other well known figures.

There is a cooperative variant of the game that you can play. To play you only need the game board, a complete set of the same colour (1 personal safe, 8 voting keys and 1 marker), 8 mystery keys and 17 character cards. You deal the relevant number of Picto cards to each player depending on how many are playing (as set out in the instructions).You set up the board as normal with the mystery keys and character cards. During each player’s turn they pick a mystery key and use 1-3 Picto cards to try to get the other players to guess their character. The other players discuss and decide on one character together. If they guess correctly they move forward one space. The active player then discards the character and Picto cards they used and replaces the character card with a new one. The process then starts again with the next player. The game ends after 10 turns when the last character card is placed on the board and the last round is played. Playing the game this way was harder in that all players had to agree on the character guess which led to some interesting discussions on people’s interpretation of the Picto cards but no less fun.

I really liked that resealable bags were included to put the coloured keys, game pieces and cards in so they don’t get mixed up when you put them back in the box. There is nothing worse than going to play a game and on opening the box realising all the pieces and cards have become mixed together in the box and you have to sort them all out before you can start playing!

Though the game is quite simple to play once you understand the rules (which is a good thing), it is obvious that a lot of thought and time has gone into the creation of every aspect of this game.

The game is suitable for adults and children alike. The fact that you can swap the character cards for younger players if they don’t know who the original character card chosen was makes them feel really included. We had a lot of laughs at what characters people guessed from players chosen Picto cards often with amusing results. What may make sense to the person choosing the Picto cards totally baffles the person guessing. It would make a great party game for special occasions and can be played over and over again.

Rating: 5/5

RRP: £27.00

Stockist: Available from www.amazon.co.uk and all good Hobby Stores