In Vino Morte

In Vino Morte (2016) is a party game where the aim is to survive a dinner party. Each turn you are dealt a face-down drinks card and need to decide whether the dealer-host is trying to kill you off or not. It's as much about playing the cards as the people because you use deduction and bluff to decide whether to drink or pass.

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To start, the dealer gives a card to each player facedown. The cards represent a player's dinner party drink and can be either poison or wine. The only rule is that at least one poison and one wine must be dealt out each round and only the dealer knows where these cards are located.

Players then take turns to choose whether to turn over their card or to swap their card with another player. Once play has returned to the dealer, any cards that remain face down are revealed and the players' fates are decided. Wine means you survive and poison means you are eliminated from the game.

As each round progresses, you take turns dealing to the dwindling number of players until one remains and wins. As you can never really know what your card is, play becomes about social deduction. What feuds and pacts have developed and how do you use those to your advantage? This makes the game different depending on the people that are playing and makes what is an incredibly simple premise into such a complex mystery.

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Our examiner, Rob Prior, first checked In Vino Morte 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated yesterday.