Death by Digits

Death by Digits is a simplified cluedo card game. At the start, the deck of numbered cards is distributed over the players, but a few of them are not given to anyone. They are placed to the side, facedown—and you win the game if you’re the first to (correctly) guess which numbers are not present in the game!

Every turn, you can do one of three actions to get more information about what other players have on their hand (such as guessing their highest/lowest card), or what’s in the shared evidence pile in the center of the table. Use your limited moves strategically and be the first to figure out which numbers are missing!

What’s Special?

This is a very simple premise that I always wanted to use for a game. Over the past 5 years, I’ve probably written down a “guess the missing numbers” or “murder by numbers” idea 10+ times. But all of them didn’t work because I found no concrete, simple gameplay to get there. I could find no simple rules and actions that would reveal information over time, but in just the right doses.

Until, after enough time and enough experience making games, I finally saw the simple rules that would make it possible!

The final game ended up so simple and streamlined, in fact, that it was almost entirely made in just a few days.

It’s rare for me to stick with an idea so long without actually finding a way forward. I guess the only other project of this type is my desire to make “a game like Werewolf/Mafia but better”, which I still haven’t figured out either. Maybe someday.