Brouhaha Games is at it again with their newest spooky card game: Hysteria! Taking place during a Dia de los Muertos festival, this 6-9 player game transports players to a Mexican village where they will try to discern who is working for or against the protagonist, Luna. She has wandered through a portal leading her into the land of the dead while searching for her dog, and it seems the residents there don’t want her to leave. Depending on their hidden roles during the game, participants will attempt to affect the discovery of the human girl and bring victory to their side.

Hysteria launches on Kickstarter today, Oct. 13, 2021, and we are using a prototype for this review. The game was designed by Ryan Kelems and Cory Muddiman. Kelems and Muddiman have also designed On Porpoise and Over Under Ostrich. In addition, Muddiman worked on Franklin and Ghost: Bad Guy Brawl. The illustrations for Hysteria were created by Vanessa Morales. Morales is a freelance illustrator based in Mexico who currently works for Disney Hyperion as a cover book artist. Her art is vibrant, colorful, and full of energy. From project to project, Morales holds a unified style that is exhibitory of her heritage and surroundings and we are delighted to see her work represented here.

To get ready for a session, players will arrange themselves around the table and are dealt three cards from the deck after it is set up according to the diagram based on the number of people playing. Each player also receives an Accuse/Peek token as well. The 5 capture tokens are placed within everyone’s reach near the rest of the deck. A player may look at their cards then place them facedown in a row in front of them. It is important to note that once put down, the cards’ order may not be changed. If a player should have at least one human in front of them then that is the side they will be aligned with at the game’s end when cards are revealed. No humans will mean that they are on the side of the otherworldly denizens and are among the winning team if at least 3 humans cards are found and captured during the game.

A game of Hysteria will be played for three rounds and each of those is broke down into several phases that players will participate simultaneously in. The game can end early if the 5th capture token is placed on a card before the end of round 3, but in our plays, we never actually saw that happen. The round begins with each player secretly looking at one card in the possession of the player to their left. They then do the same with one card in front of the player to their right. Once this has been completed by all participants each player will choose one of their cards that do not have a capture token and pass it to the player to their left which is then placed in the empty row space created by the card they themselves passed. In the next step, players may either peek or accuse, but not both. Any given card may only be peeked at or accused once, and a token should be placed on that card as a reminder of which action was taken against it. A peek token will let the token’s owner secretly look at one card anywhere on the table that does not already have a peek or capture token. They may then discuss their findings as truthfully or deceitfully as they so choose. If, on the other hand, a player places an accuse token then a vote is initiated. Players will decide if they wish the accused card to be given one of the limited capture tokens and a tied vote will default to yes. A peek can still be triggered before final voting if one was placed there, and players are free to discuss amongst each other before final votes are placed. When nobody has any more accuse/peek tokens to place or no player wishes to do so, then the round finishes up with each player being dealt an additional card to their row from the deck. After three rounds, or the 5th capture token is placed, reveal all cards with capture tokens. If less than 3 humans were successfully captured then players with any human cards in their row are winners. If 3 or more were captured, however, then any player with a captured human has succumbed to the skeletons’ victory. Of note, if a player has human cards that evaded capture and no captured humans, then they have slinked away and are still considered amongst the victors.

Hysteria is meant to be on the lighter side of social deduction games, but it still is a lot of fun for fans of the genre. We have a hard time keeping track of the numerous variations for classics such as Werewolf that have come out over the years, so it is nice to see something lite and refreshing brought to the table. 6 players minimum can be a tall order for some groups, and we found playing with 5 players and 4 rounds while utilizing the 6 player setup was actually quite a bit of fun. Our prototype had a few card backs get scratched after some plays and a linen finish and/or some more festive art to the backs would be greatly appreciated. Such is the plight of a game reviewer. All that being said, we found Hysteria to be a quick-playing, easy to learn, and fun to work through deduction game.

All photos of Brouhaha Games‘ products were taken and edited by Krista. We also want to thank Daniel Valentin for his assistance with the layout of our featured photo and for taking on the role of cultural consultant as needed for this article as well as other projects we are currently working on.