Get Adler! Review – Lying Like Your Pants Are Safely On Fire

Disclaimer: Get Adler! was provided for free by Caper Games, although the writing and opinions of this article are my own.

The 1930s were the golden age of villainy. Sherlock Holmes is dead (twice!), James Bond is not yet born, and there’s a rogue MI6 agent by the name of Adler running amok. It’s up to you and your friends to find this agent’s identity and Get Adler!

While Get Adler! begins in typical social deduction fashion, with everyone receiving an identity card for their eyes only. It quickly goes off-script by breaking the game into two phases.

The first of these is an investigation phase. Lasting at least three rounds, players play cards from their hand and take the card’s action. For instance, playing a binoculars card lets you take a card from another player, while a magnifying glass lets you another player’s hand.

While you’re taking turns like this you’re not allowed to communicate with the other players. The one exception is when you play a question mark card. This allows you to ask each other Guess Who type questions about player’s identity cards. Questions like; Is your hair blonde? Do you wear glasses? You know the type.

Every player must answer these questions truthfully, except for Adler. They can lie as though their pants are on fire.

Once the fourth round begins, you can start playing the handcuff cards and attempt to arrest other players. However, if you arrest a fellow investigator, then the pure shame of it all causes you both to lose a turn. If, however, you arrest Adler or their sidekick. Then the game moves into The Confrontation.

During The Confrontation, you and the rest of the good guys attempt to capture Adler. Starting with the black-hatted miscreant, Adler plays a card from their hand. Most often this will be a location they escape to, in which case the inspectors must play a matching location, or Adler escapes and play resumes as normal. However, there are a few other tricks Adler has up their sleeves.

Play continues until either Adler is caught, or escapes after the 7th round. If Adler escapes with a Top Secret card in their hand they win. Otherwise, it’s the good guy’s victory with tea and biscuits all around.

On the hunt for a rogue agent

While the investigation phase is primarily about identifying Adler, players also need to start strategically stacking their hands. Preparing for the confrontation to come. Collecting locations and guns so that they’re powered up for the chase to come.

However, doing so makes you look awfully suspicious. Without the ability to defend yourself with words, you must also try to prove to the group your innocence through actions. Discarding cards that Adler would rather keep. But then Adler could easily do the same.

Having these two goals at cross-purposes to each other is what makes Get Adler! stand out from other games of the genre. It feels more grounded in logic and provable actions rather than picking on someone because they said the wrong thing.

Not to mention you’re not allowed to communicate. Meaning your thoughts are isolated from the rest of the table. It doesn’t allow for a charismatic player to ruin the puzzle and lets you come up with your own conclusions.

The Confrontation in Get Adler! changes the game from one of ruination to an action-packed sequence straight out of Casino Royale. With Adler playing cards and receiving swift response from the inspectors. It’s a game of cat and mouse that gets more intense as the game nears its end.

Rough around the edges

Being an indie game allows Get Adler! to take risks and break genre conventions. However, it also means that some things aren’t up to the same level of polish as the bigger publishers. For instance, the cards rely on you knowing what the pictures are, instead of providing you with the information on the card.

In their defence, there is a cheat sheet on the back of the player’s appearance board. But even then it’s not the best laid out and still leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

This is one example, but there are several other small issues within Get Adler! By themselves not an issue, but together they paint a picture of lack of polish. Or lack of experience about what other card games are doing these days.

This is an absolute shame because Get Adler! feels like a diamond in the rough. As far as social deduction games, it brings a lot of new ideas to a somewhat tired genre of board games. However, it doesn’t go far enough with these ideas to take it from good to great.

One example is there isn’t enough card manipulation to overturn bad luck. In some games we played, Adler didn’t draw an intel card all game and lost. In other games, Adler drew nothing but escape cards and we couldn’t catch the slippery bugger.

Get Adler! has all the bearings of a cult classic. Enough rough edges to dissuade the general populace, but then enough inspired game design to enthral board gamers tired of the same old social deduction formula.

So much so, that if these issues were fixed tomorrow I would instantly buy a new copy. International shipping be damned!