Scape Goat Review – The Game That Forces You to Face Your Insecurities

There are a lot of things I dislike: discrimination, celery, and social deduction games. Yet, whenever I dislike a genre of board games, I challenge myself to find the one game that proves my preconceptions wrong. Cue Scape Goat.

A game where your crack squad of goat thieves has not only passed over the troll under the bridge but stolen everything from him as well.

And you’ve just pulled off your greatest caper yet.

Stealing the golden hoof right out of the most secure bank in Barn City.

But back at your pad, as you’re celebrating clinking wheat-grass shots, or whatever goats do when they’re happy, you hear the bleating of a police siren.

With glazed, bulging eyes you look at your team. There’s not enough time for all of your team to escape. This time someone is going to take the fall for this.

And it ain’t going to be me!

Reverse social deduction

Scape Goat is the one social deduction game I’ve played where you know everyone else’s role, except your own. At the start of the game, everyone is given the identity of the scapegoat, except for one person.

The scapegoat.

They’re shown the scapegoat is someone else. But they’re thinking, like everyone else, they’re being shown who the real scapegoat is.

So, as you’re playing, instead of trying to find out other people’s identities. You’re trying to figure out if you’re the scapegoat. It’s a journey of self-discovery to see if your friends are ganging up on you, or not.

This creates a lot of paranoia, where you over-analyse each action wondering if it’s to help or hinder your efforts. It’s this paranoia that drives the game. Enabled by the Go To The Cops action, which allows anyone to go to the cops on their turn and end the game.

Only, if someone does this, the scapegoat wins and everyone else loses. This keeps the end of the game one wrong twitch away from ending in favour of the scapegoat.

Naturally, this happens more often than you’d think.

Although, in these circumstances, the scapegoat is more befuddled than the player who went to the cops.

In this way, Scape Goat forces you to confront your insecurities head-on. Leaving you to question and overthink everyone else’s moves and motives. Where each someone makes, leaves you wondering: am I the scapegoat?

Why not rely on logic?

As mentioned when the paranoia is there, the Scape Goat will keep you on the edge of your seat, and you’ll love every second of playing. However, I found after a few plays, this level of paranoia waned.

At some point, I had the realisation that you’re probably not the scapegoat. If you look at the percentages, there’s only a 30% chance you’re the scapegoat if playing with three, while only 20% if playing with five.

Given this, optimal play dictates you can be confident you’re not the scapegoat, and playing as such will lead to more wins over time. While this isn’t playing in the spirit of the game, nothing is stopping you from playing like this, and when you have trouble reading other people.

Well, why not rely on logic?

There should be little difference between how you play within games, and you should only Go To The Cops if something is wrong.

This way of thinking leads to stagnating gameplay, whereas other social deduction games, like One Night Ultimate Werewolf, and The Resistance: Avalon get around this by introducing new roles. There are only two roles in Scape Goat: scapegoat and not-a-scapegoat.

Unfortunately, this means that after a while, games are going to end up feeling like a repeat of the one you’ve played before.

Bring on Version 2.0

Scape Goat is a fresh and fascinating take on the social deduction genre. It’s one of the few games in the genre I’ve enjoyed playing because it lacks that element of emotional manipulation. Another great game that does this well is Deception: Murder in Hong Kong.

So, if you’re looking for a game that plays against type. Or looking for something that plays up to six, and is a bit different. Then consider picking up Scape Goat. It provides an experience that has yet to be replicated by another game.

However, be aware that you may not get too much mileage from the game. While the game is fresh you’ll get an awesome experience, and introducing it to new people will also breathe life into the game. But if you’re playing with the same group of people over and over, you’ll probably drain the life out of it quickly, like you are some sort of enjoyment vampire.

Overall, I was happy with Scape Goat, it’s a cheap game and I got more than my money’s worth from it. However, it felt like it was missing that extra level of gameplay that would have me champing at the bit to play over and over again.

This is definitely something a sequel could fix.

So to Jon Perry, and Indie Boards & Cards, I beg of you, when can I have it?