New Player Guide

Werewolv.es is a website and community where you can play an online version of the popular game Werewolves. This is also known by the name Mafia and there are many different versions of these games with very similar roles and mechanics with different names. The Werewolv.es "universe" is unique and combines elements of many different varieties of the game.

Werewolves Basics

In the game of Werewolves a small village is under attack by vicious werewolf creatures.

In the basic game there are two teams - a good team called the Village and an evil team called Werewolves. The game is played in rounds called "days" and each day has a night phase and a day phase. During the day all players are free to talk to each other to try and establish who, if anyone, they wish to execute that day. At night time the werewolves can talk in a private chat with each other, whilst the village sleeps. Whilst the village does not have a private chat and are not informed who the other village players are, there are some roles who have special abilities which they can perform at night. Some of these abilities might give more information about what roles people possess.

The village and Evils have a different Win Condition - the village must eliminate all evil players to win the game, the werewolves must eliminate enough village players to gain voting Parity. During the daytime the evil players will be pretending to be villagers in order to stay hidden long enough to win the game.

Your First Game

After creating your account you should first play either a speed game if you want a fast game or a wlf game if you want a long-format game. Speed games take place over 10-15 minutes whereas long-format games can take place over many days.

Pre-Game

Games that are in signup are found in the Lobby. Once you select the game you would like to join you can click the "join" button at the top of the screen and will enter the pre-game chat with your werewolv.es nickname and avatar showing. At this point the game hasn't started yet and you can chat with other players "out of character" as nobody has been assigned a role or faction yet.

It may be several days before the long-format game begins. In this time you will be kicked from the lobby if you don't log into the site at least once every 24 hours. You are free to rejoin a game when you are kicked. Finally when the game is ready to start the game will automatically kick new players and you will get an email inviting you to rejoin. This is the final activity check to ensure you are still active. Once you have completed enough games, you won't be kicked for the activity check any more (but you will still be kicked from the lobby if you don't login for 24 hours).

For short-format games these will either be hosted by a person, who will ask you to confirm your presence in the lobby before the game begins, or if using the Speed Game Bot you will be given instructions by the bot to verify you are ready.

Day 1

When the game begins everyone's real nicknames and avatars will be replaced by a random avatar from a random Theme. The themes are there to conceal your identity and you shouldn't reveal your real life identity in the game as this is considered meta information. You will then be informed by the Moderator what your role in the game is - only you will see this message. If you are evil and a member of the Wolfpack, your team will then automatically say their roles to each other so that you know who they are. Only the wolves will see this.

At this point there will usually be some kind of setup information, telling players what roles are in the game.

Until the allocated night time for that game the players are in Day 1, which has no voting. Usually Day 1 is only one or two hours long before the game goes into the first night.

Night 1

When Night 1 begins what you see will depend on your role and faction. If you are on the Wolfpack team, you will be able to chat to your team, otherwise you won't be able to type anything and you instead only have any night actions you may be able to perform as part of your role.

1. Game name 2. Role Menu 3. Actions menu 4. Day selection / Game history 5. Your avatar (in green text) 6. Your night action, if available (or vote action during the day) 7. Results of night action, if applicable 8. Deaths in the night

Game Name

This is the name of the current game you are in. If you click this it loads the default view of the game, which is the latest event.

Role Menu

This button tells you what your role is, your win conditions and any special abilities you have. You are not allowed to copy/paste any text from this, or to take a screenshot in oder to prove your role.

Actions Menu

This button opens the panel on the right, which is where you vote during the daytime and perform special actions during the night time, if your role has any. During the day this will also display how many votes each player has.

Day/Night selection

In case you want to go back to review something that was said, you can view the chat from other days here.

Your Avatar

Your name and avatar is always highlighted to show who you are.

Night Actions

If you have a night action, this is where it will appear. During the day this button is a vote button.

Results

Your morning report from the moderator informs you of the success or failure of any night actions you took.

Deaths

The player(s) who died in the night are shown here, then the next day begins.

Day 2

From this point on you are playing the game normally - deciding who to execute in the day and performing actions at night.

During the day you must vote - even if that vote is for the "no execution" option. Some people may vote a person and state it is an "ASV" which means "anit-smite vote". If you don't vote for two days in a row, you are automatically killed and removed from the game. If you smite often then you may not be allowed to play future games.

End Game

The game ends when one faction reaches its Win Condition. This can either happen at the start of nightfall or at dawn the next day. At this point the game ends, the winners are declared and a post-game chat occurs with people retaining their in-game avatars but with their real names displayed next to them. The actions panel then displays what role everyone is.