A Ruse Reboot! Steampunk Storytelling in a Card Game

September 12, 2014 by deltagamegirl22

Game Salute has a reboot of the card game, Ruse: A Steampunk Storytelling Card Game available on Kickstarter right now. This is a game of wild accusations and flimsy alibis played with a somewhat standard card game mechanic.

In the game, a murder has been committed and you and your friends had the unfortunate luck to placed at the scene of the crime and now you must prove your innocence- or perhaps you did it? Either way, your job is to make the others believe you are not the culprit. You accomplish this by playing cards that place Method, Motive, and Opportunity cards on your fellow players to frame them, and play counters for the frames they try to pin on you. Not too hard, right?

This is a great game to pick up and play right away since it's rules are not over complicated. Then there's the Steampunk theme, which is huge right now and offers a fun opportunity to explore that universe. You can play this game as a straightforward card game with suited play and simply enjoy the fun artwork on the cards, or you can really immerse yourself in the Steampunk theme and make the game so much more!

When you delve deeper into the theme, it's not difficult to make this a true storytelling experience by embelishing the text on the cards as they are played. As seen in the Kickstarter video, you could even take it further with cosplay to really set the tone of the game.