The original social deduction game Secret Hitler was released in 2016 and involves players dividing into teams of liberals and fascists. One player is designated as the Secret Hitler, whom the liberals attempt to identify before the fascists can have him elected chancellor.
The new Australian edition will feature several twists to the classic rules: players are divided into teams of citizens, politicians, and the Secret Health Minister. In this version, the politicians don’t know who the Secret Health Minister is either, while the citizens are unaware that the existence of a Secret Health Minister is even legal. A further complication is that the Secret Health Minister may appoint himself to any additional ministry at any time without informing any of the other players.
The politicians can win by enabling the Secret Health Minister to declare a pandemic, thereby gaining unlimited power. There is no way for the citizens to win.
The designers are optimistic about the game’s prospects of success, although the playtesting phase was not without its problems. It was found that the Secret Health Minister would frequently forget which additional portfolios they had assumed responsibility for. The problem was solved by removing the ‘media scrutiny’ round, which was where the Secret Health Minister usually got into trouble. It was subsequently found that excluding media scrutiny had the added benefit of making the game more closely resemble real-life Australian politics.
N.B.: Comparisons made in this article are NOT to Adolf Hitler himself, but to the absurd premise of the party game Secret Hitler. The article is based on this recent news story.
