Salem

About this board game

Salem is a 3–7 player game with an approximately 180-minute play time, set during the witch trials of 1692. In a community gripped by fear, lies, and fanatical orthodoxy, players must identify the witches among Salem’s residents while keeping their own identities secret.

Each player controls six residents, three of whom are witches. The game unfolds across four rounds representing June through September 1692, the months when the hysteria reached its height. Every round combines a Witch Hunt, a Witch Trial, and a decision over who will be hanged or spared.

• Witch Hunt: Send residents to jail and provide alibis for your own jailed citizens.
• Witch Trial: At the end of each round, all jailed residents stand trial.
• Hanging: Players collectively decide which residents are executed and which are spared.

The central challenge is discerning witches from villagers while protecting your own residents from suspicion. The player who is most successful at identifying the witches wins, but every decision takes place against a backdrop of collective paranoia.

Salem’s 42 residents are based on real people whose lives were directly touched—and sometimes destroyed—by the historical witch trials. Extensive research shaped their real-life stories, connecting the game’s tense proceedings to the events that unfolded in Salem, Massachusetts, and across New England.

With its four-month structure and focus on fear, accusation, and judgment, Salem recreates the atmosphere of a community convinced that Hell could be found all around it.