Disciple Detective

About this board game

Disciple Detective is a deduction game for 2–5 players that plays in about 20 minutes. Each player holds a handful of Disciples visible only to the other players, creating a shared challenge of observation, reasoning, and intuition.

On each turn, choose one of three actions: Give a Trait Clue, Order Players’ Hands, or Guess a Disciple. Trait clues identify a feature shared by selected cards, while ordering lets players arrange each other player’s hand in chronological order. When you think you know one of your own cards, raise it and name the Disciple.

• Trait clues: Select a trait, such as known origin, and touch every card showing it.
• Hand ordering: Arrange each other player’s cards in chronological order.
• Disciple guesses: Correct guesses let you discard the identified card and draw a replacement.
• Dry-erase notes: Use the backs of cards to record deductions and track possibilities.

Actions normally spend a Clue Token. A correct guess rewards the player with either a free action or the chance to take back a Clue Token, but if the team runs out, everyone loses. Some Disciples also have quirks—special rules that make giving and interpreting clues more difficult.

In the cooperative version, the group works together to deduce every Disciple in the deck before the Clue Tokens are gone. The competitive version gives each player a separate group to identify; clues are received instead of given, and the first player to deduce their starting Disciples wins. With its compact play time and escalating puzzle of hidden information, Disciple Detective turns every clue into a carefully weighed decision.