Town of Salem is a downloadable flash game that in a way is a reflection of the traditional board mafia game. It is a multiplayer title in which you are assigned either a town role, a mafia role or neutral person role. There is also an expansion of the game which introduces the fourth faction – Coven. Depending on the chosen role, you must either track down the villains or kill the innocent. Town of Salem can be compared to other similar titles such as The Ship: Murder Party or Deceit. The game was released on December 14, 2014. It has been developed by Blank Media Games.
How to Download Town Of Salem
The game can be downloaded for free from the manufacturer’s website or you can a special version on the Steam platform (it has several additions and no in-game ads). To start the download, click on the Download button at the end of the review.
How to Play
The game takes you to the virtual town of Salem where the number of players take part in the game. Their number should be between 7 and 15. After having joined the game, you are randomly assigned one of the 49 unique characters (as of the time of writing, but their number might increase with time). When you are given your role, you must do your best to role-play your character. Depending on who you are in the game, you will have to hunt down the villains or commit crimes and try not to get caught in the process. You have no way of choosing whether you will end up being mafioso, an arsonist, a serial killer, a sheriff or a neutral figure. The selection is random.
The game consists of two main phases – night and day. The day is additionally divided into subphases which are Discussion, Voting, Defense, Judgement, and Last Words. During the night phase, the villains get the opportunity to do harm. The murderers murder, the arsonists set buildings on fire, the doctors heal, and sheriffs interrogate the suspects. In the second phase of the game, ordinary citizens come to the fore, thinking and discussing who can be a bad person. The majority of the voices of the townspeople mean that the suspect goes to a hearing. The next stage of the game is the Defense – the suspect needs to tell a convincing story in order to escape from the gallows. The last phase of Town of Salem is Voting. You can vote or abstain from the verdict. The loser is hanged.
The players can choose their own game settings by choosing the game mode, invite friends, choose your name etc. Players have a choice of 10 maps, 5 death animations, and 20 houses.
Town of Salem runs in a web browser (using Flash technology) or via Steam (which is more stable) and has a website dedicated to it. The site is designed in a similar style to the game itself. You will find there a description of the game, tips, links to social media, forums, news, information on the roles available in the game, and the note about the developers who have created Town of Salem.
The Graphics and the Hardware Requirements
Town of Salem has very nice looking and detailed animated graphics. This is undoubtedly the strong side of production. Another plus is the fact that playing in Town Of Salem does not require you to own a powerful computer. The hardware requirements are virtually none. To play Town of Salem, you must have a processor with 2 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, 1 GB of disk space and broadband internet. Town of Salem has received many positive comments and reviews.
The Roles in Town of Salem
The players in Town of Salem belong to one of the four factions: Town, Mafia, Neutral, and Coven. The goal of the city residents is to lynch all criminals and villains. The members of the Mafia, in turn, want to kill everyone who does not submit to them. The same can be said about Coven. The Neutrals have their own individual agendas and goals.
The city residents (Town) can be divided into the Protective, Support, Investigative, and Killing.
- Among the Protective you find such characters as Bodyguard, Doctor, Crusader, and Trapper
- Support consists of Escort, Mayor, Medium, Retributionist, and Transporter
- Investigative include Investigator, Lookout, Sheriff, Spy, Tracker, and Psychic
- Killing are Jailor, Vampire Hunter, Veteran, and Vigilante
Mafia members can be divided into Support, Deception, and Killing.
- The Supporters are: Blackmailer, Consigliere, Consort, and Ambusher
- The Deception guys are Disguiser, Forger, Framer, Janitor, and Hypnotist
- The Killers are Godfather and Mafioso
The neutral group consists of Benign, Killing, Evil and Chaos.
- In the ranks of the Benign, you find such characters as Amnesiac, Guardian Angel, and Survivor
- The Killers are Arsonist, Juggernaut, Serial Killer, and Werewolf
- The Evil ones include Executioner, Jester, and Witch
- Chaos are Pirate, Plaguebearer, and Vampire
The Coven includes Coven Leader, Potion Master, Hex Master, Necromancer, Poisoner, and Medusa.
The creators of the game are a small team from Austin, Texas. The company started as a two-man crew and was founded in 2014. Currently, BlankMediaGames focuses on the development of Town of Salem, but it doesn’t mean that they are not willing to create new games in the future.
