Red Scare is a social deduction game with Soviets, hidden messages and decoder glasses – and it sounds amazing

The fear of radical communism has never sounded as fun as it does in Red Scare, a new social deduction game from Machi Koro, The Game and Dinosaur Island studio Pandasaurus.

Here’s the deal: half of Red Scare’s players will be given decoder glasses, which sort of look like those naff blue and red 3D glasses from the early noughties, but only with red lenses (oddly, the frames are still split between the colours).

These glasses will allow those players to see secret messages hidden on some of the cards, while stopping them reading other cards.

The players – who are all playing the role of FBI spies trying to sniff out communist double agents among their ranks in order to deport them – then try to work out who they can trust and which information should be believed.

There’s no player elimination (phew) and no moderator, and a complete match takes around 30 minutes for up to 10 players.

Outside of the intriguing use of the glasses (we’re curious to see just how well they work), Red Scare’s US-versus-USSR theme is fantastically illustrated on the box and cards thanks to the artwork of Ian O’Toole, whose work you may recognise from the frankly gorgeous Vinhos and The Gallerist.

So, this is announced now :) Red Scare. Social Deduction. Half the players have decoder glasses half don't. Some cards can only be (1/2) pic.twitter.com/Vh4EqgdcYC

— Pandasaurus Games (@Pandasaurusgame) 28 March 2017