Betrayal at House on the Hill co-creator teams up with Ascension designer for new traitor game Hyde Society

One of the designers behind Betrayal at House on the Hill has announced a new game with echoes of the traitorous B-movie horror sandbox’s double-crossing twists.

Mike Selinker worked on Betrayal as a designer and developer, before going on to co-create games including the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Axis & Allies and the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

His contribution to Betrayal’s first (and so far only) expansion Widow’s Walk brought him into contact with Justin Gary, the former Magic: The Gathering pro player who co-designed deckbuilding card game Ascension.

“Justin Gary made my favourite game, Ascension,” Selinker said. “So when I found out he felt the same way about Betrayal, I invited him to write a haunt for the Betrayal expansion Widow's Walk. That went so well that we just had to make a game together.”

That game, co-designed by Selinker and Gary, is currently being developed under the working title of Hyde Society.

Described as a “fantastical game set in the Victorian era”, Hyde Society is said to boast a brand new traitor mechanic that harkens back to Selinker’s work on Betrayal’s mid-game twist, where one player could suddenly find themselves working against their former teammates as an evil villain with separate and opposed win conditions. It is the first 'traitor game' from Selinker since Betrayal was released in 2004.

Selinker and Gary’s respective studios, Lone Shark Games and Stoneblade Entertainment, have collaborated on the upcoming “big game” which is confirmed to still be in development. On Twitter, Selinker added that Hyde Society has been in the works around two years.

No further information about Hyde Society, aside from a first teaser image and the tagline “Unleash your true potential”, has been released. No release date has been given, nor an announcement of a Kickstarter campaign (or a lack of one).