H.I.D.E. (Hidden Identity Dice Espionage), Game Review

Originally published by Utah Geek Magazine.

Secret agents keep secrets. The better you are at hiding who you are and your mission, the better the rewards. While working to stay in the shadows, you also work at revealing those trying to force you out.

H.I.D.E. (Hidden Identity Dice Espionage), designed by Keewoong Kim and distributed by Mayday Games, puts each player in the role of a secret agent. You're working to keep your identity and agenda secret while exposing other players.

H.I.D.E. uses a pool of dice that are four different colors and marked with the four different missions. Players randomly select a die from the pool and stash it in their hideout. The color is random, but players select their mission. Missions are given a random monetary value. You can earn more money by outing other agents.

After selecting your mission, four dice are randomly selected and rolled. These dice will provide information about your hidden die. In order, players select one of the rolled dice and place it in one of two locations in front of them. One location lets everyone know the color and mission do not match your hidden die. Thus, the other location must match some piece of information about your die. This gives away more information, but it gives an additional advantage.

By revealing more about yourself, you can attempt to expose another player. You make a call about their hidden die. If you are right about both the color and the mission, they’re removed from the rest of this round (not the game)—and you earn a rank and any available reward.

After four phases of dice rolling, those players still in the round complete their missions and collect the reward. If multiple players are going after the same mission, there’s a shootout. This goes back to how players selected and placed the dice in front of them earlier in the phase. Dice previously placed to reveal more information are used in the shootout. This is an added advantage of where you place the die you select.

Players have a gadget card to help them out during each of the rounds. Timing the use of the card can make a difference in the round. You can use it to change the icon on one of the rolled dice, or possibly during a shootout.

There are two ways to win. First, the player with the most money wins after three rounds. You can also win if, at any time, a player gains a fifth rank. Ranks are gained by taking another player out of a round, so this can end a game early. In our games this didn't happen because a player's reward for taking out another player is collecting the removed player's rank cards as their reward. Players re-enter the game with no rank.

We played several games back-to-back and had a good evening of gaming.

H.I.D.E. is designed for 2–5 players, ages 10+, for 30 minutes per game.

Thanks to Mayday Games.

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