Find your level and start there.
Beginner: habits that win your first games
Always be heading for a location
You can only ask questions from inside a location. Every turn that ends in a corridor is a turn without information. Use the tap-to-move path preview to pick a location you can reach this roll or next.
Ask about cards you don't know
Early on, name a crew member and a method that are not in your hand, from a location that is not in your hand. With three unknowns, someone will usually show you a card, and every card shown is one fewer to worry about.
Use the notes assistant
Let it fill in your own cards and the cards shown to you. It removes the most common beginner mistake: forgetting something you were shown three turns ago.
Don't guess
You get one accusation. If any column of your sheet still has two possibilities, ask another question instead. A beginner who waits beats a beginner who guesses far more often than not.
Intermediate: shaping questions and reading answers
Name your own cards on purpose
Once you have narrowed things down, put cards from your hand into your question. Suppose you hold the crowbar and you are standing in the lab, which you also hold. Ask about Lena, with the crowbar, in the lab. Nobody can show you the crowbar or the lab, so:
- if someone shows a card, it is Lena, and you know who holds her;
- if nobody can, Lena is in the stash.
One question, one guaranteed answer about exactly the card you wanted.
Record what other players' answers prove
When Selim asks a question and Rafael's player shows him a card, you don't see it, but you learn that Rafael's player holds at least one of the three. Write those three down together.
These groups solve themselves later. If you discover that two of the three are elsewhere, the third must be in that player's hand.
A "no match" is even simpler: that player holds none of the three. Mark all three as "not theirs".
How to read a card you were shown
When Marcus's player shows you the liquid nitrogen, you learn one thing: it isn't in the stash. But think about what else the moment says:
- Every player between you and Marcus's player had none of your three cards.
- Marcus's player may hold more than one of them and chose this one. If the liquid nitrogen has been shown before, it may be the card they don't mind giving away.
Count hands
You know how many cards each player holds. Once you have pinned down all the cards in one player's hand, everything else is not theirs, and every question they answer becomes easier to read.
Choose which card you show
When you hold more than one card from a question, you choose which to show. Two rules:
- Show the same card to the same player again. If you showed Selim the garage before, show him the garage again. He learns nothing new.
- Show a card the table already suspects you hold. Keep your unknown cards unknown for as long as you can.
You have 15 seconds to choose, so decide while the question is going round the table.
Advanced: controlling what the table learns
Switch the assistant off
The assistant records what you see. It does not make the deductions from other players' turns, and it does not notice patterns. Keeping your own book forces you to think about every answer, and strong players find more by doing it themselves.
Ask questions that mislead watchers
Other players read your questions the same way you read theirs. If you keep naming the same method, they will assume you are hunting it. Use that: name a card from your own hand repeatedly, and some players will start to believe it is in the stash.
Be careful. A question built to mislead often teaches you less, so use it when you are close to the answer and others are catching up.
Track what the others know
Keep a rough count of how many cards each rival has seen. A player who has just had a question go unanswered, or who has been shown many cards, may be about to accuse. When you see it coming, decide: can you get to certainty first, or is it time to risk a guess?
Use the board
Naming a crew member moves their pawn into your location. You can pull a rival away from the location they were walking to, or keep them out of the corners and their secret passages. It costs you nothing but a part of your question, so use it when the question is still useful. More on this in 3 Ways to Make Enemies at the NoHonor Table.
Study the end screen
After each game, look at the could-have-known turn and the closest call. If you could have known on turn 11 and accused on turn 15, find the turn in the case log where the answer became knowable. That is the habit that moves you from good to strong.
