Description

Description from the designer:

Monkey Wrench 2nd Edition:

Your company is firing employees; Can you get rid of the bad employee in time?

Monkey Wrench

Is a social deduction and manipulation game requiring a minimum of 7 people to play, (6 "Employees" & 1 Narrator). The concept of the game is rather simple. The company you work for, has suddenly been having problems with all of its production machines being sabotaged by an unknown person After hours. The Security footage shows that One of your fellow employees, (players) has been seen tampering with the machines, "After Hours". The problem is, the security system couldn't detect who it was. Worse, every employee has an alibi, and no one is willing to step forward with any information of evidence.

There for, the Board of Directors, (The Narrator(s)), have decided that one employee will be fired during each "Day Shift" via a 60% majority Employee vote, until the machines are no longer being tampered with each night. To help facilitate this, members of the local law enforcement (Undercover Cop) and the FBI (in larger games of over 15 players), as well as other law enforcement agencies (NSA 20 player game, CIA 25 player game ) to help catch the potential criminals involved. They are also working diligently around the clock to help your company find the culprit. Meeting in secret "After hours" to arrest potential suspects, while also masquerading as a regular employee. Their goal, is to help weed out the real problem person; The elusive The Monkey Wrench and their crew of saboteurs.

However, the members of the Monkey Wrench team have an edge:
Once per "After hours" phase, they can secretly convert one of the other employee towards their goal. If they manage to convert a casual non titled "Employee", that person becomes a leader within their team, and will be given a "Monkey Wrench" card to show their loyalty. Additionally, depending on the size of the "company (game), other criminal elements can also be expected to try to infiltrate the entire organization. Everything from a simple, "Lunch Thief", to a "Cat Burglar", to even members of a Cult, as well as various types of "Hackers", Espionage experts and even a Corporate embezzler. Each with their own "After hours" abilities that can be used by the Monkey Wrench team, IF they can figure out who within the company is what. Which keeps the members of Law enforcement busy during the game, and helps ensure that the Monkey Wrench team will over throw the company.

Fortunately; the Law enforcement team, (Security guard, Undercover cop, FBI, CIA, NSA.. etc..), do have a extra tools in their wheel house to counter this influx of added trouble. For starters at the end of every "After hours" phase, the company "Security Guard" has the ability to The "sense" when another Employee can been involved with an illicit activity that evening. While the Undercover cop, once per After hours round can "Arrest" a single potential suspect. That player is then removed from game the next subsequent "Day shift". While the FBI agent, has the power to literally "Fire" anyone one person in the company. Either as a secret executive action during the "After hours" round, or by revealing themselves to the other players as a member of law Enforcement. Upon which they can then have executive power to remove the undercover CEO, or members of upper management and even overthrow their power position within the game. While the NSA has the power to make various "hacking' actions, while the CIA player, has the ability to be a spy in any group, and never reveal themselves, unless they want to. Each member of Law Enforcement, are thus granted unique abilities to help them thwart the dastardly goals of the criminal elements in game. However, in turn, each has their own requirements that they must fulfill in order to win the game.

However; the rest of the employees, and neutral parties can also use their individual abilities, as well as their natural powers of social deduction, interaction, and situational perceptions to determine who they should "vote" against during the "Day shift" round. That way they can work together to have 1 of their fellow employees (Players), removed from game as a group in hopes to help the Law Enforcement players remove threats from the game, and win by power of democratic unity.

So its up to you fellow employee…

Will you side with the Monkey Wrench and take down the company?
Will you help the Corporate Security to weed out the problem person?
Or... are you secretly the Monkey Wrench, all along? Manipulating everyone to help you shut down the company.

General game play:
Each player is given 4 cards at the beginning of the game:

1 - "Day shift" card, which denotes their public role within the company, that every other player is completely aware of. This card reflects that players normal operations within the company during the day, while they are working. It further operates as each players "titled" position within a standard normal office environment. Each titled position, is sometimes granted certain abilities, that are usually made public to all players in play, during the "Day shift" phase.

1 - "After hours" card. which designates the given players roles, duties and Private activities when they are not at work, during the "After hours" phase of the game. During this phase of game play, some players are lumber into various secret shadow groups, that operate in secret. Some of them are trying to resolve the crime within the company. Others are trying to ruin the company, by either overthrowing it (Such as the Monkey Wrench), or corrupting the internal operations of the company. While others yet still, have absolutely little value, or influence upon the companies operations, and function as nothing more than benign red herrings, to offset the various groups investigations.

1 - "Vote/ Fire" card. This Operates as each individual players ability to either support another players choice of someone that they believe should be removed from play, (The "Vote" side of the card), by holding the card up above their head, showing that they cast a vote in support of the accuser against the one person they believe should be removed from game. Or on their "Current player" turn (When they have the "Current player" puck in hand), they may select one player in the room to be "Fired" from game, by pointing the card at the person they suspect is guilty, or should be removed from game. If they manage to gain a 65% majority supporting vote from the other remaining players in the game, the selected person is removed from game, revealing their "After hours" card(s). They then regardless of how the vote ended, had the card off to the next player to their Left.

1 - "Gestures" card. This card is a reference card of common hand gestures used during the "After hours" phase of the game. This helps players know what other players in the group they are part of are saying to them, and allows them to communicate in a sort of crude sign language with each other and the Narrators.

Intended age of play:
This game is intended for persons 16 years or older. However, the production website says "18", only because the options, are 12 or 18. The content that is questionable, within the game, is sexually suggestive adult humor, found within 4 "After hours" cards. Which are not essential for general game play, and may be removed as needed for smaller games, of less than 25 persons playing, if persons playing the game are not age appropriate for the setting.

Number of players:
A basic game consists of at least 7 to 10 players:
Advanced games can handle 11 to 33 players.

Please note, however that for every 10 "Employee" players in the game, 1 "Board member" (Narrator), will be needed, as this will help the Narrator's to be able to manage remembering who is what position, has been fired, or changed roles within the game. A "Employee Roster" is provided within the game to help facilitate this, however larger games can get very confusing quickly, and to accommodate this, it's strongly advised to use 1 additional Narrator per 10 players.

Contents:
1 - 60 second timer
1 - 120 second timer
1 - pencil
1 - "Employee Roster" score pad (Player role tracker)
1 - "Current player" card
30 - "Hand gesture" reference cards
30 - "Voting/ "Fire" cards
8 - Special effect cards (Used to reflect game modifiers, such as "Lunch Thief", Hacks, or other rule modifiers)
37 - "Day Shift" - Character employment cards (These roles, Everyone in play will know about)
93 - "After hours" split between different "Hobbies", "Scandals", "Skill's", & "Moonlighting" jobs.
1 - 40 page "Employee's Manuel" (Rule book)
1 - 32 page "Occupational Directory" (Card Description book)
1 - Deluxe sized box. To hold all your expansions.

Get your copy of Monkey Wrench 2nd Edition today!
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/monkey-wrench-2nd-edition