Bang! is a Spaghetti Western-themed social deduction card game designed by Emiliano Sciarra and released by Italian publisher DV Giochi in 2002. In 2004, Bang! won the Origins Award for Best Traditional Card Game of 2003 and Best Graphic Design of a Card Game or Expansion. The game is known worldwide as Bang!, except in France, where it was known as Wanted! until September 2009.

Overview

The game is played by four to seven players (up to eight players with variants and expansions). Each player receives a unique character card with special abilities and a number of 'bullets' (representing life points), and takes one of the four roles with different objectives: The game is played in turns, in clockwise order, starting with the Sheriff. Each player's turn has three phases: Each character comes with a set number of life points and a unique ability. For instance, in the base set, which has 16 character cards, "Bart Cassidy" (parodying Butch Cassidy) starts with 4 bullets and draws a card every time he loses a life point, while "Willy the Kid" (parodying Billy the Kid) starts with 4 bullets and can play any number of "Bang!" cards during his turn. A player who loses their last bullet is considered dead; they are out of the game with their role card revealed. Penalties and rewards also apply to encourage the social deduction aspects of the game. For example, if the Sheriff eliminates a Deputy, the Sheriff must discard all the cards in hand and in play. The game ends as soon as the Sheriff dies or the last Outlaw and/or Renegade dies, after which the winners are determined. Players who are already dead when the game ends are still considered to have won if their team's win condition is met.

Strategy

In 2002, designer Emiliano Sciarra posted strategy tips on BoardGameGeek. As only the Sheriff is known, it is hard to know who has what role. Generally, a player's role is implied if they try to shoot, or otherwise harm, the Sheriff. Others' roles can be implied if they try to harm those who harmed the Sheriff. The advantage of keeping one's role hidden from enemies must be weighed against the need to accomplish one's goal. Since the Renegade loses if the Sheriff dies when there are still others in the game, that player must defend the Sheriff to some extent. On the other hand, their ultimate goal is killing the Sheriff. This leads to a "two faced" nature of the Renegade, trying to weaken each side (Outlaws and Deputies) while keeping the Sheriff alive until the end. This also makes it harder to ascertain who is an Outlaw, who is a Deputy, and who is a Renegade, as their actions may be similar.

Expansions

Special releases

Bang! The Duel

This is a two-player standalone game. One player controls a team of law enforcers, while another player controls a team of bandits. It contains 12 enforcer and 12 bandit characters.

Computer versions

On October 29, 2009, Palzoun Entertainment (which acquired the official license from DaVinci Games) announced the development of a Bang! video game. The game was developed in partnership with SpinVector. It was published on the iTunes App Store on December 18, 2010. A console version was also expected to arrive in March 2011 but has been delayed. BoardGameArena (BGA) is a real time board game online game system that allows to play Bang! along with some of its expansions. It was published on the 23 February 2022. Some unofficial online versions of Bang! have been released during the years, however those using copyrighted assets have received DMCA takedown notices. Others have replaced the images.

Lawsuit

In 2014, DaVinci Editrice initiated a lawsuit against Ziko Games, the Chinese manufacturer that had published Legends of the Three Kingdoms, a game that DaVinci claimed was a clone of Bang!, simply changing the Wild West theme and art to that of ancient China. While the court found there was potential for copyright infringement on its initial hearing, it ultimately ruled in favor of Ziko Games and dismissed the case in 2016.

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