There's something essential about the face-down card. It's the staple of nearly every game. A face-down card represents secret information and I can't tell you anything that watching the ways your friends pick them up won't tell you about how important it is to honor this secrecy.

What hidden role games do is take the face-down card and make it represent your enemies, allies, power level, and the very way you are playing a given game. It's a brilliant shift that's been built upon for decades.

In this essay, I want to highlight the strengths of the top games of this genre while highlighting some of the common pitfalls hidden role games have to avoid in order to consistently deliver the battle of wits fans of the genre expect.