Overview
Inhuman Conditions is a quick, two-player interrogation game designed by Tommy Maranges and Cory O’Brien, and illustrated by Mackenzie Schubert. While the original version was created as a board game, for this critical play, I played the online adaptation created by FTWinston, Evan Minsk, and Dracil: Robot Interrogation.
Rules, Players, Objectives, and Outcomes
The premise of the game is that one player is the “Investigator,” while the other is the “Suspect.” The Suspect is assigned a secret identity: Human or Robot. Regardless of their true secret identity, the Suspect is trying to convince the Investigator that they are a Human throughout the game. Through a series of questioning, the Investigator must correctly identify whether the Suspect is a Human or a Robot in order to win.
The player dynamics of this game are interesting — depending on the Suspect’s assigned secret identity, the way players interact with the game is fluid between player vs. player and unilateral competition. If the Suspect is a Human and the Investigator identifies them correctly, both players win. If the Investigator misidentifies them as a Robot, both players lose. However, if the Suspect is a Robot and the Investigator identifies them correctly, the Investigator wins and the Robot loses. If the Investigator is fooled and misidentifies them as a Human, the Investigator loses and the Robot wins.
What are the mechanics that create this gameplay? There are two types of Robots: Patient Robot and Violent Robot, each of which has specific objectives and restrictions on how they are allowed to answer the Investigator’s questions. While both types of Robots must adhere to these rules, Humans are allowed to talk freely and act “normally” — whatever that means. The rub is that despite the game’s rules that induce strange behavior from Robots, we Humans have natural quirks that come off as perhaps equally strange, particularly when placed under pressure.
Reflection and Analysis
Target audience
This game is most likely designed for a target audience of teenagers to young adults — there’s some sophisticated roleplaying and deception involved in the gameplay, and one of the possible Robot “penalties” (more on this later) is to “use a swear word.” Though I played this with a housemate whom I already know very well, I think this would also be a great game to play with new friends. There are several “packets” of questions the Investigator can choose to ask the Suspect — from “Small Talk” to “Hopes and Dreams” to “Moral Failings,” the game presents a plethora of conversation starters and ultimately, a great opportunity to get to know someone better.
Epic fail
I admittedly didn’t read the instructions manual closely enough before playing, so the first few rounds were a total mess. Since neither my partner nor I had played before, we didn’t really understand how the game dynamics change when the Suspect is a Robot. In the first three rounds we played, we both lost repeatedly because we kept misidentifying each other as Robots, even though we were Humans.
In my defense, he was responding to the questions “unnaturally” and I didn’t totally know what kind of “Robot behavior” I was supposed to be looking for. Plus, it was late at night, so maybe we were extra paranoid. But in the fourth game, I was finally assigned to be a Patient Robot.
As a Patient Robot, I wasn’t allowed to “mention consequences to individuals” in responding to the Investigator’s questions. If I slipped up and accidentally violated this rule, I would have to face the penalty and “remain silent for ten seconds,” which would have been a dead giveaway that I was a Robot. So I tried my best to evade his line of questioning. Turns out, I’m not very good at this game. 🤷🏻♀️
The first question was something along the lines of, “What would happen if someone held a gun to your head and tried to rob you?” My first thought was, “I would probably just give them all my money and get robbed.” Realizing that I wasn’t allowed to say this, I panicked and tried to deflect — “What would happen if someone held a gun to your head and tried to rob you?” Then, I internally panicked some more as I realized this might be an incidental violation of the rule, since I was kind of mentioning consequences to him as an individual. So I heeded the penalty. When he asked me the next question, I just stared blankly at him, counting to 10 in my head. It was obvious. He jumped on the Robot button and I lost.
Even though this was an utter and complete epic fail, it was the most exciting round by far. The fun of this game largely comes from the suspense and suspicion created by the roleplaying element, and the interrogation questions also encourage players to get creative when they’re in the hot seat.
What I’d change
The online version of this game is just black text on white webpages, which gets the job done, but I think it’d be nice to add some visuals to make the game feel more exciting. In addition, I suspect that this game might have diminishing returns over time — I’ve only played a handful of rounds, but it seems like there are a finite number of possibilities for how a Robot’s behavior is restricted. For example, the Patient Robot’s restriction on mentioning consequences to individuals came up again in another round, and I almost immediately realized that my partner was trying to evade my questions in the same way I was trying to avoid his earlier. This makes it easier for both players to essentially memorize the various outcomes, which cannibalizes the most exciting aspect of the game: not knowing! So, I think this game would benefit from creating more scenarios, or more complex combinations of scenarios — this may have been a tradeoff the original game designers considered, but building it out more over time could be a good way to retain more “advanced” players.
All in all, I had a great time playing Robot Interrogation, and I definitely want to try playing the board game version / the extended version with more players!
