Over the years, I have played many role-deduction games, such as Mafia, Werewolf, Secret Hitler, and Don’t Mess with Cthulu. I appreciated how Bang! took this classic game format, and added extra mechanics. In all of the other games I’ve played, death is immediate; there is never a health bar. In many of these games, only certain roles can kill others, whereas in Bang!, everyone can kill.
If I had to place the acts, the second act would start the moment the sheriff shoots at somebody, and the third act begins the moment people begin to die or shoot the sheriff. Given that this game could easily be re-skinned, I am guessing that the mechanics were developed before the theme.
I also had the opportunity to prototype Robert’s Love Triangle today. The rules were solid and the theme was fun and well-executed. However, the game became a repetitive grind after a few playthroughs. This could probably be fixed by adding more variety to the cards or giving the player’s new actions.