Played The Message? YinShu is a free online social deduction card game inspired by it, for 4–8 players. Everyone hides a faction and passes intel; read friend from foe in who accepts and who refuses. Intercept, see through and swap intel with character skills. Collect three of your color to win.

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Planned Release Date: Q1 2027

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About This Game

An online intel-passing deduction game, inspired by The Message

If you've played The Message, you'll pick up YinShu in no time. Everyone hides a faction and takes turns passing intel. Each player decides whether to accept it, and from all the true and false intel you work out who's an ally and who's an enemy.

We're fans of The Message ourselves. We wanted a version we could play online with friends anytime, and we added many new characters and skills along the way.

Every card is a piece of intel

On your turn you may play action cards, but you must always send one card out as intel:

  • Sealed Letter — passed face-down, seat by seat; everyone decides whether to accept it.

  • Proclamation — passed face-up for the whole table to see.

  • Feather Post — sent straight to the player you choose.

Collect 3 intel cards of your faction's color and your whole faction wins. Take too much false intel and you're eliminated.

Intercept. See Through. See through that.

Intel can be stolen mid-pass. See Through cancels an action card — and See Through itself can be seen through. Nothing is certain until the last card lands.

Hidden factions, hidden goals

Work with your allies to collect the true intel that matters, dodge deadly false intel and bring down the opposing faction. If you belong to the third faction, keep your real goal hidden and find your own path to victory while the other two clash.

Characters with special skills

Every character has their own skills, and some hold a once-per-game limited skill. Use skills and action cards to change where intel goes and throw off everyone's reads. Every match is a different battle of wits.

Easy to learn, made for friends

  • Custom rooms for up to 8 players: public, password-protected or friends only. Invite friends with a code, and fill empty seats with bots.

  • Link Steam, Apple and Google to one account. PC players and players on the upcoming mobile version can be matched together and join the same custom rooms.

  • Plain card names replace the traditional names with easy-to-understand ones: See Through becomes Cancel, Sealed Letter becomes Hidden.

  • YinShu Basics teaches the rules page by page, and YinShu Puzzles tests what you've learned.

A table you can trust

If you see an inappropriate nickname, room description or match behavior, you can report it, and our team reviews every report. You can message friends and send stickers, with reporting and blocking.

Cosmetics are just cosmetics

Shop cosmetics never affect who wins.

Features:

  • Free to play, 4–8 player online matches

  • Intel passing and deduction, inspired by The Message

  • Hidden factions and third-faction missions

  • Unique character skills and a wide range of tactics

  • Pass, intercept, see through and swap intel

  • Play with friends, other players or bots

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

Some of the game's artwork, animation, music, voice and sound effects were created with the help of AI tools during development, then selected, edited and arranged by our team: character portraits and card illustrations, animated sequences in the trailer, background music, card-name and character voice lines, and some sound effects. The game also has an AI card-playing companion, Xuening, who can join some matches: AI decides her card plays in real time and picks responses from a fixed set of stickers. She does not generate free text, images or audio for players.

Connects to 3rd-Party Service for AI Content Generation: Anthropic 的 Claude 模型(透過 Anthropic API)。

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 64-bit
    • Processor: Intel Core i3-6100 or AMD equivalent
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Graphics: DirectX 11-compatible graphics card with 1 GB VRAM
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 4 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX-compatible sound card
    Recommended:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 4 GB available space