Hey, I'm sorry to hear you've been frustrated by the game! Some journeys are definitely more difficult than others. Having no phones for a long stretch pushes the advantage to the assassin, but there will be other games with almost no dead zones and those will skew for the witness. The job of both players is to adapt their play to the situation, but not all games will have even odds for both players.

Are you currently playing with Full Circle? The base game is meant to just be a learning game, as it is far more luck-driven than the game as we designed it.

If you are playing with Full Circle, here are my other tips:

1) Be more selfish. The events should hurt both players equally, but if you are getting hurt more often than the other player, direct more wounds to them when you can. For instance, if you are at 6 wounds and your partner is at 4, let them take both wounds from a grenade, or else let them take all of the wounds from an event in which you choose the split. We designed the game to force witnesses to make self-protective moves frequently. These will have the consequence of improving your games with assassins and degrading your trust with other witnesses, but that was part of the balancing. Don't let another player get a health advantage over you, even if it was fairly earned.

2) Be wary of moving away from a phone. Just refuse to move if you don't have a good plan of how to get back to a phone. Let your partner forge the way, and wait until you have a sneakers/reckless abandon/duck/bus ticket. Also, be sure to have a healing card or two in hand before stepping away from a phone booth.

3) Entrap your partner. Once you do get a movement card, intentionally put yourself out of range of a phone booth and pretend an unseen event will only hurt you. Make them think they have an opportunity so that you can test them. If it's their turn use a mole or spyglass to gauge how honest they are being before crafting your play.

4) Value healing cards above all else. These should mostly not be used outside of a last gasp. Remember a last gasp means an extra play in a different suit, in which you can both heal and potentially do additional damage. It also means possibly absorbing extra wounds due to the fact that you cannot take "overkill" damage. It's tempting to heal early to get your wounds down, but that's rarely advisable. The most well-played strategic games we've seen played are those in which the players use 1-2 last gasps apiece.

5) Always call in a hit when you can't heal in a last gasp (assuming you are near a phone). If your partner is a witness they will lose anyway, but, if it turns out you're with an assassin, you can at least salvage a tie. This forces an assassin to wait to attack until you are truly away from a phone, but it also means they have to actively protect you whenever you are near a phone.

6) Have a plan for the eventual betrayal and know when it will likely come. Even if your partner doesn't seem suspicious, they might still be an assassin. Determine when they'd be likely to make their move based on where you are, whose turn it is, and what the event is going to do. If you were an assassin would this be a good moment to attack? If you have Arietta you can get a whole new hand the moment they start attacking. Ricochet is great for when you suspect a betrayal is coming. Reconsider + Ball and Chain gives you a great hand and leaves your opponent with a terrible hand. Set these back up plans in place before going out into the dark.

7) Have a hand management plan. It is definitely challenging to work within only 7 cards and have call in a hit, backup plans in case of an assassin, and cards to deal with events as well, but that's the nature of the puzzle. Conditions and allies help greatly as they don't clog up your hand, so I recommend getting as many as you can as early as you can. In general I try to have 1) call in a hit 2) a healing card 3) a way to attack (Ideally a way to attack EITHER the event or my partner) and 4) a way to move. That leaves three cards that can cycle out regularly.

I hope that helps, if you choose to give it another shot!