Mafia

It’s 1925. You and your Family of Associates have been trying to get respect for years. But the richest mobster in the country, Al Mansky, has been cramping your style. Al’s a bit eccentric; he doesn’t trust the cops or banks, so all his loot is in his mansion, guarded by a diabolical security system of explosive traps. The good news is that he’s out of town.

It would be a shame if something happened to all that loot, but a Family (working together) that bested Al would make quite a name for itself. Of course, the most fame - and (dare we say) leadership of the Family - goes to the person who walks away from the job with the most loot.

Your colleagues may not agree with you - but you all owe each other favors. Calling in the right favor at the right time is what leadership is all about in this business. The key is to work together to help yourself - and don't get blown up!

In The Mansky Caper, players team up to ransack rooms of Al Mansky's mansion, opening safes to find the valuables inside. Split loot with others in the room, and watch out for twists of fortune and dangerous traps that can ruin your plans with a bang! The winner is the player who has accumulated the most loot in their private stash at the getaway car by the time Al’s mansion is completely ransacked.

Designer Eric Lang, known for his "dudes on a map" games, describes The Godfather: Corleone's Empire — a standalone big box board game with high-quality miniatures — as "thugs on a map".

In short, the game is a streamlined, confrontational worker placement game filled with murder and intrigue. You play as competing mafia families who are vying for economic control of the organized crime networks of New York City, deploying your thugs, your don, your wife, and your heir on the board to shake down businesses and engage in area-control turf wars.

Money, rackets, contracts, and special advantages (such as the union boss) are represented by cards in your hand, and your hand size is limited, with you choosing which extra cards to pay tribute to the don at the end of each of the five rounds. At the end of the game, though, cash is all that matters, and whoever has the most money wins.

The game also features drive-by shootings in which enemy tokens are removed from the board and placed face-down in the river.

Havana, December 29, 1955: At the end of the meal offered at his "faithful" henchmen, don Alessandro evokes the "business" in progress. Suddenly, the phone rang in the back room of the restaurant. The Godfather is convened to the office of President Batista. He entrusted his precious cigar box to his henchmen. It must be said that the cigar box has a false bottom, under the first layer of cigars, the box is filled with diamonds!

In Mafia de Cuba, each player will take the cigar box, open it and choose to:

Betray and steal some diamonds,
Remain a faithful and "honest" mafioso, be a driver, or act as an undercover CIA agent.

In the evening, the Godfather recovers his cigar box. He blows a fuse when he finds the disappearance of diamonds. He must find his treasure and punish offenders by providing them cement shoes before throwing them in the bay. After heated debates and perilous deductions, The Godfather, with the help of is faithful henchmen will try to find all his stolen diamonds.

Does he lose his honor by accusing wrongly?
Do the most cunning thieves win?
Or is it the CIA that will send these thugs behind bars?

It's January 1921. Prohibition has been in effect for a year, and it looks like the 18th Amendment is here to stay. The problem, however, is that outlawing the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" hasn't done anything to reduce the demand for booze! As a result, illegal stills dot the countryside and secret (or not-so-secret!) speakeasies are popping up all over in cities large and small. Local law enforcement may look the other way (especially if they're properly motivated) but Elliot Ness' G-Men are harder to convince. With this much money at stake, organized crime is sure to take an interest.

In Bootleggers, players take on the role of enterprising bosses seeking to make a name for themselves in the illegal alcohol trade at the height of the 1920's prohibition era. Deceit, lies, and alliances of convenience are the norm as players attempt to control distribution through money and corruption by muscling in on the competition, paying off the local law authorities, building underground speakeasies, and shipping trucks of "hooch"!

Tentative plans for the 2012 edition of Bootleggers include two double-influence cards, four blank cards, more cash, a revised rulebook, colored dice for each player, additional variants (including a two-player scenario), and improved trucks with easier-to-read numbering.

Game description from the publisher:

In the Martian mining colony of ARES-6, crime pays. Three factions vie for control of this corrupt new world and everything within it. You are a mercenary known as a "freelancer", here to profit off the conflict, to make a name for yourself – but ambition alone isn't enough. A network of seedy contacts will assist you in undertaking the dangerous missions necessary to bolster your rep. Whether it's hiring henchmen to carry out your dirty work or plotting with secret schemes, you'll let nothing stand between you and your squalid goals.

In Infamy, players find that nearly anything can be bought for the right price. Players attempt to win the game by being the first to reach 15 Infamy points or by reaching the highest reputation level in any one of three factions: the Harada Cartel, the Trust Megacorp, or the PKD Militia. The core of this auction and influence game is the "Pay to Play" mechanism in which players must sacrifice bidding power in order to place any bids at all. Spend too much time bidding against an opponent, and your currency will dwindle – but if you refuse to bid, you'll be forced to watch your opponent acquire all those things that only the criminal underworld can deliver.

Here at the end of the world, where everyone and everything has its price, there is but a single ambition that endures: Infamy.