The year is 1919 and America is in its golden age of grift. Clever thievery has moved from shell games and three-card monte to a more mature art form: the heist.
In this head-to-head match, you must
compete to hire a team of professional criminals, plan heists on
unsuspecting marks, and muscle out your opponent. Better crew members
become increasingly available, but the marks get harder too. Ultimately,
the player with the most money wins, so it’s all about return on
investment and knowing your opponent.
The game plays in a series of 5-7 rounds
for a gameplay of about 30 minutes. Each round has three phases: The
Purchase, The Plan, and The Heist.
THE PURCHASE
Every heist needs just the right Crew and
you’ll need to assemble that team. We’ve got 22 unique Crew cards, each
with different bonuses and abilities. Grifters are highly skilled and
get you to those tougher marks. Partners are better at collaborating.
Thieves get you fast cash. Muscle is great for getting the Mark you
want. Insiders are useful specialists.
As the game progresses, new Crew members become more powerful, yet increasingly expensive.
THE PLAN
Plan your heists by secretly sorting your
cards in your hand. Prioritize your choices of Mark, too. For example,
maybe you want your Pickpocket to go after the Sketchy Bar and you want
your Fall Guy to hit the Honest Bank. To be successful, you’ll need to
optimize your Crew bonuses and collect Marks from the same neighborhood
to get extra monetary bonuses.
THE HEIST.
Plans are put in motion that cannot be
changed! You attempt your planned heists, chaining together crew members
to get the right combination of Skill and Bonus. If you run into your
opponent you must rely on your best Muscle to save you.
The Heist phase is entirely mechanical,
and quite exciting. Once you get paid, you collect your take and head
back to The Purchase phase. Tougher yet more lucrative Marks are
revealed as the game progresses.
SOLO CAMPAIGN
Big payouts! The rules include a solo
variant where you play against a mechanical player. You are victorious
if you end with a set goal, which increases each game. After each game,
you get to keep Crew members valued at what you exceeded your limit. For
example, if the limit was $80k, and you ended with $89k, you get to
keep a Con Artist costing $9k for the next game. Starting with
high-powered Crew lets you unlock new ways of getting massive payouts.
The solo campaign is also a great way to play the game cooperatively, or
learn the deck on your own.
ABOUT THE DESIGNER
My name is Andy Meneely and I’m a
hobbyist game designer. By day, I’m a software engineering professor. My
research focuses on using analytics and empirical methods to improve
the way software engineers develop software. I hold a PhD in Computer
Science and I also majored in Mathematics in college. So there is no
getting around it: I am a bonafide nerd.
Like most folks at The Game Crafter, I’ve
been designing games since I was a kid. Actually, I originally picked
up computer programming because of my interests in gaming!
IN BETA! FREE PROTOTYPE!
You can purchase a copy at my shop.
Currently, I consider this game in a Beta stage. The artwork is pretty
much set and the gameplay fundamentals are solidified. But there’s also
still plenty of playtesting and tweaking to be made here and there. I
would like to broaden my beta tester base and I would love feedback.
You can also play the game for free. The black-and-white prototype has been released under a Creative Commons license at my website.
You just need to be willing to print out the PDFs and cut the cards
yourself. The print and play prototype is kept equivalent to the beta
version, except that it also contains the alpha version of the first
expansion: Bootleggers.
Note: This article is being promoted
on TGC News because the designer supported The Game Crafter’s Shrink
Wrap campaign on Indiegogo and pledged for a featured article perk.
Thank you for your support!
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