Monday, December 13, 2010

Game review: Family Business

Family Business is a fun mobster card game. Each player has a mob "family," which are card sets made up of real-life gangsters and robbers. The idea is to keep as many of your gangsters alive as possible, while trying to kill the gangsters belonging to the other players.

Meanwhile, everyone is playing action cards to 'finger' other players' gangsters (pointing them out to the authorities), trying to kill those who have been fingered, and trying to rescue their own gangsters from the line up.

As gangsters are fingered, their cards are played in a line up in the center of the table. Eventually, due to card play or after a certain number of gangsters are placed in the line up, they start getting killed (and removed from play), at a rate of one per turn. Since the execution happens at the front of the line, a gangster's position in the line is important.

We found this game to be very intense and game play became almost cutthroat as players tried to gun down opponents' gangsters while keeping their own gang out of the line up. I suggest this game as a good way of channeling the competitive players in your group. I enjoyed this game a lot, but it took a little while to learn. Meaning just a few minutes. I suggest playing a practice game just to get familiar with the different cards and eb and flow of game play.

Now drinking: Saranac's winter sampler, where I'm reminded again that Saranac makes a bitter stout. The copper ale is good, but the rest of the box is mediocre.

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