La Cosa Nostra

Run a mafia family, plan actions in secret and backstab your partners in a card game of deals and double-crosses.

Designer: Johannes Sich
Published by: Baldar
Editions by: Edge Entertainment, Choo Choo Games, Quined Games, Niza Gams, Hard Boiled Games

In La Cosa Nostra you are a mafia boss starting with a small crew of gangsters and a couple of businesses, and your goal is to build a criminal empire. You hire new gangsters, collect money and invest in clubs, casinos, moneylending or waste management. The big deals need other families, so you cooperate, but nobody trusts anybody, and betrayal is the house specialty. Each round you secretly plan actions with face-down cards, then reveal them in turn: some earn cash, some attack rivals, and many need the right business cards to work. It plays for three to five, about an hour and a half, and works best as a table full of schemers who enjoy the double-cross as much as the payoff.

Secret face-down action planningBusinesses unlock what your gangsters can doAlliances you will probably break

Who it's for

You enjoy bluffing and table talk with a group that does not take backstabbing personally, and you like a gangster theme.

Not for you if…

You dislike direct attacks on other players or have people who sulk when stabbed in the back. Betrayal is the whole point.

Vibe's take

Scheming and talky, with a nervous tension in every reveal. You never know who will betray you, and the good moments are when the plan lands.