OK, so everyone knows I’m not a fan of children so would be the most unlikely baby sitter ever! However, what if it were a bit more *cough* ‘lucrative’ shall we say?
In Mob Sitters, players take on roles as baby sitters for gangsters and mob bosses. Of course, you could take the money from babysitting, but there are all sorts of goodies lying around the house and the boss surely wouldn’t notice if ONE of his gold watches fell into your pocket. However, other players may take that as an opportunity to snitch on you and land you in trouble with the Boss or the Cops! Evade the Cops, the Boss and escape with the most money to win!
This is a prototype copy so nothing here is finalised!
In the box I got:
- 6 Player Mats
- 6 Player Decks of 20 cards
The finished game will have enough components for eight players so it will include eight player mats and eight player decks.
Each player places a player mat in front of them and takes the deck of the corresponding colour. Everyone shuffles their deck and draws a hand of six cards. If you are not happy with your hand, you get one chance to reshuffle and redraw.
All players decks are identical and everyone will play all but two of their cards during the game so the trick is knowing when and how to play your cards.
There are three main types of cards:
Money Cards - There are two types of these. Jobs for the boss and stealing from the boss. There’s also a bonus card that gets you a small amount of money for actually… babysitting! These are always placed face up in your play area so they can be the target of other players accusation cards.
Accusations - ‘Squeal to the cops’ and ‘rat on ‘em’ These can be used to move money cards from a players mat to Cops or Boss pile (respectively) at the bottom of the mat. At the end of the game the player with the most money in each of these piles is automatically eliminated so beware! These may be placed face up or face down. If they are placed face up they are resolved at the end of that players card placement phase.
Reaction Cards - These are placed face down and can be used to deflect accusations ‘It was you’ After being accused you can reveal one of these to pass the blame onto someone else (as indicated on the card) The person who was blamed can then react and pass it on until either someone has to take the fall, placing the card into their cop or boss pile or until someone uses a ‘phew, got away with it’ card
The player who looks most like a mobster goes first!
At the start of the turn any cards left on a players mat will be resolved. This happens in three stages:
- Take any money cards and place them in your safe. These are always placed face up.
- Facedown accusation cards are resolved - Any players with face-up money on their mat can be accused. Make sure the symbols match, handcuffs for boss jobs and a gun for boss theft. You may then need to use any face down reaction cards you have!
- Any money you have left moves from your play area to your safe and all other cards are discarded, face down, into your discard pile.
After all resolution has been dealt with players take turns placing three cards on their player mat. Remember, this may be a combination of face up and face down cards. At this point, any face-up accusation cards are resolved and anyone with cards on their mat may be accused or use reaction cards.
After you have placed your three cards, draw back up (remembering that cards are never played from your hand - only cards on your player mat are active!)
We knocked up a rather contrived example of (chain) reaction cards showing how playing Tell 'The Boss' attempts to send 'Steal a passport' to the Blue player's boss discard, but this can in turn be deflected by Blue onto another player (if they have the right cards) and so on until eventually the 'Steal a passport' would end up in another player's Boss pile. Except, luckily Purple had a Phew and banks the Passport in their own safe.
The game ends after six rounds and players discard the last two cards from their deck.
The player with the most money in their Cop pile is eliminated, then the player with the most money in their Boss pile is eliminated. The remaining players count the money in their safe and the player with the most wins!
Although the box says 3+ players, this really is the sort of game that plays better at the higher player counts. Five upwards is great! The accusations can end up going round and round and don’t forget, you can always place a card face-down on your player mat as a bluff. This leads to the whole do you, don’t you accuse someone scenario, are they bluffing or not? Only one way to find out! There is, obviously, a lot of player interaction so even with the larger player numbers, there’s no real down time and the game plays pretty quickly. Every player has the same deck so a lot of the game comes down to playing your cards at the most opportune moment. Mob Sitters will be on Kickstarter from October 3rd 2019.
Review copy kindly provided by East Street GamesUPDATE: Mob Sitter is now live on Kickstarter
