Da Goods
The game comes with a beautiful game board, showing the available speakeasies, player boards that summarize the game turn, a stack of money, a deck of cards, a bunch of plastic trucks, and plenty of plastic mobsters complete with violin cases. Counters, dice, and a rulebook also fill the box. All of this for a very reasonable $40.
In the game, each player takes control of a family and a still. They set out to gain influence with the various speakeasies by sending “da boys.” Higher influence means that the speakeasy will purchase from that family first. After that, the stills are put into production and crates of illegal booze are created. These are loaded into trucks and sent to where the player thinks he will receive the most money. Production and demand are randomly determined and the availability of trucks can vary as well. The game ends after a set number of rounds, with the winner being the one with the most cash. Along the way, various cards can be played to help or hinder players.
The rulebook is a full-color 8.5” x 11” booklet that is extremely well written. Each phase of the game is described in full, complete with pictures and at least one example. One read is all that is necessary to understand how the game plays and there is even a FAQ in the back to handle the few tricky timing issues. The only complex concept is determining who has what kind of control of a particular speakeasy and what abilities that grants. A small reference card or sheet would help during the first few games to remember who can do what.
The art in the game is perfect. The top-down view of the buildings that the game board gives is both attractive and functional, and the card art perfectly captures the noir-ish aspect of the game. The plastic pieces are plentiful and have excellent detail, although it is a little difficult to tell the capacity of a truck unless you pick it up. For the crates of booze, small wooden cubes are used and they are actually loaded into the plastic trucks, which is pleasing in both an aesthetic and gameplay way. Each card is in full color and nicely illustrated especially the muscle cards; as the muscle cards get more powerful, there are more mobsters on the card.
Da Action
The muscle cards are a critical part of the game, determining who goes in what order each round. The decision on which card to use is critical as there are significant advantages in going first and an occasional advantage in going last. At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt all of the muscle cards they will ever receive, so it allows some excellent strategic planning. Also excellent is the fact that the muscle deck is broken into four sections and each players gets cards from every section, so while the actual numbers vary, the distribution of high and low numbers are equal across the board. This helps a lot in removing some could hamper a player through the entire game.
The game also has some very nice mechanics to keep all players in the game even to the end. The biggest producer of booze each round gets hindered by the coppers, while those who can not afford to pay their muscle and drivers still get to play with them. This, combined with the randomness of supply and demand in the game, help to keep players in the game all of the way to the end. A player can still walk away with a game, but the opponents will still always have a chance.
There is not a lot of down time when it is not your turn in the game. Most of the phases go quickly and even if it is not a player’s turn, there are plenty of opportunities to make deals with the other players. Sometimes a still will produce far more booze than expected, so the player will need to either hire another player’s truck or try and sell the booze to someone with a far lower production.
The final aspect of the game are the thug cards. These cards allow players to directly affect each other, from stealing booze and trucks to causing police raids and other calamities. The thug cards add a lot to the theme of the game, causing it to become the cutthroat world of mobsters that the players expect from the game.
Da Payoff
Everything in the game hangs off the strong bootlegger theme: art, pieces, muscle and thug cards, and even the names of the phases in the game. The atmosphere and tone of the game is excellent.
While there is a noticeable amount of randomness to the game, it creates an exciting tension to the game and strengthens the players’ options rather than devolve the game into dice throwing contests. One bad roll will not doom a player, and having a series of great dice rolls brings problems of its own to the player.
Overall Bootleggers is a very fun game that promises plenty of interaction for all of the players throughout the game. The mechanics are easy to pickup and are solid, while the pieces of the game are excellent and strongly reinforce the theme. Hopefully, Bootleggers will start a trend of more American/German fusion games with tons of great pieces and simple mechanics with deep playability. Anyone even remotely interested in the subject matter should give this a try. Consider it an offer you cannot refuse.
