CoolMiniOrNot CMNGDF001 Godfather The Board Game, Mixed Colours

Product Information

The tin suitcase is a clever way to hide your ill-gotten gains from your rivals and gives a nice thematic flourish. What happens when you combine arguably one or the greatest movies ever made and some of the biggest names in board gaming? The amount of money in your suitcase is added to any bonus monies to determine your final score at the end of the game. It’s what you do with the stuff that’s interesting: Instead of placing a worker, a player can complete a “job” for Don Corleone by paying the required mix of booze, guns, and blood money. Instead, let’s say that the action is “inspired” by the kind of things that the characters might have done while they were off screen.

Furthermore, since businesses only have a single space for thugs there’s always a rush to grab resources for jobs before another player gets to them, although I did find the game to be a bit too generous with how easy it was to acquire the blood money, weapons and booze needed to complete jobs.Money, rackets, contracts, and special advantages (such as the union boss) are represented by cards in your hand, and your hand size is limited, with you choosing which extra cards to pay tribute to the don at the end of each of the five rounds. It has superb balance (every game I’ve played so far has been decided by a single point), and it is an unexpectedly tight two-player game. Publisher CMON once again shows off its love of abundant miniatures, throwing in plastic representations for everything from the roving gangsters to a police car phase tracker and even a miniscule horse’s head to mark the first player. With his health on the decline, jackals are stalking the streets and carving out slices of territory to pick clean. I can’t really talk to you about how this game plays without first explaining the roll of the little tin suitcase you each get.

On top of that there are stackable control tokens, as well as a plastic horse’s head token to track the first player, a car for indicating the current phase and a miniature of Don from the Godfather movies for tracking the current act. Here’s an offer you can’t refuse: a board game adaptation of one of the greatest movies ever made, by one of the best tabletop designers working today.

The colouring of the board is not over the top, and I like how the artwork is almost blurred as it means it isn’t too distracting. On the last page of the rulebook, there is rules summary which I think is always a useful inclusion. The variable businesses and allies available (only about half are used each game) keeps gameplay fresh by offering new challenges almost every time you play, and the multiple routes to scoring (completing jobs, controlling turf, and gathering money) means that this game has a lot of strategic depth.