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Family Business box art

Family Business

Game ID: GID0121974
Game Info
Year
1982
Collection
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Description

Family Business takes mob warfare to a new level of backstabbing, revenge, and general bloodthirstiness, which is what makes it such a blast to play. Every player controls a 'family' and plays various cards to off other players' family members. In a game with this little structure, it's possible for everyone to gang up on one unlucky soul, or for the damage to be fairly evenly spread. Either way, the last family standing is victorious.

Each player starts with a gang of nine characters. To try to get rid of other gangsters, contracts are played on them. If these contracts are not blocked by anyone, the targeted gangster is placed on the hitlist. As soon as six gangsters are on the hitlist a mobwar is started. This means that, at the start of every turn, the first character on this list is eliminated. This goes on until the list is empty.

Mobwars can also be triggered by cards being played. When no more than the last six or fewer characters are in play a constant mobwar is going on, until only one player has characters left.

In general players take turns clockwise, however, the turn goes to any player who plays a response card and then clockwise mode is resumed with the player next to him/her. Lots of interaction as players play cards to put gangsters on the list, save them, have them replaced, start a Mob War, or stop it...

Description

Family Business takes mob warfare to a new level of backstabbing, revenge, and general bloodthirstiness, which is what makes it such a blast to play. Every player controls a 'family' and plays various cards to off other players' family members. In a game with this little structure, it's possible for everyone to gang up on one unlucky soul, or for the damage to be fairly evenly spread. Either way, the last family standing is victorious.

Each player starts with a gang of nine characters. To try to get rid of other gangsters, contracts are played on them. If these contracts are not blocked by anyone, the targeted gangster is placed on the hitlist. As soon as six gangsters are on the hitlist a mobwar is started. This means that, at the start of every turn, the first character on this list is eliminated. This goes on until the list is empty.

Mobwars can also be triggered by cards being played. When no more than the last six or fewer characters are in play a constant mobwar is going on, until only one player has characters left.

In general players take turns clockwise, however, the turn goes to any player who plays a response card and then clockwise mode is resumed with the player next to him/her. Lots of interaction as players play cards to put gangsters on the list, save them, have them replaced, start a Mob War, or stop it...

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All mentions
Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 1
This page: 1
Sentiment: pos 0 · mix 0 · neu 0 · neg 1
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Video 1vE6V0ZdB8o 3 Minute Board Games Top List at 31:53 sentiment: negative
video_pk 91734 · mention_pk 246213
3 Minute Board Games - Family Business video thumbnail
Click to watch at 31:53 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
Negative
Pros
  • Sort of a precursor to modern party games
  • Served as a drinking time filler at university
Cons
  • Isn't a great game
  • Can be eliminated without taking a turn
  • Nasty by today's standards
Thematic elements
Comparison games
  • Lunch Money
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
  • Player Elimination — Players can be eliminated without taking a turn.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
  • Hunter is another one of those games we ended up playing a lot at University mostly while drinking
  • Hunter has several problems it takes a lot longer to play than it should for what it is especially when you're doing the coup those can drag on quite a long time and also fundamentally it's pretty racist
  • I think the hunter idea of a Banana Republic itself is pretty dated but the idea of a corrupt government where players of different office members competing for positions and stockpiling money definitely has potential just there's got to be a better way to interpret it
  • Cosmic Encounter is still going strong and that is an achievement and a half
  • it's core idea of a simple gameplay element Modified by a whole bunch of variable Powers has had a profound influence on all of gaming and unlike a lot of designs from this period it still holds up pretty well today
  • so happy birthday to me for 42 years old today here's to 42 more
  • if you want to do the same thing yourself just go to board game geek click on advanced search and search by year published range and just fill in the year and feel free to post your list Below in the comments
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