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The Pumafiosi (Puma Mafiosi) operate in a strict hierarchy from the family's boss down to the lowest Picciotti. Everyone wants to reach the top, and no one wants to end up at the bottom — or even beneath the soil. Amongst these aspiring Pumafiosi, it is wise to keep your head out of the firing line. Stand out too much, and you'll soon find yourself in prison, if not murdered by the rival families.
Pumafiosi is a refreshingly unique blend of simple trick-taking and precarious press-your-luck. Each trick, the person who plays the second-highest card wins the round, and they decide where to place that winning card in the hierarchy. You can even choose to place your measly card at the top of the hierarchy to stake your claim on the big boss points. The catch is that these cards can be knocked down one or more steps on the hierarchy by higher-valued cards, and whoever owns a falling card is penalized!
Pumafiosi differs from the older title Rooster Booster thanks to designer Reiner Knizia:
Increasing the strategy by narrowing the deck to a range of 1-55
Crafting a satisfying two-player experience
Raising the stakes by tweaking the hierarchy values and penalties
Tailoring a theme that gives context to the rules
Enhancing the drama by including physical penalty points
Layering decisions with further depth and tension via one-time-use items
—description from the publisher
- Gameplay changes a lot at three.
- Very satisfying when a card squeeze works.
- Great little card game.
- At five players, it was a little bit of a dud.
- At five, it was fine, but hyped up way too much.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card shedding — In this game, you want to play the second highest card. Gameplay changes a lot at three.
- Push Your Luck — It's a little bit of a push-your-luck about hoping not to get bumped down and get penalty points.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- with three, there's that more player interaction, and there's more stuff happening from turn to turn.
- But this one is just tailor-made for three people, I think.
- So, I I like the combat in this game quite a bit.
- I really dislike this at four. I think it's too long.
- I In fact, I will not teach this to four players even. That's I'm so snobby about that.
References (from this video)
- Clever game
- Theme is barely there
- Mafia hierarchy of cats
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Push Your Luck — Elements combined with trick taking.
- Set Collection — Placing cards on a hierarchical lane for points.
- Trick taking — A light trick taking game where players play a card with a value, and the second highest card played wins.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is a category which before I started the list I thought would be um relatively wide ranging and and uh I came to find throughout get actually doing the research and getting ready for this list that maybe it's a little bit narrower than I actually expected.
- Now, that makes sense thematically because, you know, a lot of the gangster movies or uh just cultural uh elements we've seen of mobsters involve like, you know, combat, fighting for control over areas and things along those lines.
- The theme is probably not terribly integral to the game design itself.
- those tend to be the games that I think best evoke a gangster or a mobster type of a theme.
- This is such a cool take on this theme.
- Speak Easy is a heavy Euro game designed by Vatital Lera who is known for heavy Euro games primarily and this is one that for a Euro which is usually considered Euro style games are usually considered to be you know not anti-theatic but the theme is usually not a huge element of them.
- what Speak Easy does so brilliantly amongst many things is integrate the theme beautifully into the Euro style mechanisms that drive the game.