Ragamuffins is a city building game in which the players take on the role of Old World capitalists who employ street urchins to thieve from fruit markets in an effort to manipulate prices.
The game is played across 16 rounds, on a modular city map of 64 squares. At the beginning of each round 5 ships are loaded with 2 fruit tiles, and set sail for 4 ports within the city. Normally, on a player's turn they'll dock one of the available ships at an open port, and unload a fruit tile into that section of the city, thereby establishing a market. The remaining fruit tile is added to the player's stockpile. Each player controls a gang of 6 ragamuffins, of which only 4 will be deployed within the city each game. These ragamuffins are tasked with stealing from specific markets. These targets are hidden from the other players. At the end of the game, the player who manages to increase the demand for their stockpile the most, via robbing the various markets in the city, is the winner.
—description from the designer