Road to Infamy, is a fast-paced bidding, gangster-themed game for 2-4 players. Road to Infamy is all about anticipating what moves your opponents will make, taking risks, and playing counter moves. It’s simple enough to learn in 3 minutes, yet deep enough where you are discovering new strategies every time you play it. But best of all, it’s always your turn.
Players start with a hand of 6 bids. Bids are valued 1 - 5 with the lower valued cards containing some game changing actions. Players chose a bid and place it face down in the ready position. When everyone is ready the bids are simultaneously revealed. The bids’ colors signify what you are bidding on. Red bids recruit gangsters with unique abilities, green bids buy various types of Contraband (worth victory points), and blue bids bribe the Cop, which protects your points and forces the competition to lose theirs. After 3 rounds the highest bidder for a given color wins the corresponding prize. Players take their winnings and reset the board for the next hand.
Player interaction comes from the actions on the lower numbered bid cards. Actions allow you to steal your rivals contraband, assassinate their mercenaries, and put the odds in your favor.
Each gangster has their own unique ability that is active throughout the entire game. Depending on which gangsters you recruit, different strategies will become available. For example, the Mob Boss gives you an additional Victory Point for each Gangster on your team, this card pairs well with the Recruiter who gives you a permanent +2 to your red bid total. This combination helps you outbid your opponents for new gangsters and earn you victory points when you do so.
The game ends after 12 rounds of bidding. The player with the most victory points wins.
- Smooth, fast-paced despite depth
- Unique rotating mechanic
- Excellent art and theme
- Complex scoring may be intimidating for new players
- Cheese aging, wine pairing, and cheese banking in a rotating mechanic
- Italy; cheese production and regional economy
- Suggestive of culinary production and regional commerce
- Formage/Formaggio
- Fromage
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- rotating lazy Susan — A physical rotating setup that drives how players access actions and resources.
- Simultaneous worker placement — Players act in parallel to choose actions about cheese, wine, and distribution.
- Worker Placement — Players act in parallel to choose actions about cheese, wine, and distribution.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Panda Panda is a quick playing card game.
- you have to yell panda panda as obnoxiously as you possibly can.
- I love this game.
- The table presence on this thing is absolutely gorgeous.
- This is a three-dimensional game. So you literally are building up into a temple.
- There is so much stuff in here that I probably won't go through all of it because there's I think there's like 200 scratch cards.
- The solo mode is really clever because you can see their cards before they go if they are following they will discard two cards randomly and readjust things.
- I love the artwork on this.