Play Like Historic Chicago Mob Bosses In This New Board Game

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Oct 19, 2015 6:22PM

via Road to Infamy

Chicago is notorious for its history of organized crime—so much so that there are multiple tours of Al Capone's infamous haunts offered around the city.

Now local board game designers Jeffrey Chin and Andrew Nerger want you to be able to think and play like a Prohibition-era mob boss—with some modern twists. The gangs of Chicago-themed game, Road To Infamy, lets two to four players compete as wealthy gang leaders, running Chicago's top crime operations, buying contraband items, laundering money, bribing cops and recruiting other gang members.

The game narrowly avoids glamorizing Chicago's present-day gang problems with a campy theme inspired by the history of Chicago's most well-known mob bosses, but incorporates some anachronistic elements, such as naming one competing team "the hackers"—as in, computer hackers.

The gamers are raising money to make the game cheaper to mass-produce, and they've already far-surpassed their Kickstarter fundraising goal. In terms of game play, Nerger says Road to Infamy is different from some other board games by allowing players to play simultaneously, rather than waiting their turn.

"We've all been there, sitting at a table and wondering when is it going to be my turn," he says in the Kickstarter video. "Games are most fun when you're in control and your actions matter, so we thought, why not make a game where it's always your turn?"

Deception also plays a big role in the game, he says.

Here's the full video:

And here's how it works: