PLAYED FOR YOU

Crooks

Gangster, Hangouts and Booty

And yet again we go for a trip into the outlaw genre and are master criminals on the search for small crooks which we can send out to steal and burgle. You lay out target cards in a row, with increasing values, and the master criminals of players in a column so that the edges of a grid are formed.

Then you place face-down crooks next to the hangouts according to the rules. In each turn you can recruit and steal or pass for the rest of the game. To recruit you choose a hangout, pay 1 $ per card next to the hangout and choose one of the cards. Then you place the card you just did take open-faced below a target, into the row with your own master criminal, there is only one card allowed with each target for each master criminal. If you want to place the crook face-down, you pay another dollar.

Some crooks offer special effects; when crooks are placed openly, those effects are triggered; they bring you money, you can swap cards or remove cards or look at face-down crooks at targets, etc.

When all have passed you reveal all face-down crooks and each target card goes to the crook / master criminal with the highest value; in case of a tie the target score is split, rounded down. The value of a target card can be modified by crook cards. If you accrue the highest total of points from targets and majorities of crooks of a gang color, you win.

Crooks is a nice game with little available information in which you must allocate your 18$ carefully; the later you look at a stack the cheaper it is. And then you want to place crooks face-down? Where is room in the grid? And where is some valuable loot left? Good for a filler game.

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 20+

Designer: Neil Crowley

Art: Dennis Lohhausen

Price: ca. 10 Euro

Publisher: White Goblin Games 2012

Web: www.whitegoblingames.com

Genre: Card placement game

Users: For families

Version: multi

Rules: de en fr it nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Standard topic

Good design, good rules

Little information available due to hidden cards in hangouts and the target grid

Some tactic possible

Compares to:

Placement games with value comparison at positions

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 1

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0