THE MANSKY CAPER
By Ken Franklin
Published by Calliope games

An offer you can not de-fuse

The Mansky Caper is a fast paced press your luck game of suspense for 2-6 players. It has a game play ranging from 40- 60 minutes. The game is set in the 1920’s. You and your “family” of “associates” are out to make a name for yourselves. What better way to do that than to rob the richest mob boss and pull off the biggest caper of the century.

Big Al is a bit eccentric and doesn’t like those pesky banks. He keeps all that money in his mansion. Sounds easy right? Well, Al has all these sturdy build safes protect the goods, and has explosive booby traps to protect those. The one who obtains the most loot in their personal stash earns the right to become the leader of the “family” and calls all the shots. Can you all work together and make it work out the best for yourself?

Each player selects a character, a black bag to store loot, and a favor token. The characters all have a special ability unique to them, but there’s a catch. theres always a catch. The plays can not use their special ability on themselves. The other players must give them a favor token to use it on them.

The game board, Big Al’s mansion, is then constructed by randomly selecting 5 mansion tiles. These tiles are then placed face down on the table. A safe is placed on top of each room tile. Lastly, a getaway car tile is placed just outside the mansion. Shuffle the gasp deck cards and place it in reach of all players, or as we do it in our house hold designate one person to pull the card and read it out loud.

The game begins by the oldest and youngest player each selecting a room tile. These tiles are flipped over unlocking them for entry. Load the rooms safe with corresponding tokens as shown on the bottom of the room card. These tokens consist of three groups. These are loot tokens, gasp tokens, and danger-danger tokens. The loot tokens are pulled blindly from the loot bag and placed in the safe without peeking. The players who unlocked their rooms place their characters in their respective rooms. The other players then go clockwise from the youngest player placing their characters in the unlocked rooms. Play then begins with the youngest player. Players do one action a turn. These actions are pull blindly from the room safe, move to another room and open that safe, or stash loot in the getaway car.

Players who loot the safe pull one token from the safe. They can pull one of three types of tokens These are loot tokens, gasp tokens or danger-danger tokens.

Loot tokens have either a gem amount, coin amount, or both which is split evenly with each players in the room. The remainder of the loot is then placed on the floor. Players place their newly pilfered loot on top of their loot bag. Some loot tokens show a key. These can be spent to unlock a new room in the mansion and explore it.

Gasp! Tokens provide a moment of suspense to the turn. The player pulls a card from the gasp deck, divides the loot on the card, and then does what the card says at the bottom. This could be good or bad for the player or players. The card then gets discarded to the bottom of the draw pile.

The last token you can pull is a danger danger token. This is an explosive trap that Al has placed on the safe. Players place the token on the rooms danger track and rolls the danger-danger die. The danger track is the room’s threshold. You pull too many of those and the room explodes. The player then rolls the danger-danger die for the chance to disarm the bomb. If you do not roll the thumbs up you are safe icon, you are forced to follow one of the bad result icons rolled instead. If the room was blown up or any result that blows up loot, player or players discard all of their loot placed on top of their bags and is placed at the getaway car till the start of their next turn.

The second action is to move to another room, and open a safe. Players can move to either and open room or unlock a new room with a room key. If they open a new room, fill the safe with its tokens and the player pulls one. If the player left a room that had another player in it, and that player is now alone in the room, that player collects all the discarded loot leftovers lying on the floor. They place all loot on the top of their loot bag.

The last action is to return to the getaway car tile. This is where you can stash all of your loot on the top of your bag into the bag. This makes it safe for the rest of the game from being exploded. There are two other options you can do if you are with other players at the getaway car. A player can spend a favor, returning it to the game box, and remind the other player of that thing they did, in that place they were, with bad stuff that happened. This forces both players at the getaway car to dump their loot and split it evenly with the left over change going back to player forced to split it. The last thing is if all players are at the getaway car they can vote to leave the mansion and end the game. This vote must be unanimous among the players. If they do not choose to leave, the game ends when all of the rooms have exploded and everyone is back at the getaway car.

At the end of the game, players count up their stashed loot. The one with the most points wins. Gold coins are worth 1 point, gems are worth 5 points and unused keys a are worth 3 points.

One last thing to mention is that there is a bargaining option in the game. Players can bargain for favors, keys or gasp cards using unstashed loot that is on top of their bag. This adds one more element to snatch and grab gameplay.

THE REVIEW

This game is great. The creator and designer put so much time and care into this game. He did everything right, as far as I’m concerned with the production of the game. The 10 mansion tiles are beautifully illustrated and feels like you’ve been dropped into a cartoon version of the roaring 20’s. This game comes ready to play. The safes come pre-assembled and all the tokens come pre-punched so there is no worry of ruining anything. The tokens and tiny plastic gems come in a cardboard box container for easy storage. This means no loose pieces to lose.

The gameplay is great and well paced. It is an easy game to pick up for young and old. In a turn or two the most inexperienced player can be looting just blowing up stuff just like the rest. The gasp cards add great “plot twists” to the game, and the press your luck suspense generated from pulling tokens from the safe is like no other.

Each players special abilities are great and well balanced. The use of favor tokens to use other players abilities is an interesting game mechanic and balances the game well. Bardering for favor tokens give another fun and strategic aspect to the game.

The instruction manual is half comic book and half game mechanics. The comic book part explains the rules in a fun narrative way. It sets the tone for this themed game of snatch and grab style. The rules portion of the book is well laid out and easy to follow.

THE VERDICT

This game is great. It is a must have for any gamers collection. It is quick to play, light hearted, and has a small sense of strategy. Priced at 40 dollars it is a steal and definitely worth it for all of its polish and content. It really is an offer you can not de-fuse.

I give this game 5 loot bags out of 5. Go out and buy this game and make your ‘family” proud.