Family Business: The Card Game that Lets You Become a Mafia Boss

Family Business is a fun game for three to six players. The theme is that of being a mafia boss and being able to order hits on your rival families. The theming of this game is rather strong, so if you are not a fan of the mafia theme you might do better in purchasing a game such as Guillotine. The two card games are actually very similar. In each you are eliminating players from a line up. The difference though is in Guillotine you get points for each card you take from the line, and in Family Business instead of trying to get points you are trying to eliminate your opponent’s family.

To start the game each player gets their own “family” of nine mobsters. These are placed face up in front of them so everyone knows how many family members each player has remaining in the game. During the course of the game you will be able to add opponents’ family members to “the wall” where cards can be eliminated from the game. You will also be able to perform hits to eliminate cards of other families on the wall. Of course your opponents will be trying to do the same thing to you. This is done through the action cards. You are dealt five action cards to begin the game and you acquire a new one and play one from your hand on each turn.

On your turn you draw a card from the draw pile and then decide to play or discard one of the cards in your hand. Different action cards have different abilities and most also have a card that cancels their action. If you play a contract card you can force one of your opponents to put a family member on the wall, but if they have a family influence card they can cancel your action. If they have a mob power card they not only cancel your action but force you to put one of your own family members against the wall. There are a couple of special contract cards as well these are priority contracts and double contracts. If a priority contract is played the opponent you choose must put their family member at the front of the wall. A double contract allows you to force an opponent to put two family members on the wall. They can cancel one but not both of the members for the double contract if they have a family influence or mob power card. You can switch any card in play with another if you use the substitution card. You can try to remove one of your family members from the wall with a “take it on the lamb” card, but if another opponent plays the “finger” card that cancels your card. Of course the whole object is to remove opponent’s family members from the game and this can be used using the hit card which will remove one player from the wall putting it in the “dead pile”.

There are a couple special cards that effect all of the family members against the wall. The first is the federal crackdown, it removes everyone’s family members from the wall and puts them back in front of the player who has that family. Then there is the Valentine’s Day Massacre card. This card removes all the family members in another way, it moves them all to the dead pile! The other way family members are killed quickly is during a mob war! This happens anytime there are more than 6 family members on the wall, less than six mobsters left in the game, or one of the cards that starts a mob war is played. During a mob war the first thing a player does on their turn is remove the family member card at the front of the wall to the dead pile. The mob war continues until all the mobsters on the wall are dead or a truce card is played. Oh, and watch out for those cards that double the mob war meaning two family members are removed at the start of each player’s turn.

As the game continues players will start to run out of family member cards. When all your family members are “dead” you are out of the game. The last person with a family member alive after all their opponents are eliminated wins. Overall I really enjoyed this game, but that is because I enjoy the theme. As I mentioned above, Guillotine would be a better choice for players that don’t like the theme or the idea of players having their family members die. At around $10 this game is a nice one to have in your collection. One issue you have to deal with is that once a player is eliminated they have to sit around waiting for the game to end. This lowers the enjoyment for some people, but the good news is an average game only lasts half an hour. Due to some of these issues I will only rate this game a 7 out of 10 for the casual game fan, but for mafia fans would give it an 8.5.