I had the opportunity to meet with the staff at Calliope Games while I attended New York Toy Fair last week. I was excited to talk to them about their upcoming press your luck game The Mansky Caper. The game, designed by Ken Franklin and funded by Kickstarter, will be reaching stores later this year and I am super excited to play it with my family.
This game lived inside Ken’s mind for what sounds like decades. It was originally conceived as a thought experiment. Think about this:
Imagine that you are standing in a room. Inside that room are 300,000 boxes. All of those boses have an $5 bill. ONE of those boxes, however, contains nuclear device that would end all life on Earth. How many of those boxes would you open?
Interesting right? There is no right answer either. It’s going to vary for each person thinking about it. I don’t know what answer I would give, but I do know that I want to play an game that will help me find out!
The Mansky Caper is themed around an prohibition era heist. Players take on the roles of members of a family of thieves as they attempt to rob from Mr. Mansky. Gameplay consists of moving from room to room and breaking into an series of safes.
The key is that each safe has a set amount of loot in it, as well as trouble cards that will hinder your thievery, or set off the alarm and force you to leave. You will always know what was in the safe from the beginning as each room clearly labels the tokens that will be going into the safe as game setup takes place. This means that you have to pay attention to what your opponents have done and make your decisions appropriately.
Another super cool feature in the game is the way it handles variable player powers. Each player takes on the role of an member of an criminal family. They each have unique powers that can be incredibly powerful in the right situation. Unfortunately, they can never use their power for themselves. Instead, they can call in favors from their friends using favor tokens. This means that when players choose a character they’re actually choosing the power that they DON’T want to have access to. That’s an interesting concept.
The Mansky Caper will be releasing later on this year barring any logistical hurdles with the components. Keep your eyes on EFG for more information as we get closer to launch including a review.
Guest Writer 
Linda Wrobel