Edition Spielwiese and designer Matthias Cramer are teasing a new “push-your-luck” board game set in Victorian London by the name of “Swindler.” The game is set around the growing social injustice where rich moneybags run the city and make the poor poorer. This is why swindlers take to the street to tip the equilibrium and liberate the nobs out of their money.
Swindle Your Way to the Top and Make the Rich Less Rich
The game will expect from 2-4 players to cut purses for around 45-60 minutes. You will focus on five moneybacks throughout the game to steal from as you draw tokens from their bags. Each bag contains coins, jewelry and other valuable items. Occupational hazards do exist, though, and you may end up drawing a skull, which means that you have been caught in the act.
Players who get caught will lose all of the loot they stole from the bag in the present and previous rounds, making it even harder for a pickpocket to make an honest living. This is why you want to push the stolen goods quickly and get in touch with dealers so that you can turn a tidy profit and leave no trace.
Of course, you will also have to make sure you are quicker than fellow swindlers who are just as eager to get their hands on valuables and accumulate wealth in whatever way seems easiest. The good news is that even though you are competing against the other shady characters lurking the street of London, some can be hired and trained to help you get ahead in the game.
Cramer’s Successful Design Forays in the Past
Whether you throw a spanner in your rival swindlers’ works or use the accomplices to pull a bigger score is down to you. The game simply expects you to wrap it all up with the most victory points to win. Simple as that! Cramer himself is a prolific designer who has worked on a number of distinguished projects within the community.
His other most recent game, “Weimar – The Fight for Democracy” with the preproduction copy already shaping up nicely. Cramer’s other noteworthy projects include “Watergate,” “Fight for Olympus,” “Glen More II: Chronicles” and so many more. A talented creator of board gaming experiences, “Swindler” will no doubt be a title you should be looking forward to.