I think most tabletop gamers have played at least one type of “hidden role” game in their lifetime. I have…and in my experience, the more people you have playing, the better. “13th Street Crew”, a tabletop game that’ll be seeking funding through Kickstarter in October 2023, has that “don’t trust anybody” feel about it and a little more. In this case, players are low-ranking members of a large criminal organization all semi-cooperatively competing to advance (by winning the game). Before we begin I’m required by FTC regulations to disclose that I was paid to cover this game, however any and all opinions are my own. The prototype copy provided was sent via “The Game Crafter”, so components and rules may be subject to change.
Components & Objective
My copy came with 48 resource cards of 4 types, 45 police action cards of 2 types, 9 identity cards (1 is an informant), 48 job cards, and 42 poker chips (green = $1k, black = $5k).
Identity cards come in two flavors: 8 loyal crew and 1 informant. One is dealt randomly (and secretly) to each player during setup. (Setup will vary depending on player count)
The goal of the game is to earn at least $15,000. Multiple loyal crew players can win if they exceed this amount at the same time, however the informant player can only win if they they are the only one to reach $15,000 or if 5 police presence cards are played during the game. If no one is the informant and 5 police presence cards are played, everyone loses.
Gameplay
Players take turns being the “lead player”, with that title being passed clockwise at the end of their turn. During the lead player’s turn they will:
1. Reset / Use Assets – Assets are gained by players during the game. These assets are found on completed jobs cards that the player has earned on previous turns. They provide a slight engine building mechanic to the game. For example, you can use an asset to gain $1k at the beginning of your turn. Some assets reward the lead player (white background) while others award all players (green background). Only the lead player can reset their assets during this phase.
2. Draw 1 Resource Card (hand limit 7) – Resource cards display one of four resources: political capital, intelligence, family favors, and hardware. These cards are used to complete jobs.
3. Pass or Propose a Job – Passing on a job means all players (including the lead player) can draw 1 resource card. You also get to replace one active job in the array and your turn ends. Otherwise, you can propose a job by picking one of the jobs in the array to attempt.
4. Assemble Crew – Jobs are listed as solo, small, and big. For small and big jobs, you can ask other players to help you. Players are not allowed to reveal what resources they have but can offer phrases like “I can help a lot / little”. If a small / big job does not have at least 2 / 3 people respectively, the job is discarded and a new job is drawn with your turn ending.
5. Put the Jobs Together – The crew attempting this job go clockwise submitting resource cards until either the job is complete or unable to be completed. All played resources go into a discard pile. Failing a job causes the job to be discarded and the turn ends.
6. Check for Police Action – Each player will get an “all clear” card and a “police presence” card during setup. During this stage, players involved in the job secretly submit one or the other to a pile. Informants who attempted a job solo cannot end the game by playing the fifth police presence card. Police cards are revealed one at a time and if a police presence card comes up, the job fails and the turn ends. All remaining and unused police cards by the crew are returned unseen to the box. New police cards are dealt from the deck and divvied out to the crew involved so that everyone has one all clear and one police presence card.
Turns continue until someone meets the aforementioned victory conditions.
Note: The above doesn’t cover all of the rules found in the manual, but should give you an idea as to how the game is played.
Thoughts & Impressions
“13th Street Crew” borrows some concepts from a number games, but I’m not complaining. Everyone I’ve ever met seems to love a good traitor mechanic a la “Dead of Winter” or “Shadows Over Camelot”. In this case, I felt like I was playing “The Resistance”, especially since there was a lot of hidden “voting” going on. As the informant, you really have to be careful not to bring out those police presence cards on smaller crewed jobs. The finger-pointing and accusation throwing are most definitely there and it’s games like this where actors (professional or not) really shine and get to mess with people’s heads a little.
Then there’s the resource contribution bit…I felt like I was playing “Moonrakers” and other similarly styled games. “Moonrakers” has players haggling over the rewards but here, the rewards are all laid out on the jobs themselves. That’s good for people who hate haggling, bad of those who love it. Jobs will say something like, “Crew Take $3k, Lead Take $2”, so folks clearly know what they’re getting. This means no last minute-backstabbing, unless you’re the informant and want to play the police presence card. The informant is not a guaranteed role you so never know whether one is in the game or not. It could very well be that there isn’t an informant, but police presence cards come up to prevent a fellow lead or crewmember from scoring big on a job.
I like the engine building aspect with the asset mechanics, though I have to stress that not all job reward an asset (usually just a one-time reward). Still, it’s fun to strategize just how engine-buildy you should make your engine before focusing on those victory points (in this case, cold hard cash). Including permanent rewards in this game was a good move.
I do like the addition of some of the non-standard job asset rewards. For example, there’s an asset reward called “Assist a Bookie with Debt Collection” that allows the player holding it to bet whether a job will succeed or fail. That player will receive different rewards or even lose money based on the outcome. There’s another asset reward that lets you peek at another person’s identity but has to keep that information to themselves. These are a few examples, but I find these help to break up the game a bit when someone manages to completed that related job and acquire the asset. Of course, you could always remove the more “bet”/”swing” driven assets from the game if you’re not into that kind of thing.
It’s hard to talk about the component quality since this is a prototype from “The Game Crafter.” I’ll just simply remark that I was so glad that none of the components had that laser cut warning (which causes soot to be everywhere), though I do wish the card stock was better (they were easily scratchable). I’m sure the component quality would be better after a successful Kickstarter campaign. I loved the theme and the art was very well done.
My only beef with this title is the player count limitations. Hidden role games are usually 3+ players and this game is no exception. For households like mine that favor 1-2 players, this game may not see a whole lot of action. I would highly suggest some kind of solo / 2 player variant be created so that the game can appeal to a wider audience. “Moonraker”, a similar game to this, supports 1-5 players. Again, perhaps a successful Kickstarter can help fund new components for such a thing.
All of that said, “13th Street Crew” is a tense semi-cooperative experience that has a, “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer” kinda vibe. If you enjoy games with potential traitors and loved “Moonraker” for its contract system, you’ll probably like this one too.
From what I’m told the Kickstarter campaign will launch October, 2023. I’ll have a link below once the campaign is live. In the meantime, check out my video overview below!
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crimaniagames/the-13th-street-crew
Developer Website: https://13thstreetcrew.crimaniagames.com/
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