Cities: Chicago (Illinois

During the 19th century, the elevation of the Chicago area was just a few feet higher than the shoreline of Lake Michigan. For many years, there was little or no naturally occurring drainage from the city surface, and this lack of drainage caused unpleasant living conditions. Standing water harbored pathogens that caused numerous epidemics including typhoid fever and dysentery, culminating in the 1854 outbreak of cholera that killed six percent of the city's population. The crisis forced the city to take the drainage problem seriously. In 1856, engineer Ellis S. Chesbrough drafted a plan for the installation of a citywide sewerage system and submitted it to the city council, which adopted the plan.

However, due to the minimal elevation above the lake, the sewer could not be built underground and had to be built at street level. The city council then decided to implement a radical idea: Prevented from digging down, they instead decreed the buildings of the city would be raised to allow the new sewer system to be hidden under the new street level. Representing one of the four companies that were created to tackle the problem of raising the buildings of Chicago, it's up to you to gather resources, take on the most attractive projects, and help solve the sanitation crisis of the city.

On your turn in Raising Chicago, you place a tile on a resource slot associated with one of five building projects, then claim the resource you covered. After all players have placed tiles, each project is evaluated. The winning player pays resources to complete the project, claims the project reward, then places all of their tiles associated with that project as levels underneath the building onto a space on the board. Players earn points for placing buildings cleverly, doing the most work in a ward, and meeting the demands of council people.

Only the most successful player will win, so play strategically to prove you can raise buildings the best in Raising Chicago!

—description from the publisher

Family Business takes mob warfare to a new level of backstabbing, revenge, and general bloodthirstiness, which is what makes it such a blast to play. Every player controls a 'family' and plays various cards to off other players' family members. In a game with this little structure, it's possible for everyone to gang up on one unlucky soul, or for the damage to be fairly evenly spread. Either way, the last family standing is victorious.

Each player starts with a gang of nine characters. To try to get rid of other gangsters, contracts are played on them. If these contracts are not blocked by anyone, the targeted gangster is placed on the hitlist. As soon as six gangsters are on the hitlist a mobwar is started. This means that, at the start of every turn, the first character on this list is eliminated. This goes on until the list is empty.

Mobwars can also be triggered by cards being played. When no more than the last six or fewer characters are in play a constant mobwar is going on, until only one player has characters left.

In general players take turns clockwise, however, the turn goes to any player who plays a response card and then clockwise mode is resumed with the player next to him/her. Lots of interaction as players play cards to put gangsters on the list, save them, have them replaced, start a Mob War, or stop it...