Pumafiosi
Designed by: Reiner Knizia
Pumafiosi is kind of a trick-taking game, and kind of a push-your-luck game. The idea is that we are members of the same feline ‘family’, but competing for biggest the scraps at the table…
On the table are a hierarchy of points cards, from the chunky 10 down to the underwhelming 1 point, and beneath that, the -3 points cards. During each round of the game, players will be placing their own cards next to them, to hopefully claim the points. But as we’ll see, you may get bumped down the hierarchy, to the rung below.
Who gets to claim what is decided by playing a trick, of sorts: everyone plays a single card, and the highest card is the winner. Except that in Pumafiosi, it’s the not the highest, but the second-highest! Perhaps this reflects the double-crossing and/or confusion of the puma mafia, but either way, whomever played the second-highest card gets to place it beside one of the points cards, choosing either an unoccupied space, or – as long as their just-played number is higher than the one currently occupying a rung – bumping a card down to the next space. If there is a card there too, that also gets bumped, and so on and so on until a card finally moves either into a free space, or into the bottom rung (minus points!) which has room for multiple cards. The lowest bumped card gets minus one point for being bumped.
When all ten tricks have been played, points are scored, and the deck is freshly shuffled for the next round. That’s pretty much it, except to add that each player also gets three special one-use tokens: you can play the Bullet-proof Vest to protect a card from picking up minus points, the x2 to double the points haul of a single card, the Wedding Ring to share the points of a card you’re bumping, and the Machine Gun to boost the numeric value of a card by ten and half. After three rounds, the player with the most points is the winner.
Sam says
I’m always happy to try a Reiner Knizia game, and Pumafiosi doesn’t disappoint – intriguingly interactive and nicely presented. That said, it’s not one of his home runs for me, being a combination of slightly opaque and beholden to luck in a way that doesn’t always feel as fun or funny as luck should: the last three tricks of each round for example can be a bit of a lottery, whilst also feeling like the most important in terms of grabbing those high-point hauls: high cards tend to be better throughout, in fact, as they are less likely to get bumped.
My sense is there are other Knizia games that feel more compelling and more inviting to new players – some listed to the right here, but also trick-takers such as Voodoo Prince or tile-layers like Sunrise Lane – but that’s not to say Pumafiosi is a dud. The same things that make it feel a bit weird are also what make it interesting, and I’d happily play it again for that reason.
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Take That!
For a card game, there is a tangibly combative sense to it, as players bump each other off those high-scoring spots on the ladder
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Fidget Factor!
Low - each round you play one card, from three
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Brain Burn!
Going last is ideal, because you've the best chance of finishing second. But then you lead the next round, which is the worst place to be.
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Again Again!
It's not the most intuitive game, but pretty easy to pick up all the same and the combination of cards and tokens and player input all make for a decently sustainable game
