Knizia Game Round-up: Smuggle Soda, Collect Accomplices, and Rise in the Feline Mafia

Lawmakers are cracking down on soda, and tight regulation has made way for lucrative smuggling. One bottle per person is the new law — thus bribes, suitcase inspections, and arrests are on the agenda. Only one will emerge the Soda Kingpin.

Each round in Soda Smugglers, one player takes a turn in the role of a border guard while the other players act as travelers. In a quest to acquire coveted carbonation and its accompanying bottle caps, the border guard tries to confiscate as many sodas as possible while only the cleverest travelers will sneak across with their fizzy contraband. After each player has been the border guard (twice in a 3-4 player game, once in a 5-8 player game), the game ends and whoever has the most bottle caps wins!

The Pumafiosi (Puma Mafiosi) operate in a strict hierarchy from the family's boss down to the lowest Picciotti. Everyone wants to reach the top, and no one wants to end up at the bottom — or even beneath the soil. Amongst these aspiring Pumafiosi, it is wise to keep your head out of the firing line. Stand out too much, and you'll soon find yourself in prison, if not murdered by the rival families.

Pumafiosi is a refreshingly unique blend of simple trick-taking and precarious press-your-luck. Each trick, the person who plays the second-highest card wins the round, and they decide where to place that winning card in the hierarchy. You can even choose to place your measly card at the top of the hierarchy to stake your claim on the big boss points. The catch is that these cards can be knocked down one or more steps on the hierarchy by higher-valued cards, and whoever owns a falling card is penalized!


Pumafiosi differs from the older title Rooster Booster thanks to designer Reiner Knizia:

—Increasing the strategy by narrowing the deck to a range of 1-55
—Crafting a satisfying two-player experience
—Raising the stakes by tweaking the hierarchy values and penalties
—Tailoring a theme that gives context to the rules
—Enhancing the drama by including physical penalty points
—Layering decisions with further depth and tension via one-time-use items

Lead the undercover investigation against five criminal groups to gather enough evidence to convict them. However, if you investigate too aggressively, the criminals will smell a rat and go dark!


In each round of Hot Lead, criminal cards are displayed in a column equal to the number of players. Players then make their bid by simultaneously revealing an investigator card from their hand. The highest investigator bid takes the criminal card closest to the deck, the second highest takes the second closest, and so on. These cards are worth points equal to their face value (0-5).

Gather enough evidence on one criminal organization to convict them when the game concludes after ten rounds; in game terms, by having exactly three of a suit, you earn 10 bonus points. Ten bonus points are also awarded to those who acquire criminal cards of all five suits. If you investigate too aggressively and grab the fourth card of a suit, those criminals will sense a rat and you'll scare them underground, thereby losing all of those cards. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

"Social grooming" is a communal ritual most elegantly performed by majestic beasts known as primates. It is the act of removing dirt, insects, and debris from the difficult-to-reach and difficult-to-see places of each other’s fur. Reciprocation is expected and awarded in this kind of monkey business! The player who acquires the most diverse and exotic collection of groomed goods will earn the respect of their fellow primates and be awarded the golden banana of victory.


In the game Social Grooming, players are primates who start out with a personal deck of face-down cards. Without looking at the card(s) in their hand, players simultaneously trade or keep their hand, one or two cards at a time, to form a personal collection. Once all cards have been traded or kept, players tally their collections and the highest score wins — but pairs can cancel out and special cards are not always helpful, so trade carefully!

Similar to the popular game Hanabi, in Social Grooming players hold their cards facing away from themselves...but instead of being a co-operative memory game, this is a competitive negotiation and bluffing game. Things get even more interesting once players realize that every card can either be very good or very bad for one's collection, depending on the context. You'll have to convince your opponents to keep bad cards for themselves and give great cards to you if you want to swing away with the win...

Who would you rob a bank with? Who would be the right partner for a small betting fraud? And who would you choose to get the pesky nightclub bouncer out of the way?


The world is full of criminal challenges, and there are plenty of prominent candidates for your next coup: politicians, artists, athletes, actors, scholars, musicians. In Komplize gesucht!, you get to name who your accomplices would be for these crimes and more.