The Gang

review by K

You’ve heard of cooperative games, and you’ve heard of poker. The Gang combines both flawlessly. That’s right - cooperative Texas Hold’em is here!

First, I must say that the box art itself is very appealing, with its dull blacks and reds in contrast with the gold foil on the box.

From the publishers who brought you The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, The Gang shines as a standalone heist card game, where players are dealt their pocket cards and begin silently rating how good their respective hands are, or might be, using numbered poker chips between 1-6 (1 being the lowest/worst hand and 6 being the highest/best hand). After 4 rounds of collecting poker chips, the players use the red chip (the last chip) to determine the order, with the lowest evaluated hand going first. If the players are correct in their order of worst-to-best poker hands, their gang opens a vault! However, if the players make one mistake… then they have set off the alarms and must try again.

If the players are successful in opening a vault, then they are dealt a challenge card, which adds a layer of difficulty to their already-daunting task. If the players set off an alarm, then they are instead dealt a helper card, which adds a helpful boon for the round. The gang (the players) win if they open 3 vaults before they set off 3 alarms. The gang loses if they set off 3 alarms before opening 3 vaults.

I played The Gang during KublaCon Prime weekend (Memorial Day weekend) and had so much fun. We were fantastically successful in some cases, and in others we were great failures, but hey, not everyone has what it takes to pull off a successful heist!

The Gang takes 3-6 players to play and around 20 minutes of playing time, making it an easy convention game to pick up and play, or to get your Balatro-loving friends to the table.

The Gang is available now from our webstore.

The Gang