There are cautionary tales about how friendships are ruined over Mafia. They are less like the carefully crafted cocktails of fun we expect from games these days, and more like a bottle of straight-up vodka that can quickly go from fun to poison. The original game of Mafia and its early adaptations are crude experiences by modern game design standards. While the fundamental appeal of Mafia is hard to miss, it doesn’t always translate to a fun experience.
Its organic growth to global fame in the pre-internet era is a testament to the potency of the core game idea: can an informed secret minority manipulate the uninformed majority? Can an organized mob of traitors lead a collaborative group to its demise? In a few years, it spread to the rest of Europe and to North America, where it was marketed as Werewolf. Mafia was originally designed as an academic psychological experiment in Russia in the late ‘80s, but it got quickly picked up by college students who played it in summer camps and dorm rooms. Social Deduction: From Vodka to Cocktails Should I be making a game at a time like this? (Image from Bo Burnham's INSIDE on Netflix)
