Good Cop Bad Cop: Bombers and Traitors Preview

This post is not a review, but a preview for a game currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. Final art, components, and rules are all subject to change.

Good Cop Bad Cop is a social deduction game that pits straight officers against crooked cops in a battle of bluffing and wits.

To begin the game, each player is given 3 Integrity Cards. These cards will be one of 4 things:

1. An Honest cop
2. A Crooked cop
3. The Agent
4. The Kingpin

If you have a leader card (either the Agent or the Kingpin), you are automatically a member of that faction. If you don't have a leader, then you are a member of the faction that you have two or more of.

Once the Integrity cards have been distributed, the game can begin. One a player's turn, they have a few options.

They can Investigate, by peeking at any one face-down Integrity card.

They can Equip by drawing an Equipment card and also turning one of their own Integrity cards face-up.

They can Arm, by picking up one of the available Gun cards and also flipping one of their Integrity cards face-up.

The last option a player has on her turn is to fire a Gun card she is holding.

Then, after a player takes one of the preceding actions, she can aim her Gun card at another player if she has one.



If a player is shot and she is not the Agent or the Kingpin, they must flip up all of their Integrity cards and they are eliminated from the game. The first time an Agent or Kingpin is shot, they must take a wounded token and draw an equipment card. If an Agent or Kingpin has a Wounded token and are shot, the game ends and the opposing team wins.

Those are the rules for the base game. Good Cop Bad Cop is an eminently simple game, that is one of the best conduits for emergent game play and story telling I have ever seen. The framework is so simple, that it simultaneously stays out of the players' way while also facilitating a supremely fun game experience.

What the Traitors and Bombers expansion adds to the game are...Traitors and Bombers. In the corner of many of the cop cards are either knife icons, bomb icons, or both. If a player ever has a hand made up of all 3 bombs or all 3 knives, they are either a bomber or a traitor, respectively.
'
Bombers will win if they either get shot or shoot either the Agent or the Kingpin, while Traitors will win if they survive the death of either the Agent or Kingpin.

The Bombers and Traitors expansion definitely keeps with the base game's philosophy "less is more," and is a fantastic addition to the game.

I strongly recommend backing this campaign, as it is a great way to not only support a small publisher, but also to get your hands on a great game that has been harder to get a hold of!

Go back it now!