Step into the gritty underworld of the 1930s and compete as rival criminal masterminds pulling off daring heists across the city. In Heist City, you’ll bribe officials, hire shady crew members, and outmaneuver your rivals to grab the most loot before it’s all gone. Every turn counts!
- Accessible: Light-to-medium weight strategy game that blends worker placement and resource management mechanisms into an accessible game that anyone can enjoy.
- Dynamic Action System: Grab cash, hire crew, pull heists, steal books, or stage jailbreaks—every turn offers tense, meaningful choices fully integrated with the theme.
- Unique Crew Mechanic: Compete to hire the right crew for each job. Strategic trade-offs between speed, cost and reward.
- Replayability: Multiple strategies for each heist and varying constraints on worker placement and resource availability mean no two games play the same.
- Expandability - “Waterfront” expansion allows up to 6 players, adding more cash and crew, and a chance to win big by shooting dice!
Players take turns choosing strategic actions—from grabbing cash at the local speakeasy, to hiring a crew of criminal specialists, to pulling off million-dollar heists. Steal books to boost your endgame value or bribe city officials for surprise advantages. The game ends when only one loot token remains. Players get one final round to grab what they can before tallying up their spoils. The richest criminal mastermind wins the game—and the city’s fearsome respect.
BASE GAME
Components
- 4 City District Boards
- 4 Player Boards
- 5 Inside Contact Tokens
- 12 Bribe Cards
- 18 Rare Book Cards
- 22 Crew Tokens
- 24 Loot Tokens
- 66 Coins ($1k, $5k, $10k)
WATERFRONT EXPANSION
Components
- Two additional player boards and pawns (6 players total)
- Two additional districts (The Shipyard and Area 42)
- New loot (Alien Artifacts)
- More Money
- New Crew (Highly intelligent apes from the primate research lab)
- New gambling mechanism (Underground Action)
- New movement mechanism (Bootlegger Tunnels)
Gregory Anderson was interviewed for The Misplay podcast during the 2025 East Bay Board Game Convention. Mark was a great interviewer, and an even better editor! This episode features three different designers at different stages of game development, and is definitely worth a listen!
In Heist City, players assume the persona of one of four master criminals in the base game, with two more included in the Waterfront Expansion.
Choose your champion carefully!
Click on each Master Criminal to learn more.
How To Play Heist City
Setup
Lay out the four city districts so each is accessible to all the players. Shapes with dotted outlines on the district boards tell you where each type of token should be placed.
Crew & Inside Contacts - Each crew type and inside contact has a designated spot on the board (including the three that start the game in jail). Stack the specified number of each crew type in their spot. For example, both demolitionists are placed at Moe’s Mining Supply.
Loot - Stack the loot for each heist target with the lower value loot underneath the higher value loot. (put aside Contract, Reward, Something and Penny Stocks loot until the related books and bribes are redeemed)
Cash - Stack the specified amount on the three cash grab locations (General Store, Tardis Tactical, Prickly Pawn). Place $1k x the number of players on each of the Speakeasies.
Bribes - Shuffle all 12 cards and place face down in City Hall.
Rare Books - Shuffle sets 1 and 2 separately, and stack in Ren’s Rare Books with set 2 on the bottom and set 1 on the top.
Player Boards - Each player gets a player board, matching pawn, $10k cash, and a thug to start.
Game Play
To start the game, each player will place their pawn in one of the districts. The first player to place in a district must use slot A. Randomly choose a player order for this initial placement. For all subsequent rounds, turn order will be determined by a pawn’s location on the board, (district 1, slot A, then 1B, 2A, etc.). Each round consists of three phases:
1. Action - Each player in order takes a single action of those available in the district they are in. They then slide their pawn down to the bottom of the slot to signal that they are done.
2. Update - Replace stolen cash at General Store, Tardis Tactical and Prickly Pawn, and add $1k to each Speakeasy, regardless of how much cash is still there.
3. Move - Each player (again, in order by board position) moves their pawn to a new district spot. Players cannot stay in the same district and cannot move to a spot occupied by another player. In this example image, both spots in Courthouse square are occupied.
Actions
The actions players may take are determined by the district they moved to. While only two players are allowed in any one district at a time, both may take any action in that district, provided the resources are available. For example, both players in Courthouse Plaza may hire a thug, unless the player in the first spot hires the last thug, in which case the player in the second spot will have to either choose a different action or take no action.
Grab Cash - Crew members are hired with cash. There are five locations where you can get cash - two Speakeasies, where no crew is needed, and three stores where one or two crew members are required to get a bigger haul. When grabbing cash, all the money present at that location is taken and placed on your player board.
Hire a Crew Member - Hire any single crew member in your current district by paying the stated fee to the reserve and placing that crew member on your player board. No player may retain more crew than fit on their player board. Crew members may be dismissed at any time, but there are no refunds.
Hire an Inside Contact - As an alternative to hiring a full crew, you can pull off a heist at some locations by hiring just one person - the inside contact. The advantage of using the inside contact is that they are cheaper and easier to hire than a full crew. The downside is that you have to split the loot from that heist 50-50 with that inside contact. Hiring an inside contact is like any other hire, except they take up two crew spaces on your player board, must remain there until used for a heist or the game ends, and cannot be sent to jail.
Pull off a Heist - Each heist target shows the crew members needed to pull off that heist. For example, a heist at Pennyfoot Manor (in the Financial District) requires a thug, a fence, and a safecracker. When you pull off a heist, you take the top loot. Loot cannot be used for any cash transactions.
Crew are hired for a single heist. After a heist, one crew member is chosen by the master criminal to be the “patsy”, and is sent to City Jail. All other crew members escape the law and return to their hangouts to be hired again for other heists. Inside contacts can only be used for a single heist. After the heist, that contact and their associated loot are placed in the Split Loot area on your player board.
Pay a Bribe - Bribes are a way to get favors that get you extra loot, make heists easier, and even let you take crew members from one of your competitors. Pay $5k, and take the top bribe card to reveal your favor. Cards may be used immediately or during any subsequent action phase.
Steal a Book - Ren’s Rare Books is in the Financial District. Books teach you valuable skills that can be used to increase the value of your loot at the end of the game or make it easier to pull off heists. To acquire a Rare Book, you must sacrifice any one crew member by sending them to City Jail.
Jailbreak! - A jailbreak can be pulled off when the prison guard is in your employ. When you pull off a jailbreak, any number of the criminals you freed can join your crew for free, if you have room for them on your player board. Once the prisoners go free, the guard goes back to work, hoping to be hired again for another jailbreak.
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Oakland, California