In Dark Deeds, the 2-5 players are playing as competing minions, committing crimes in order to impress their evil patron - but this isn't a Despicable Me-inspired game; it's a card game designed by Andy Chambers and Mark Gibbons that was originally published in 2016. This edition from Rookery Publications and Modiphius includes revisions to the original game and some new cards - so still more of Mark Gibbons' art to admire. The original game had wooden suspicion tokens and a metal 'most suspicious' coin. These are now cardboard, which is not as bling but is perfectly adequate. The new edition also replaces the d12 of the original game with 2d6.
As the title suggests, this is a game where you're carrying out Dark Deeds - robbing citizens, evading and attacking city guards, and putting together fiendish plots to get one over on your rival minions. This is a dice chucking game where there are cards laid out in a row representing a street and where you need to roll more than the value on the card you are targeting. Succeed and you add that card to your score pile but you also attract suspicion equal to the card's value. When you rob a citizen, any surplus rolled (ie: the amount by which the number you rolled exceeds the target's strength) can be used to activate a loot card which will typically give you modifiers on future rolls.
If there's a guard on the street to the right of the citizen you want to rob, you can't target that citizen unless you first sneak past or knock out the guard. Whenever you rob a citizen or attack a guard on the street, you attract suspicion. You will want to try to attract less suspicion than other minions because guards go in pursuit of the most suspicious minion, making that player's turns more difficult because they will always need to defeat or sneak past a pursuing guard before they can target any card on the street. If you have a guard in pursuit and suspicion of 10 or more, you are arrested. Your suspicion is reset to zero but you lose all your loot cards. There are points in the game where that's not too bad but losing loot cards in this way can be particularly painful in the latter stages of the game where you'll need the modifications of loot cards to try to take on more powerful nemeses. When nemeses cards come off the right side of the street they 'chase' the active player. You need to defeat them before the game ends as any still in pursuit will give you negative points. It's generally important, therefore, in Dark Deeds to manage and manipulate your suspicion. You mostly do this by Laying Low at the Tavern; instead of taking a card at the Tavern, rolling a d6 and removing its value in suspicion.
Aside from targetting guards, citizens and nemeses, players will be trying to satisfy the requirements of their Dark Deeds cards - not least because unmet Dark Deeds in hand at the end of the game will also score negative points. And providing additional interaction between players, there are plot cards, most of which are designed to let a player get one over on other minions...
Dark Deeds is a hand management and push-your-luck game with a mischievous 'take that' element. It's a lot of fun, and it plays in around 45 minutes. The original edition of Dark Deeds had many dedicated fans but it's good to see Modiphius introducing the game to a wider audience.