My name is Anna. I’m 13 years old and I’m a high school student. I have many good friends and we like getting together on different occasions. Sometimes we go for a walk in the downtown, sometimes we go shopping together, and sometimes we simply meet at the school yard to chat. One of our recent reasons for meeting have become a new game. It’s a game of mafia. It has now become my favourite game. I think my friends would support me in that. They also seem to like it. I have always thought that games are for children only. However, mafia proved the opposite. This game is played mostly by teens and adults. We usually meet at the pizza place or at local McDonalds to play mafia. The rules of the game are simple. The presenter hands out special role cards to all players. The participants don’t show their cards to anyone and keep their roles in secret. Some cards present mafia members and some – innocent people. There are also special cards for the detective, doctor and policeman. Different groups play it differently. Some may have a bartender in their team or a lawyer. Everything depends on players and on how they want to play the game. So, the game also has two phases: night and day. The presenter is the person who doesn’t play just speaks. When he says it’s night time, everybody goes to sleep. When he says it’s day time, everybody should wake up. Mafia members should “kill” someone during the night while everyone is sleeping. They do it simply by pointing at one innocent person. When everyone is awake, the presenter announces who was killed and the team start guessing who the mafia members are. In my opinion, it is an engaging and interesting game, especially when you play with your good friends.
