Parallel Mafia on iPhone: Mafia Wars meets Blade Runner in your phone

Sure, PerBlue could have went about face after Parallel Kingdom was finalized and attempted to make a cutesy puzzle game that could be the next Angry Birds. But the Wisconsin developer wanted to stay the course, work with what it knows and maybe even perfect that. The end result is Parallel Mafia, a location-based, massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMO) in the same vein as its medieval predecessor.

Based on our first look at the game thanks to PerBlue's Ellie Humphrey, Parallel Mafia is essentially Parallel Kingdom if its inhabitants walked through a Stargate and came out in the year 2157 or something. But in mobile games, sometimes theme can be everything. Besides, this is what PerBlue is good at, so why stop now?

"We wanted to make another location-based game, because we really found that that's our niche. That's what we're really good at: deep, location-based MMORPG games," Humphrey tells us. "We kind of want to appeal to the mafia crowd, because there's a lot of mafia games out there--but I don't know you feel about the ones that are out there right now, but I think they're kind of boring."
In Parallel Mafia, players interact with other cyborg mafiosos through a customizable avatar as it scurries across a Google Map. The game is location-based, meaning players can interact with one another in real time based on their physical location, but players can also travel virtually to keep players interested for longer. Your goal in Parallel Mafia is simple: gain influence and control by any means necessary.

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However, that means basically boils down to Business Fronts, which players create to stake their claim to a certain portion of the map. Then, their friends and mafia members can complete several different jobs in these establishment to maintain control over the area. A word of warning: Of course, enemies can complete jobs at your Business Fronts to usurp your rule.

Players settle these disputes over territory in real-time combat, which is generally passive and largely determined by stats and levels, though players can successfully flee battles to nearby friends or reinforcements. Leveling up determines how well players do in combat, which costs credits, the game's paid currency. That might sound like quite the scheme, but players can earn paid currency by simply playing the game and trading resources among one another in the Black Market.

"I kind of have a lot of painkillers," Humphrey says, speaking for her in-game avatar, of course. "I can choose to sell them for credits, the paid currency, or for cash. So, I could accumulate credits without ever having swiped my credit card. So, I'm going to sell them for credits, because I want credits."
Given the variety of mafia games that already exist on mobile and social platforms, PerBlue saw a sci-fi, cyberpunk theme as a golden opportunity to stand out. "My first and kind of gut reaction here is that we really just wanted to differentiate ourselves from the other things that are out there right now," Humphrey says when asked, "Why the sci-fi?" "And what would make us stand out from other mafia things in the market right now. I also think it gave us some leeway to make it really cool and different."

We've personally never seen a Blade Runner-esque mafia game, so we'd say this is a golden opportunity for just that. You can check out Parallel Mafia now right here. As of this writing the game is slated to launch today.

Are you interested in Parallel Mafia at all? What do you think of location-based MMO games? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.