The Dynamics of Minority versus Majority Behaviors: A Case Study of the Mafia Game

Abstract

The game ‘Mafia’ is a logic puzzle that has been a top-rated party game played worldwide. Many studies have been dedicated to determining the best character combination to keep players engaged while analyzing the overall death toll. Although it has only two-sided plays, there are multiple combinations of characters in which each character’s rules are different. This paper explores the game’s sophistication using the game refinement theory and motion in mind model while measuring the entertainment of each character’s actions. It then focuses on the dynamics of minority versus majority behaviors during the game process. Computer simulations were conducted to collect the data of each character and assess the entertainment impacts. Moreover, the energy value of each character was computed based on the motion in mind model. The results show that when the number of ‘Mafia’ and the number of ‘Sheriffs’ are equal, the sophistication of each character is maximized. In addition, the data indicates the player engagement in the following order: Mafia>Sheriff>Citizen. Thus, it can be concluded that the actions of the Mafia character are the most complicated and significantly impact the game. It is expected that the results in this study enable game designers to improve each character’s perspective and examine possible enhancements from the viewpoint of entertainment.

Keywords

• logic puzzle
• Mafia game
• game refinement theory
• motion in mind model