Mafia: New Horizons

***Mafia: New Horizons*** is the thirty-sixth season of *The Mafia Series*.

Though this game was notably short, the season contained some interesting gameplay from several players behind the scenes. *New Horizons* contained a role list full of unconfirmable roles, but when a particular 3rd Party member killed the Head Mafia, the game was doomed to end early. Nonetheless, there were still some strong town strategists and some entertaining new players.

This game lasted from February 10, 2023 up to February 15, 2023. Holding the place of one of the shortest games in the history of *The Mafia Series*, this season concluded earlier than anticipated due to a variety of unexpected circumstances. This game also contained a fun twist that was re-used in *Mafia: All-Stars IV*.

# ***Roles & Twists***

**Twists**
* **Sectors:** Before the premiere of the game, players were given an option to choose between four working sectors: **administrative**, **agricultural**, **infrastructural**, and **research**. Players were not given any more information on these sectors other than their titles. At the beginning of the game, the participants were divided into these four sectors, each with five players in them, and it was announced publicly who was in which sector. Each sector also received their own private chat.
* **Weather Events:** At the beginning of every day, there was a random weather event. In addition to the following four events that could occur, there was also a chance that **clear sky** would happen, causing no particular event.
	+ **Rain:** During this weather event, no one in the **agricultural sector** can die during the next night while the members of the **infrastructural sector** cannot perform actions during the following night.
	+ **Solar Flares:** During solar flares, all deceased members of the **research sector** are added back to the private sector chat to talk with the living members of that sector. The members of the **administrative sector** can no longer speak in the town until the next weather event.
	+ **Mountain Gravity Crystals:** With this odd event, members of the **infrastructural sector** each receive an extra vote at the upcoming trial while members of the **research sector** lose their votes instead.
	+ **Heat Waves/High UV:** While there are a high number of UV rays, each member of the **administrative sector** can block a vote of another player in the game. Simultaneously, members of the **agricultural sector** each choose a number, and there is a 25% chance that one villager in the agricultural sector will starve if their number is chosen.

# ***Game Summary***

This thirty-sixth season began with a promising start, as players began to eagerly discuss in the town as well as in their sector chats. The agricultural sector was overall the most active. Notably, this sector also happened to be the only one without any evil roles within it. Early on, Bernkastel began strategizing. Thinking Slay to be suspicious, and rightly so, she claimed to be a commoner to Slay while fake-claiming maid. Bernkastel made this weak claim in order to hopefully prevent herself from being killed first. However, this genius plan did not work when Slay did not relay the information to his Mafia team, and Enrique decided to kill **Bernkastel** for his large threat status. When Bernkastel was revealed as the maniac, he decided it most opportune to drag **Jet**, whom he believed to be a strong role because Jet had not shared his role outside of the agricultural sector. From the graveyard, Bernkastel and Jet decided to roleplay with one another continuously while the game continued.

Luckily for the town, Emmi, the apprentice, had followed Jet, meaning that there was still an herbalist present in the game. Meanwhile, all eyes seemed to be on Parrot. Having claimed commoner and knight, Parrot was quickly decided as the most suspicious player. Calvin and Nemo also conceptualized a plan to tie the vote and confirm the latter as the judge, but the risky plan never came to fruition. **Parrot** became the first player executed, and he never revealed to the town that he was actually the aristocrat.

Most of the remaining evil players seemed to be in an under-the-radar position in the game. The 3rd Party members, Havoc and Meredith, had claimed to be a gambler and seer, respectively. While Meredith was caught in a double claim with Andrew, no one was intending to vote her out. Meredith claimed her "true role" of knight to Emmi privately. This had added to the suspicion against Parrot, but Meredith never actually publicly claimed to be the knight. Enrique, the head Mafia, claimed to be the baker in secret. He also spoke of a seasonal twist for the baker role called the "baker's crescent". This concept was entirely made up, and others players soon caught on because the logistics of it practically required another baker to be present, and no one had another baker claim. Finally, Kae claimed to be a knight while Slay, though still appearing suspicious to many players due to his behavior, had been confirmed at the first vote to be the lawyer.

Continuing with their pattern from the last vote, the Mafia decided to kill another renowned Mafia player in **Nemo**. Most players began to turn their attention to Daichen, a less active player who claimed to be an apprentice following Eevee. Eevee was a blacksmith claim, which could not be entirely confirmed, so the town decided it most beneficial to execute **Daichen** for his odd choice for whom to apprentice. The next kill was quite shocking, as the witch, Havoc, decided to redirect the Mafia's kill onto **Enrique**, the head Mafia himself. This caused the Mafia, with both Kae and Slay remaining, to collapse. At the same time, Emmi was working with both the seers to try and decide which one was more suspicious, and she created a plan that confirmed herself and Meredith as not aligned with Enrique, who many of the leading players of the game suspected to be the Mafia.

While Meredith was confirmed, and no one suspected Havoc, the 3rd Party was in trouble when the town decided that they should take out Kae, as an unconfirmable knight claim. The game came to a rather abrupt end when **Kae** was executed, meaning that both the head Mafia and accomplice had died in the exact same cycle. After this final execution, **Slay**, **Havoc**, and **Meredith** promptly lost, while ten members of the town survived! **Alec**, **Alfie**, **Andrew**, **Bluey**, **Calvin**, **Eevee**, **Emmi**, **Jade**, **Meli**, and **Steve** all survived and won the game!

# ***Awards***

Because this season had more than ten players and three rounds of executions, awards were handed out at the end of the game. They were given to the following recipients.

# ***Trivia***

* This season is in no way related to the *Animal Crossing* game of the same name.
* Nathaniel won the viewing lounge prediction game this season.