Doodle Mafia

About Doodle Mafia

Doodle Mafia is a single player casual simulation game. It was developed by JoyBits Ltd. and was released on April 19, 2017. It received neutral reviews from players.

WATCH YOUR CRIME CITY COME ALIVE AS YOU PLAY! Doodle Mafia is the biggest “Doodle” game ever! Over 500 puzzles to solve and items to create as you play the role of Crime Boss or Cop. You decide how you want to play as you play through multiple hard-nosed storylines & play modes.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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Reviews

53%Audience ScoreBased on 73 reviews

story4 positive mentions

gameplay5 negative mentions

Engaging crime and policing theme adds a unique twist to the classic Doodle alchemy formula, offering amusing and clever combinations early on.
Campaign mode with narrative-driven storylines provides multiple endings and a sense of progression beyond simple element combinations.
Clean, doodle-style visuals and lighthearted humor suit casual play and provide a pleasant, quirky aesthetic.

Repetitive and tedious gameplay with many non-intuitive and illogical combinations that often feel like guesswork rather than puzzle-solving.
Clunky, confusing interface and navigation, especially with a large number of element categories that lack clear organization or search functions.
Technical issues including occasional crashes, unresolved achievement bugs, and poor optimization that diminish the overall experience.

story
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22% positive mentions, 61% neutral mentions, 17% negative mentions
The game's story is generally considered weak and simplistic, often described as short, bland, or even nonexistent. While the campaign mode offers multiple endings and ties progress to story elements, it tends to be frustrating or boring for many players. The narrative mainly serves as a minimal framework to support gameplay rather than a compelling or immersive experience.
- “The campaign mode is an interesting addition with a story playing out and the order you make reactions in mattering with multiple endings to each chapter.”
- “As you unlock new combinations, you piece together your criminal empire's progression and unravel new story elements.”
- “These scenarios provide a loose storyline that ties your discoveries to progress through a series of challenges and objectives.”
- “Bland story and bothersome UI makes this an easy skip.”
- “The story is short and boring, that's all I have to say about it.”
- “The 'story' can be seen in campaign mode, a short, frustrating series of chapters that provide little besides boredom.”
graphics
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25% positive mentions, 50% neutral mentions, 25% negative mentions
The game's graphics feature a clean, bold-lined, doodle-like art style that aligns with its noir cartoon theme, offering a playful and charming visual experience. While the simple graphics enhance accessibility and the casual atmosphere, some users find the visuals overwhelming or underwhelming given modern hardware capabilities. Overall, the visuals are crisp and well-executed but may feel limited or cluttered to certain players.
- “Presentation-wise, the game adopts the clean, bold-lined, doodle-like art style that Joybits is known for.”
- “The visual style maintains the doodle aesthetic of the series, and while it doesn't deviate from the established formula, it still carries its own charm.”
- “The simple graphics contribute to the game's casual atmosphere, making it accessible to a wide range of players.”
- “The artwork is not very good.”
- “There's too much element grouping, I got most of the groups and my eyes were hurting from all the visuals, and just like the groups, some of the elements don't make sense.”
- “Graphics are okay.”
gameplay
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25% positive mentions, 33% neutral mentions, 42% negative mentions
The gameplay of "Doodle Mafia" centers on combining elements to build a criminal empire, similar to previous "doodle" games, but its simplified mechanics can feel repetitive and lack depth over time. Players often find the combinations unclear and quests tedious, which, along with minimal narrative, may result in an aimless experience. The game is better suited for touchscreen play but may not engage those seeking more complex or varied puzzle gameplay.
- “As the list grows, each new chain gives the sense of your criminal empire expanding bit by bit, even if the game remains firmly rooted in puzzle mechanics rather than full-blown management systems.”
- “The gameplay of "Doodle Mafia" revolves around combining elements to create new ones, just like its predecessors "Doodle God" and "Doodle God Blitz." However, this time, the focus is on crafting a criminal empire.”
- “I have never played anything like it before, the gameplay is about adding elements, take an iron bar and add a criminal to make a mugger.”
- “Just like all the other "doodle" games, this one gets boring after a while, because the whole gameplay is doing the same thing over and over again for hundreds of times either until we get bored or until we get all the achievements.”
- “With very tedious gameplay and at times very nonsensical combinations, Doodle Mafia is not a puzzle game worth playing.”
- “Very unclear combinations and so bad mechanics in quests.”
music
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 60% negative mentions
The music in the game is generally repetitive and limited, often playing the same sounds on a loop, which some users found annoying. However, a few appreciated the subtle, quirky soundtrack that adds atmosphere without being intrusive. Overall, the music received mixed reactions, ranging from dissatisfaction due to lack of variety to mild enjoyment of its understated style.
- “Especially with the soundtrack accompanying my combination attempts.”
- “I am quite confused this far but I like it quite a lot and I want to see what happens in the city and what I can build, nice little odd music score too (of the sort that's good enough to notice when you start the game but still discreet enough to not notice once in the game) and the art is really nice too.”
- “No music to speak of.”
- “The same sounds and music played on a loop, and it drove me insane.”
- “While I didn't mind this game, it was way too repetitive, both in terms of gameplay and music.”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions
The grinding aspect is criticized for being tedious and repetitive, with overwhelming and cumbersome elements that make progression feel more like a chore than enjoyable gameplay. This leads to a loss of fun and engagement over time.
- “The sheer number of elements eventually becomes a double-edged sword — it provides breadth, but also leads to tedious scrolling, rechecking lists, and sifting through dozens of possibilities.”
- “With very tedious gameplay and at times very nonsensical combinations, Doodle Mafia is not a puzzle game worth playing.”
- “Eventually the puzzles stopped being fun and just became tedious.”
humor
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions
The game's humor is light and casual, blending clever and playful mafia-themed combinations that range from genuinely funny to intentionally ridiculous. It adds a fun, entertaining layer to the puzzle and strategy gameplay without being overly complex.
- “The game tries to blend humor, light strategy, and puzzle logic in a casual format that’s easy to jump into.”
- “Doodle Mafia is exactly what you would expect if you have played Doodle God before, just DG but with mafia-themed combinations. Some are funny, like "Nixon" leading to "Blackmail Nixon," and some are just ridiculous, like combining "Car Thief" to make "Car Thief Gang" and then "Car Thief Leader"—that's just reaching for new combinations.”
- “Fun little game, a little diversion with a sense of humor.”
monetization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions
Users criticize the monetization of the game as a lazy, greedy cash grab, suggesting it feels hastily produced with minimal effort to capitalize on the franchise's success, particularly noting poor quality in spin-off titles beyond the main series.
- “Seems like a lazy cash grab they farmed out to some overseas team.”
- “With the resources that the success of the doodle franchise has doubtless brought them, you would think that Joybits would try to make strides in quality for future efforts, but almost every game aside from Doodle God and Doodle Devil feels like a lazy cash grab designed to cash in on minimal effort.”
- “Doodle Mafia is a mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as a lazy, greedy cash grab.”
stability
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions
The game suffers from frequent glitches, crashes, and freezes, significantly impacting stability. Users report it to be buggy and unstable, requiring frequent force closures during gameplay.
- “Fun game but glitches from time to time for no apparent reason.”
- “I have liked previous doodle games, but this is one buggy, boring mess of a game.”
- “The game is extremely buggy, repeatedly freezing or crashing, and in the 4 hours I probably had to kill the process running it at least 20-30 times.”
atmosphere
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 100% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions
The game's simple graphics create a casual and approachable atmosphere, making it accessible to a broad audience.
replayability
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions
The game has low replayability, offering limited incentives for players to revisit once completed.
- “The replay value for this game is low.”