Mafia Board Game PrePro

We're now in the process of creating a board game for my Game Design class. After some brainstorming and doodles I've landed on a mafia theme for my game.

Synopsis

Theme:
The fantasy of a mafia boss
Concept:
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer

Players are thrown into the the experience of being a mafia boss. He/she must gather influence, money, and mafia members through their plight of city domination. To reinforce this theme's concept- players will be facing other players to achieve their goals. There will opportunities to work together with other players to take down certain assets while throwing other players under the bus.  It's helpful to have friends, but there can only be one winner in this game. This forces players to embody their own inner mafia boss; making cut throat decisions, deceiving and manipulating their enemies, and skillfully using his or own assets to take over the entire city.

Who/What/Where/When:

This game takes place in the a city modeled after Detroit during the 1920's.  Detroit was the first major city to put a ban on alcohol. During this time, certain breweries and distilleries were given licenses by the government  to continue to operate- using alcohol only as an export rather than for consumption. The country was still thirsty for their booze. The government was loosing hold of a booming economy and stirring citizens. This is the perfect era for chaos, extortion, and violence. Players will align themselves with one of four mafia gangs in a city modeled after Detroit to compete for city domination with any means necessary.

Some Research

During this time there was a major gang that controlled the city. The Russian Jewish gang, the Purple Gang, were the prominent mafia gang during this time. This gang left over 500 unsolved murder cases during their reign. This gang was the first to use machine guns in their criminal activity. They controlled the city for a fiery 5 years span. One shop keeping said "They're tainted, not like the other children. They're purple like the color of bad meat". Thus the Purple gang name stuck. This group partook in hijacking, extortion, kidnapping, theft, and murder to gain control of the city and its resources. The police were silenced/payed off during this era.

There were also lesser influential but just as deadly gangs that were around this time trying to take part of the alcohol game. These gangs were Italian and Irish. The Sicilian gang in particular had somewhat of a partnership with the Purple gang. They controlled prostitution, bootlegging, narcotics (cocaine, opiates, heroin), loansharking, and lottery/gambling in the "Motor City".

Art Style:

Players will be thrown into 1920's Detroit style city with a 16bit spin to it, giving it a more comical and approachable feel. I saw a similar feel to this with the robbery game, Monaco (8bit). There's a lot of liberty in making this gaming style- It leaves realism/history to the mind of the player while allowing the main theme of the game resonate. 

The Game Board

The game board will be a top down view of of the city with all of the landmarks in view of each player.

The Players and Characters

(Will be on character cards, event cards etc)

  ^Michael Myer's pixel art.

Color Palette

I feel this would be really dark and moody with browns, purple/blues, and splashes of red. ( Murder, am I right?). This resonates mystery and theme of the game.