Resistance: Hidden Agenda - by Indie Boards and Cards - Strategy Card Game | Ages 13+ | 5-10 Players

This game was my introduction into the addicting world of social deception games, and whenever my friends have get togethers, we ensure there's at least one copy of the game present (there's at least three floating around our friend group). I like to describe it to people who have never played as "Mafia or Werewolf on steroids." It's so easy to get passionate about convincing everyone that you're right while playing, and for us, there's one infamous round that went down in history as the one that almost ended friendships two years ago. I must have played this game hundreds of times, and just a few things that have happened while playing: we've been yelled at to quiet down by RAs, I now always take Advil pre-emptively because I always end up with a headache from screaming at other players to convince them of one thing or another, and can you really say that you've played until at least one person is standing on top of a chair, pointing fingers, and proclaiming their innocence? So the game works with cards being randomly and secretly distributed to every player that assign them to either the Resistance (Good) or the Spies (Bad). There are up to five missions, and whichever team claims the majority of the misisons is the winner. If only it were that easy. For each mission, the Leader (a role that shifts each mission) selects a certain number of players, the whole group votes to approve or reject the Leader's choice, and if it's approved, each player on the mission gets a Success and a Fail card. If you're Good, you submit a Success card face-down to a pile in the middle. If you're Bad, you have the option of submitting either a Success or a Fail card. When everyone on the mission has submitted their cards, they're shuffled and revealed. The mission passes if there's all Successes and fails when there's a Fail. But if there's a Fail ... who on the mission was the Spy who put it in? Let the lying and interrogating begin ... I think in our group we've played with every configuration from 5 to 10 players, and it's definitely a lot more fun with more players, but you just have to make sure that everyone's paying attention as the group gets bigger. It's no fun if someone's on their phone while everyone else is arguing and theorizing, it almost feels like you're lacking information. I'd say 7+ players is the most fun. You also have to stress for players not to cheat if they're Good by putting a Fail card in the middle just to be funny ... it really confuses the game and makes it less satisfying for everyone else. Have patience while explaining the game the first time around; sometimes it's even worth it to do a practice round because some of the nuances don't quite make sense until the game is happening. It's very easy to pick up, though, and the games can go by in about 15 minutes depending on how much arguing between rounds is done. I've seen a lot of comparisons favoring either The Resistance or Avalon, but I do love both in their own ways. I enjoy that The Resistance has plot cards that get distributed at the beginning of rounds, which can sometimes get players feeling more involved. The characters in Avalon are a blast, but sometimes if you're stuck without a special role, it's not as fun. With The Resistance, at least, you can convince the Leader to give you plot cards so you can have some sort of "special ability". It's true that the expansion packs adds the character features of Avalon to The Resistance, but really, you can't go wrong with either and especially not with both. Pro tip: I'd recommend getting card sleeves for this game. The ones with one clear side and one opaque side are great for the character cards because you can face the character toward the opaque side so that if they accidentally fall off the table, no one's at risk of seeing your character. It also keeps everything in great shape so you don't have any character cards identifiable by folds or scratches. Buy this game. It never gets old, and I honestly don't think I've met anyone who's played and not enjoyed it. Very worth the money and, trust me, it'll become a staple of your get togethers quite quickly, too.

The Resistance is an excellent game! The basics of the game are easy to pick up on and to teach to a group, so it makes a great party game in a similar vein as Werewolf and Mafia. You'll need at least five people to play, but it scales up to ten players. I personally love thematic, immersive games and The Resistance does a great job of creating tension and giving you that sense that you can't trust any of the other players. More often than not, you'll end up questioning everyone's loyalty and second guessing yourself at every turn. Every group I have played with has really gotten into the spirit of the game after a round or two of learning the rules, with both resistance members and traitors passionately pleading their cases as to why they should be the one sent on the mission. At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt a card, representing either a resistance member or traitor. The goal of the game is to successfully complete 3 out of five missions as the resistance, or as a traitor, to fail 3 missions. Each round, a leader picks several players to go on the mission and then the success of the mission is voted on by the players on the mission. Just one failure vote means the whole mission fails, but also tips off the resistance that a traitor was on the mission. In my experience, as victory for either side nears, the players become more vocal and animated, desperately trying to ascertain the truth. Most of the games will end in a high stakes mission where all players feel the tension permeating in the room. Once the results of the final mission are revealed, that tension breaks and everyone laughs as they realize that person they could have sworn was working for their team was actually working against them and shifting suspicion to someone else who indignantly defended themselves, arguing that there was no way they could be a traitor. All of the components were nice and he art invokes the theme of a futuristic resistance subtlety working against the powers at be. I would highly recommend this game to anyone, but especially to people looking for a simple, fun game to bust out a party!

Very fun game to play with a crowd. Things can get a little heated. My family is very competitive and will stop at nothing to get a dub. Haha so trust may be lost, but it will be a good time

I love buying random card and board games, which also happens to correlate with my love of drinking and partying with friends. I first played this game at a friend's party and since then I have been hooked. Anytime I am able to gather at least 6 people (with 5 people the game can be played but usually when people know how to play the game well, it can be too easy at times even when people are drinking a bit) I grab this game out. The game's base rules are actually quite simple, and actually in reality doesn't even need this product to play. The game is merely spies get chosen at random who know each other is a spy, the other players do not know who is who, the spies try not to get caught by rejecting the team and the team tries to successfully "agree" the majority of the votes. The game itself that you are buying merely adds identifiable aspects to the game and gives a little different atmosphere because you'll feel like you are part of some alternate era. Regardless, the cards, board and peices the game comes with are of high quality. Nothing feels really cheap and you get the sense that the peices will last a long time just fine. Unlike some party games, however, you will need to get a very organized group. If too many things are going on, it can be a bit of a pain to play. So while people can certainily drink (I encourage a good amount of drinking after the rules are established with everyone) if it gets too roudy it can be nearly impossible to play. I have seen other comments similar to this such as that the game is difficult to play successfully with 10 people which CAN be true. However, if you have 9 intellectual friends who like to drink, it is no problem. Explaining the game can be a bit confusing despite how simple the game is in reality. The rulebook, in my opinion, explains the game quite poorly and could be rewritten to sound much more simplistic, hence why you should merely explain it yourself in a simple way after you learn to play the game the first time. Other than that, this is a very affordable and extremely fun game for any party!

Resistance is a great traitor game, but not as fun as the vanilla version of "Are You A Werewolf". However, you need at least 7 or 8 for AYAW, and can play Resistance with only 5. If you are unfamilar with traitor games, they are "co-op" games where one or more players are secretly the opposition of what the table is trying to accomplish. e.g. you are all trying to get points, and the opposition gets to secretly make plays so that you lose points. At the game end, if the table gets the required points the "good guys" win, if not... the traitors reveal their cards marking them as the traitors and they win (and laugh manically). The Fun - the first few games for new people aren't as fun as the game ends up being-- people are confused, quiet, and they don't know what to do. But, then someone figures out to play detective and suspicion thrower and the player interaction takes place. It's the bluff mechanic from poker, as you accuse other players of being the traitor and wait for them to defend themselves. The Missing Star - there are two reasons why Resistance is shy of a 5 star game, first it heavily favors the traitors. That being said, the game is usually fun even when you lose. The second is it doesn't force players to interact like AYAW does-- I finally figured out why AYAW plays better. In AYAW they eliminate someone each round from the game (why you need more players), so if you are accused, you have to defend yourself or you are out. Resistance doesn't do that, so players sometimes are quiet and try to figure out who the spies are-- the problem is, if you are quiet, it's harder for people to trust you so that even if you figure it out yourself, the spies may win. Great game, I take it with me when we are going to a group outing... just in case :-)

I originally bought this because it can handle from 5 to 10 players, perfect for when we have big gaming nights. After having played it, I wish all of our nights were big gaming nights! The game is incredibly simple to learn: everybody gets a card at the beginning deciding if they are a Resistance ember (good guy) or a spy (bad buy). Next the group goes on a mission, where a player at the table chooses a portion of the players to go on the mission, not knowing if they are loyals or spies. All the players vote yes/no on if the team can go and if so, the people on the team can either complete or sabotage the mission. That's pretty much it - there are 5 missions and it's a best 3 of 5 to see which side wins. What makes the game interesting is the high level of deduction, accusations, and paranoia that comes along with it. The first time a mission fails (or maybe sooner) the table will break out in conversation - "You're a spy!" "No, I'm not! I swear I'm loyal, take me on the next mission and I'll prove it!" etc. Since no one knows which person(s) voted to complete or sabotage the mission, all you have to go on are clues and process of elimination from previous missions (there are only 5, so I don't think you can logically deuce with certainty each player's role) along with how much you trust the other players. If you've played Are You the Werewolf?, it's similar, but the big difference to me is that no one gets eliminated in Resistance. I found Werewolf very boring if I was the fist person eliminated. There's also no need for a moderator or whatever - everyone gets to play. It's an incredibly social game because it relies on player interaction. Also, because it's not bogged down in rules, it's very approachable for non-gamers. It's also inexpensive and light on components, so don't be worried about taking it on vacation or to a bar for game night where spillage is a possibility. You could probably even replace the components with something else (playing cards, colored stones, etc.) and the game works just as well. The only negative thing I could say is that if you're looking for a deep, complex game to play over several hours - this isn't it. Bottom line, if you regularly play games with a group of 5+ and looking for a fun, quick game, try this out. Just be ready for a friend to ask - "Can I borrow that when I go visit my family next month?"

The Resistance is a very fun and even addicting social deduction game. I say addicting because you will feel disappointed and maybe even a bit sad when your friends or family bail on you and you no longer have enough people at your game night or gaming event to play it. I have found that people seem to either love The Resistance or they hate it. Luckily for me most of my friends and family love the game. The few people that I do know that hate the game tend to be the people who like low to no skill chance based games. I'm not saying there is anything terrible about chance based games that require very little to no skill to play, I have several in my board and card game case. And I'm not saying that you have to be “skilled” or anything to play and enjoy The Resistance it is just a vague observation that my husband and I have made. I think part of the love/hate is because the type (and quality) of the game play can vary greatly depending on the type of people you are playing with. Some games I've played I could easily describe as stressful (the games with that guy who always yells and takes everything too seriously or the games with that couple that are constantly at each others throats) and some games could be described as formulaic and dry (the games with that couple that are easily confused and “don't like to have to think about what they are playing” or the game with that guy that takes notes on how people voted). I have also found that when people don't care about the outcome of the game at all regardless of if they are a spy or not tend to bring the mood down and make the game play feel flat as they don't or will rarely contribute to any of the dialogue. Overall it is a very fun game if you can get 5 or more people together. A little tip I have for more fun game play is to early on set the tone for the game and call someone a “dirty filthy spy” and glance suspiciously around at others as well as whenever you can try and bring some discussion into the game play. On another note the card and tile art is very nice, better than many of my other card and board games. Also, after a week or two of owning the game I bought both expansions (that is how much my family and friends liked it) but I would recommend those for when your group is comfortable with the base set. Another thing I found is too not overdo it on the game (like playing it every game night for hours) as it can be intimidating and stressful for some players and it is better to ease up on the game than to cause a family member or a regular at a game night to hate the game and drop out.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: I like this game, don't get me wrong. I've heard glowing praise for it from the Dice Tower and several friends, and many people even put it on their top ten lists. I've played quite a few rounds, but with regards to this particular version, I feel like it's a bit disappointingly simple. In this game (you need at least five players), you are all members of a Resistance, fighting against a corrupt government. However, the government is on to you, and has planted spies in your midst. Now, you must choose your players to go on missions, and hopefully, you and your true allies can determine who is a spy or not, because even one failure on a mission will cause it to flop. To add interest to the game, the kids and I would come up with wacky missions, such as the government planning to seize all of the world's ice cream, and it being up to the Resistance to drop John Cena over the helicopter with said ice cream so he can blow it up with an elbow drop. That's really fun. You vote and discuss based on what happens, and an Inquisitor can even come into play to check on certain members! However, I really think that this game could stand to benefit from additional roles/powers to each member of the team, which is why I recommend using the expansion with the cards (look for the box with the smiling girl on it.) To be totally honest, they could have easily combined both that and the Inquisitor expansion into one box (the Inquisitor is nary but a single tile in the entire game.) It's a fun light game, but not so much in terms of replay ability for me. EDIT: So, I've had a few playthroughs with my gaming group, and I take it back. This is a game that RUNS on personality and guile, and it has grown on me considerably. I do thoroughly enjoy playing with groups that like to mamaguy each other (myself included) and I would say that if you are playing with people who don't have much of a personality to draw upon, the game will fall flat on its face. As such, I will give this game the five stars that it deserves, up from three. Good game, but needs an animated crowd to run well.