Voting

Space Pigs

In a galaxy far, far away...

The pig clans are in a furious competition to control the planets which produce the precious acorns from which the Beer can be brewed. The Beer is a source of power and strength for those who drink it. You are the head one of the six great pig clans; you must impose your Beer recipe and thus become the most powerful pigs in the Universe!
You will have to fight, negotiate, cheat, corrupt...

Space Pigs is a humorous game of conquest which freely borrows from Star Wars, Dune, and all those SF chestnuts.

Lancaster

From the designer of Glen More comes a new title published by Queen Games: Lancaster.

In 1413, the new king of England, Henry V of Lancaster, has ambitious plans: The unification of England and the conquest of the French crown! Each player takes the role of an ambitious aristocratic family. Who will be the best supporter of this young king, and the most powerful Lord of his time?

In Lancaster the players want to proceed from simply being a Lord to the most powerful ally of the king. They may achieve this by developing their own knighthood as well as by clever deployment of individual knights in the counties of England, at their own castle, and to conflicts with France. In parliament, they try to push laws from which they will benefit themselves most. The player with the most power points at the end of the game is the winner.

Every turn, players send their knights to the different locations:
• Counties, where they compete with knights from other players for rewards and the favor of the nobles.
• The castle, to receive income or new knights.
• Into conflict with France, where all players combine their power and try to gain power points.

In the counties the strength of the knights is important as you can remove the knight of another player by placing a knight of your own with higher strength in the same location.

Crappy Birthday

Crappy Birthday is a humorous game about pranking your friends with gifts they don’t want.

How to Play
Deal 5 Gift Cards to each player.

1) When it is your turn, it is your birthday! Everybody gives you a crappy "gift" from their hand.
2) You shuffle the cards, turn them over one by one, and pick the gift you dislike the most.
3) The player who gave you that gift gets a point.
4) Draw back up to 5 Gift Cards. Play moves to the left.

The first player to 3 points wins.

When to Play
Crappy Birthday is designed to be taken as a gift to a party instead of a bottle of wine or a 6-pack of beer. The goal of Crappy Birthday is to get people talking, laughing, and having a good time as quickly as possible. Don't be surprised if some people dislike the same gift that other people at the table love, because the gifts were designed to start fun and interesting conversations. Crappy Birthday is simple enough that a group of non-gamers can read the rules and start playing within a few minutes. Or if people do not want to play at the party, they can have fun by simply looking at the cards and laughing at the pictures and funny concepts.

So the next time you are going to a party with non-gamers, consider bringing Crappy Birthday as a gift.

Quo Vadis?

In an interesting departure from his normally computational-heavy game structure, Reiner Knizia put together this negotiation game. Players are represented on the board by a group of politicians moving through a network of committees, and need to seek support from their competitors to advance upward toward the Senate. Supporting an opponent gains you prestige, needed in quantity at the end of the game. Once all five Senate positions are filled, the game is over, and only players who have a politician in the Senate are eligible to win. Of those players, whoever has the most prestige wins.

Resistance

The Empire must fall. Our mission must succeed. By destroying their key bases, we will shatter Imperial strength and liberate our people. Yet spies have infiltrated our ranks, ready for sabotage. We must unmask them. In five nights we reshape destiny or die trying. We are the Resistance!

The Resistance is a party game of social deduction. It is designed for five to ten players, lasts about 30 minutes, and has no player elimination. The Resistance is inspired by Mafia/Werewolf, yet it is unique in its core mechanics, which increase the resources for informed decisions, intensify player interaction, and eliminate player elimination.

Players are either Resistance Operatives or Imperial Spies. For three to five rounds, they must depend on each other to carry out missions against the Empire. At the same time, they must try to deduce the other players’ identities and gain their trust. Each round begins with discussion. When ready, the Leader entrusts sets of Plans to a certain number of players (possibly including himself/herself). Everyone votes on whether or not to approve the assignment. Once an assignment passes, the chosen players secretly decide to Support or Sabotage the mission. Based on the results, the mission succeeds (Resistance win) or fails (Empire win). When a team wins three missions, they have won the game.

Rule Correction:

For first printing (2010 purchases), the expansion rules should read: "Games of 5-6 players use 7 plot cards, games with 7+ players use all 15 Plot Cards." and "...each Round, the leader draws Plot cards (1 for 5-6 players, 2 for 7-8 players, and 3 for 9-10 players)" - This has been corrected in the subsequent printings.