Recently, a member of the gaming group brought in a copy of The Resistance. Originally published in 2010, this is not a new game on the market but is a new game for our group. In this game several of the players are “spies” who secretly attempt to undo the missions set upon by the group at large, “the resistance”. The spies are known to each other but not known to the other players.
This game is best played with a group of outgoing people not embarrassed to put on a show. Play acting as the leader of the resistance, or playing along as a spy who is doing their best to act like the resistance, provides plenty of opportunity for hijinks and hilarity.
While I don’t expect this game to have a long play life it has caught on fire. It appears that the verbal and mental dynamics required to ferret out the spies holds quite a bit of intrigue for my group. Accusations fly, attempts to reveal the spies with word tricks and gameplay abound. If the first missions ends in success the newly formed “leaders” of the resistance immediately set upon a campaign of manipulation and intimidation to keep suspected spies off future missions. Of course this tactic at times results in keeping a loyal resistor off the team while permitting a secret spy to infiltrate. Good fun.
Once this game has run its course with our current group, I believe it will remain a valuable game to keep in the library to be pulled out when new members join the group, when a quick game is needed for a large group (The Resistance plays up to 10), or for those occasions when seeing your friends accuse, lie, and harangue in the struggle to resist the oppressor is just what’s needed to bring life back to a tired gaming night.
and maybe find a new board game or two. Not far from where we are now lies the west Florida town of Bradenton, location of the spring training camp of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the home of tennis legend Maria Sharapova. As cool as it is that this small town has that much celebrity bling, there is another cool place for magic players and comic readers to gather and play. 
opportunity to expand. Being the self titled “sanctuary for geeks” in Bradenton, The Comic Shack could easily position themselves as the center of the board game universe here and give players a place to meet and shop without having to travel north to St. Petersburg and Tampa to get their fix. They are starting to make inroads on this with their “Classic Board Games on Thursdays” event, featuring Risk, Stratego, Chess and throwing in a little Zombies!!! for good measure. I hope they keep this up!