Mount Damasks, Resist General Franco, and Lie to Friends about Christmas Gifts

Spain, 1936: General Franco and his troops advance through the territories of Spain, giving way to a long period of civil war and repression. After the Spanish Civil War, a group of loyalists to the Republic continued the armed struggle, forming resistance groups better known as "Maquis". Hidden in the mountains, these men and women risked their lives to defend the ideals of democracy and freedom.

Fighting against them were the Army of Franco, the Civil Guard, and the Armed Police, but the Maquis perfected their guerilla warfare in France during the second World War and were determined to take back their homeland. In the head of each Maquis resonated the echo of the desire of many compatriots: Resist!

Resist! is a fast-playing, card-driven solitaire game in which you take on the role of the Spanish Maquis, fighting against the Francoist regime. Over a series of rounds, you undertake increasingly difficult missions, and completing missions earns you the points needed to win. Failing to defeat missions and enemies may cause you to lose. At the end of each round, you must choose whether to end the resistance or risk it and take on another mission.


At the beginning of the game, you assemble a team of twelve Maquis, which are represented by a deck of cards. At the heart of the game is the tension between keeping your Maquis concealed from Franco or revealing them to unlock their full potential. Unfortunately, revealed Maquis are removed from your deck, and you likely won't be able to use them for the rest of the game. While Resist! does have some minor deck-building elements, it is primarily a "deck-destruction" game in which you have to manage your deck, balancing the decision of defeating the immediate threat with trying to move on to the next mission.

From the great trading center of Damascus, via the Silk Road, ancient weaving techniques and motifs made their way to the famous textile houses of Venice. Master weavers used draw looms to create richly woven fabrics that became known as damasks. For centuries, these luxurious silks lavished the wardrobes and halls of mansions and palaces across Europe.


In Damask, players play the roles of these master weavers, trying to make the most money, while also gaining the favor of the Weavers' Guild. In more detail, the game includes 72 damask cards, with the damasks being two of six colors and one of four patterns; place 26 cubes (which come in six colors) at random on the spinning wheel, lay out a pattern and color card at random for each "season" that the game will be played (two in a short game, three in a normal one), then lay out six damask cards at random. Each player drafts a damask card, then you refill the display.

On a turn, either you take a damask card and place it in front of you, or you draft cubes from the spinning wheel by choosing a cube, then going clockwise or counter-clockwise until you hit the second cube of any color. Collect all of those cubes, placing them on damask cards as you wish and keeping the remainder in your overstock. Each damask card requires three cubes of one color and two of another to complete. After the required action, you can take one of two optional actions: Take all cubes of one color from an opponent's overstock (with them receiving a guild favor in compensation), or mount a damask by returning the five cubes on it and standing it in your personal holder. You earn 1 coin when mounting a damask and 1 additional coin for each color or pattern it has that matches the previous damask you mounted, i.e., at most 4 coins.


If a mounted damask also matches the season's color or pattern, you gain guild favors. Each guild favor has a color or pattern on it, and you can use them to mount damasks in place of missing cubes, replace damask cards available in the display, mount an additional damask, or avoid paying taxes for extraneous cubes left in your supply at the end of a season. Three guild favors are worth 1 coin at game's end, and in addition to coins earned during the game, you receive bonus coins at game's end for having all six colors or all four patterns among your mounted damasks. Whoever earns the most coins wins.