Now Rein•Hagen has a new title coming out titled Democracy: Majority Rules from new publisher Make•Believe Games, with the expected release date being September 2012 with a MSRP of $40. In a press release announcing the game, Rein•Hagen said, "Make-Believe has taken an intense, immersive, modular game and added some amazing production values to create something that is something completely new. After years away from the industry working in political consulting I'm back home again and I couldn't be happier." Here's an overview of the game:
Enter a world of mudslinging, dirty tricks and the crooks and liars who manipulate the masses, juke the system and corrupt the true believers in order to throw out the tyrants, make the world a better place, and save us all from ourselves. A canny and calculating political operative, you are battling to take over a country in crisis. The old-line political parties are weak and divided, primed for being taken over from within or pushed out of the way. Your movement has captured the imagination of a small but loyal few and now it's your job to grow it into a national force. The goal is to put your handpicked candidate into high office, lead the country, and put your mark on history.
Democracy: Majority Rules is focused on the retail work of politics at every scale: making friends, forging alliances, outmaneuvering rivals, deceiving enemies, building consensus, selling your point of view, creating a coalition, hiding resentment, feigning weakness, blindsiding foes, and turning doubters into believers. It's all in the game.
While the game plays 3-5, it can be combined with a second set to expand the game to 6-10 players.
• On Axis&Allies.org, David Jensen previews Axis & Allies 1941, due out
• Titles from U.S. publisher Cambridge Games Factory are somewhat tough to acquire outside the U.S. – and some are tougher than others – so designer Jeffrey Allers is selling extra copies of the newly released Pala that he's received from CGF, with those copies being available through fellow designer Bernd Eisenstein's Irongames online shop. (Eisenstein has also added a German version of the rules.) For details on the game play, head to this Pala designer diary that Allers wrote in October 2011 when the game was supposedly going to be released at Spiel. How time flies...