Sweat drops down your brow as you hand trembles, reaching out towards the inevitable demise of your enemy. With a flick of your wrist your opponent is obliterated in a nuclear explosion. If you think this is the premise for summer’s new action movie, think again. This is RESISTOR_ a card game where you fight against another computer to hack through security, and set off their nuclear warheads before they can destroy you.

RESISTOR_ is a two person game that takes around 20 minutes to complete, and is a battle to stop your opponent and connect your computer lines before they can sabotage yours and connect theirs. Each player is given two cards and three actions for each turn which can be completed in any order, as long as all three are done.  Each card has two sides, one that the player holding them sees and then the backside that is only known to their opponent. The actions players must complete are “Draw and Trash” where you can draw a card and then take one from your hand to trash it or from your opponent’s hand;  “Switch Out” where you take a card that is in play and switch it for one in your hand or your opponent’s hand; and lastly “Flip Over” where you flip a card that is in play to reveal the path on the back. A round complete is once both players  have completed all these actions. There are special cards called the “Resistors” which have the ability to “heal” your computer and will also shorten the playing board, adding a bit more strategy to the game. To win a round, the player tries make a path from their resistor to the resistor at the opposite end on while blocking the other person from doing the same. If this achieved then the other play’s “DEFCON” rating is increased until they get to 0 at which point the nuclear winter begins.

This is the “Flip Over” phase

The demo that I played seemed very straight forward and was easy without being dull. I immediately thought that it would be something that all people who enjoy games of intrigue and sabotage would enjoy as there is a quite a bit of strategy involved. The game goes pretty fast, and is just designed for two people, making this fantastic for taking on vacations or for when you have just a few minutes to spare. The creators, Nicole Kline and Anthony Amato, have a Kickstarter that is currently being funded where people can become backers, and get their hands on a copy of the game. It is set to release around July 2015 and there are still several days to go and back their project. This is a game I can’t wait to play again, and think that it has the potential to become one of those great games that becomes a “go to” when you want to play a fun and fast-paced game.