No one really knows what triggered the One Day War between the superpowers, but a single day is all it took to end the Before World. After the governments collapsed, leaderless groups of survivors huddled in the ruins of once great cities. The climate is brutal, resources are scarce, and mutant tribes are roaming the wastelands. The world desperately needs a hero to rally the people and lift them out of the ruins.
Resurgence is a competitive, Euro-style board game for up to four players. It offers a unique blend of bag-building, hidden worker placement, and resource management that creates a one-of-a-kind gameplay experience. At the start of the game, each player selects a hero in charge of a small band of survivors and a few supplies. Each round of the game, players need to secretly plan where they are going to send their workers in order to accomplish various tasks and exert their influence, whether they're completing missions around the ruins of Moscow; gathering fuel, food and spare parts; rescuing survivors; learning new skills; or building their base.
Resurgence offers different routes to achieve victory, and in-game events and end-game directive cards provide replayability and variability from game to game. At the end of the game, the hero whose faction is victorious becomes the new leader and unites all the survivor groups in the sanctuary of Hope Island.
- Gorgeous table presence; long table runner board
- Engaging theme of island emergence
- Accessible light-to-midweight play
- Large table footprint may be unwieldy for some setups
- Some players may want more depth
- Exploration, island ecosystems, discovery
- Islands erupting from the ocean; new islands emerging
- Research expedition discovering emergent environments
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- dice-drafting / action selection — Roll dice and allocate to perform actions to acquire island pieces.
- Resource management — Manage dice-based resources to progress across generations.
- tile placement — Place islands and animals on board to build ecosystems.
- tile/area placement — Place islands and animals on board to build ecosystems.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- "The Fox Experiment is our most popular game of the weekend"
- "This released in September, just last month"
- "we've got a lot of new games that we brought this year"
- "Emergence is gorgeous table presence, a table runner board"
- "you could actually play with your whole family"
- "Localizing a lot of games, bringing a lot of games from the EU to the US"
- "we actually already have an expansion and development already too"
- "NARAKK and Far Away are lined up"
- "UK Games Expo next year? maybe"
References (from this video)
- Looks fantastic
- On the to-do list / table backlog potential
- Has not yet been played
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I still absolutely love this design
- the AI system is so smart
- it's on the totally table Todo list
- Frost Punk is incredible
- I absolutely plan to get to the table this year
- the slide puzzle mechanism I love
- Weather Machine remains one of my favorites
- Sleeping Gods no reason to believe that I won't love this one as well
References (from this video)
- Hidden information via individual player boards creates tension
- Strong thematic tie-in between politics and economics
- High component quality and a robust surface for strategy
- Length and complexity can be taxing, especially with 4–5 players
- Rule interactions can slow early game pacing
- survival, rebuilding, governance, legitimacy
- post-apocalyptic future; survivors rebuild society and govern within a ruined world
- Euro-style with thematic political dynamics rather than a strong narrative campaign
- 51st State
- Prime Minister
- Netrunner
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- leadership/legitimacy tracking — players vie for leadership tracks and legitimacy, driving end-game scoring
- loan/IMF mechanic and state resets — economic tools that can reset or alter state parameters and scoring
- policy drafting and voting — players draft and vote on policies to gain points and shape game state
- worker placement — players place actions to generate resources and influence policy tracks
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Quincy Jones yes when he passed away what a freaking icon
- it's a 90-minute euro this is easily under 90 minutes even with four players
- the art is amazing
- it's not an engine builder style of game
- rule book... well-written rule book should be part of how we talk about a game
- this is Mistborn the deck building game from Brotherwise Games
References (from this video)
- Innovative worker/placement mechanic with hidden placement
- Deep tech progression and thematic flavor
- Steep learning curve
- Long tail learning for optimal play
- Diplomacy, military and technology balance
- Strategic post-industrial/power dynamics
- Heavy economic and political simulation
- Imperial Miners
- Pagan
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- bag-pulling worker placement — Hidden allocation of workers with reveal-phase resolution.
- tech-tree progression — Unlock rooms and capabilities via a tech track.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- "this is our 10th year doing this"
- "we are live from the volunteer fire department"
- "the 10th Annual squirly Awards"
- "we can't do this without the other people here"
- "head over to our Discord Channel and tell us what you think"
References (from this video)
- Genuinely engaging bag-building with meaningful choices
- Self-published creator adds a personal touch and demo accessibility
- Bag-building with narrative flavor and resilience
- Post-apocalyptic Russia
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- bag-building — Draft and manage bags to drive actions and scoring
- Deck/hand management with thematic modules — Varied modules create different strategic paths
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- there are no rules there are no rules there's nothing I was trying to say it's our Channel we get to do whatever we want
- Green Team Wins is the king we're talking Tom Brady the goat of party games
- Hands down the best racing game I've ever played
- the coziest board game