Coup: The Resistance – A Review

Coup is a bluffing card-game for 2 to 6 players. The game itself exists in several versions, including one themed around Renaissance Italy, though my version from Indie Boards and Cards is designed to match the dystopian setting of their The Resistance game.

I’ve owned Coup for a while, and it’s a great little 5 to 10 minute game to break out in-between other games. The game is laser focused on bluffing your opponents with a straight face.

Great fun.

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#1 – Coup – The Contents of the Box

Coup comes in a little silver box, which includes a booklet with the roles, a bunch of silver (cardboard) money-tokens, six handy reference-sheets to remind players of the possible actions and 15 cards (3 of each type).

There is no way around admitting that, for me, the fantastic sci-fi art on the cards is a big part of the appeal of this game. I don’t know anything about the setting and I think it has only been developed in rough sketches for a few board and card games, but it sure looks awesome.

The cards are top-notch quality. However, they are a bit too large for most card sleeves. They are certainly a good bit larger than X-Wing Cards. However, finding sleeves for these seems a really good idea. Not just to keep the game pristine, but because it is a bluffing game and you don’t want scratches or dog-ears on the cards spoiling the fun.

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#2 – Coup – The Game Itself

The game mechanics of Coup are simple to a fault.

Players start the game with two coins and two “influence”, meaning two face-down character cards from the deck of fifteen. Once a player is out of “influence” (in other words, he or she has no cards left), he/she is out of the game. The last player with cards remaining wins. There is no way to ever regain “influence” – that is a card – during the game.

There are a variety of actions players can take on their turn. Three do not need a card and can be performed by any player on their turn.

Several more actions depend on (the claim of) possessing the correct card in your face-down influence-cards.

The trick, and the reason this is a bluffing game, is that you only need to claim possession of a given card. Opponents can challenge that claim at their own risk.

A short example:

Player A claims to have to the Duke card and takes three coins from the treasury. No player contests this claim, so the turn moves to the next player.

Player B claims to have the Captain and wants to steal two coins from Player A.

Player A (or any player) could challenge that claim. If Player B is challenged, but really does have the Captain card, the challenging player loses one influence. If Player B bluffed and is caught, he loses one influence.

The entire game has an extra level of complexity in that certain cards also block other cards. An Ambassador Card (real or feigned) allows players to block another player trying to steal money with the Captain card.

As a result, you could have actions and counter-actions, any and all of which could be bluffs.

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#3 – Coup – A Near-Perfect Game for Inbetween

Coup is an awesome little game. The cards and production value are flawless. The art is fantastic. The bluff-double-bluff-things going on in a game of Coup are really fun.

I have not played it with the most of six players, but with four or five players, it rarely takes more than 5 minutes per “game” (probably more “game-rounds”.. usually, if I play Coup, I play multiple rounds).

If I had one gripe with the game, it would be that it is almost too short to make the bluffing and “does-he-really-have-that-card”-mechanic as meaningful as it could be. Given how quick two “influence” are gone, and how fast the game moves, I find people (including me) rarely strategize or look for “tells” in an opponent’s bluff. Player in Coup simply call people’s bluff on chance, because even if they are wrong, the next game is only 5 minutes away.

Likewise, Coup is probably never going to fill an entire “gaming night”. However, precisely because it is so short and fun, I often have it around to play before or after other games, if you’re waiting on a tardy gamer say. For that, Coup has never let me down.

Highly recommended!

Z.