Review of President

Introduction & Overview

The party chairmanship has become vacant, and you have gathered to decide who will take over. Look closely around you, because even though you all belong to the same party, only one can seize power. In politics… anything goes!

This is the premise of President, a design by Nico Cardona (Panots, Rudolph). Published for the first time in 2026 by Too Bad Games and Zacatrus in a bilingual English and Spanish edition. Illustrated by Alba Aragón (the Sherlock series) and Raúl Moreno.

The game is language-dependent on the shift cards, in addition to the rulebook. It allows games from 3 to 10 players, with a suggested minimum age of 10 years and an approximate playing time between 20 and 40 minutes. The MSRP is €23.95. For this review, a review copy of the Spanish and English version from Too Bad Games has been kindly provided by the publisher itself.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 20.5×20.5×5.5 cm (a medium square box similar to Kosmos’ two-player games like Kahuna or Lost Cities), we find the following components:

Presidential Medal Tile (cardboard)
10 Animal Player Boards (cardboard)
Corruption Token (cardboard)
4 Camera Tokens (cardboard)
106 Mini Cards (44×67 mm):
- 70 Action Cards
- 30 Envelope Cards
- 6 Shift Cards
Dry-erase Marker (plastic)
Rulebook

How to Play

President is a bluffing and negotiation game set amidst the internal squabbles of a political party, where players compete to take over the presidency and win the game by reaching 7 victory points. At the start of each round, the players’ animal boards are placed in an organizational chart defining their position within the party and the turn order. A round is structured into four phases. First, in the planning phase, each participant secretly selects an action card from their hand, being free to negotiate, make deals, or lie about their choice. Next, in the resolution phase, players reveal and resolve their action cards in strict order according to their position on the org chart. Actions allow players to promote by swapping places with another animal, slander a rival by attempting to guess their card to steal points, steal TV cameras to gain fame, obtain envelopes with extra actions, close deals with other players to gain victory points, or go on vacation to recover played cards. After this, players move to the press conference to award points to those with the most cameras or to whoever gave an interview from the highest position. Finally, at the end of the round, players who have met the requirement of the active shift card can recover a card from their pile. As soon as a player reaches 7 victory points, the game ends immediately and that player is proclaimed the winner.

Key Concepts

Let’s start with the Animal Player Boards. These represent each participant and display an anthropomorphized animal (with a female version on one side and a male version on the other). At the top, we find two tracks to record victory points and fame points earned during the game. At the beginning of the session, each player writes their name on theirs to identify themselves on the org chart and crosses out or fills in the star and trophy spaces as they make progress. At the start of the game, the player boards are organized in a pyramid structure that can have up to three levels: Secretariat at the base, Vice Presidency in the middle, and Presidency at the top.

The Presidential Medal grants a virtual victory point to the player holding the presidency at the end of each round. This point is not marked on the animal player boards.

Moving on to the Action Cards. These form a hand dealt to each player at the start of the game in the color matching their character. They are used during the planning phase to play face-down and individually resolve the action associated with the card. This card will remain on the table until a specific action is resolved that allows cards to be recovered, or when fulfilling the criteria on the shift cards.

As for the Envelope Cards, these are special cards featuring extra action icons that are kept face-down after being drawn from the deck. They serve as a flexible resource that players can hold onto and activate at any time right before revealing their main action card on their turn. They are obtained by executing a specific action. Associated with this concept is the Corruption Token, a special cardboard marker held by whichever player currently has the highest number of envelope cards. Holding this token grants one virtual victory point, placed on the player’s counter to mark this benefit.

Meanwhile, Camera Tokens are obtained by resolving the corresponding action. These tokens are placed on the animal player board and serve to award fame points to their holder during the press conference phase at the end of each round.

Finally, the Shift Cards make up a central deck of rectangular cards featuring a visible arrow on the back that determines the turn direction. Each one defines a specific event or requirement checked at the end of the round, allowing any participant who has met that condition to recover one played action card.

That is enough to get started.

Setup

Each player chooses an animal board on whichever side they prefer and takes the action cards of their matching color to form their hand.
Place the animal boards randomly on the table forming a pyramid structure that represents the party org chart according to the number of players.
Each player writes their name on their chosen animal board and fills in one victory point on their track. Players in Secretariat positions also fill in one fame point on their boards. All marked points must be recorded from left to right.
Place the Presidential Medal token on top of the animal board in the Presidency position.
Shuffle the shift cards and form a deck placing them so that the side showing the arrow faces up.
Shuffle the envelope cards and place them face-down to form a deck next to the shift card deck. Place the corruption token next to this deck.
Form a general supply with the camera tokens, setting up one token for 3- or 4-player games, two tokens for 5 or 6 players, three tokens for 7 to 9 players, and four tokens for 10-player games.
Remove all excess material from the table that will not be used.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of President takes place over an indefinite number of rounds.

The phases of each round are as follows:

Planning. All players simultaneously choose an action card from their hand and place it face-down in front of them. Talking, lying, negotiating deals, or influencing others’ decisions is allowed during this phase.
Resolution. Players reveal and resolve their action cards one by one, following the order of positions on the org chart (starting from the bottom level in the direction indicated by the arrow on the shift card, with the presidency being the last position). After resolving their card, the player places it face-up in their personal pile in full view of everyone. At any time before resolving their main action card in the resolution phase, a player may play envelopes. The player may reveal and discard any number of accumulated envelope cards to immediately execute their additional effects.
Press Conference. Media presence benefits are checked:
- Interview. Among the players who played the Interview action card this round, the one in the highest position receives 1 victory point. In 9- or 10-player games, the player in the second-highest position also receives 1 victory point.
- Camera. Each player receives 1 fame point for each camera token on their animal board. If a player marks their third fame point, they also record a victory point. Once five fame points have been accumulated, every additional fame point earned converts directly into a victory point.
End of Round. Check which players met the condition indicated on the active shift card; those who met it recover one action card of their choice from their discard pile. Finally, the presidency reveals and reads the next shift card to start a new cycle.

After this, a new round begins.

The action cards available in the game are:

Promotion. Swap your position on the org chart with an animal in the level immediately above you. Turn order continues with the player moving into your original position.
Slander. Place this card on top of another player’s board. Right before that player reveals their card on their turn, you must try to guess the action they are about to execute. If you guess correctly, you steal 1 victory point from them (the targeted player erases one and you fill one in). If you guess wrong, nothing happens. Afterward, place Slander in your pile. If multiple players slander the same player, they cannot choose the same action (resolved in the order the cards were placed).
Interview. Allows you to compete for a victory point during the Press Conference phase if you are the player in the highest position who used it this round.
Camera. Steal a camera token from the supply (or from another player if none remain) and place it on your animal board. It will grant you fame in subsequent Press Conference phases.
Deal. Paired up in turn order with other Deal cards played. If a deal is sealed between two players, both receive 1 victory point. A single, unpaired Deal card awards no reward.
Envelope. Draw an envelope card, look at it, and keep it face-down in view of the other players. Envelopes grant extra actions that can be played right before revealing the main action card in the resolution phase.
Vacation. Recover all action cards from your discard pile and return them to your hand (including the Vacation card itself).

Game End

The game ends immediately the moment a player reaches 7 victory points, claiming victory. Holding the presidency is not required to win the game. When evaluating victory conditions, the following are taken into account:

Each star marked on the animal board grants 1 victory point.
The Presidential Medal grants 1 virtual victory point to whichever player currently holds the presidency (not marked on the board).
The Corruption Token grants 1 virtual victory point to the player holding it for having the highest number of envelopes (not marked on the board).

In case of a tie in victory points among multiple players, the tiebreaker goes to the player occupying the highest position on the party org chart.

Personal Opinion

Breaking into board game design isn’t as simple as developing a prototype and waiting for a publisher to magically knock on your door to publish it. The industry’s reality is far more demanding, requiring a considerable investment of time and energy—both in refining the design itself and in the arduous work of getting it out there. Attending conventions, pitching the project at game design labs, and subjecting the proposal to constant scrutiny from fellow creators and gamers are essential steps if you hope to see your product on store shelves.

Even so, it can still happen that despite following every single step, things just don’t click. Crafting a solid prototype, pouring countless hours into playtesting, and traveling to every event on the national circuit guarantees a publishing deal by no means. Today’s market consumes an excessive volume of new releases, and publishers scrutinize not only mechanical quality under a microscope but also market fit. Sometimes luck just isn’t on your side, or the timing isn’t right, forcing you to roll with the punches and head back to square one.

For this reason, more and more creators are choosing to take the leap and set up their own imprint. Faced with the hurdles of finding a spot in traditional catalogs, this path stands out as an attractive alternative to bring their projects to life—whether by seeking funding through crowdfunding campaigns or by handling the entire development process in-house while partnering with another company to handle production and distribution. It’s a bold move that demands stepping into the publisher role, but it offers far greater control over the final product.

I suspect that Nico Cardona, designer of the game we are looking at today, falls into this second scenario. After extensive development work and presence at events, he chose to channel his creative efforts under the Too Bad Games imprint, partnering with Zacatrus to manage production and distribution. This formula allows him to maintain a personal identity and direct control over his designs, ensuring that a title so focused on table interaction reaches the market with a more than remarkable finish.

Let this brief introduction serve to acknowledge the effort behind bringing a neat project to fruition—one that keeps growing day by day thanks to concepts that seem to work well, as is the case with President. Let’s see how it plays at the table, but not before thanking Too Bad Games for providing the review copy that made this long write-up possible.

In President, we are transported to the vibrant and often ruthless setting of internal political maneuvering when the top leadership unexpectedly becomes vacant. Taking on the roles of various candidates, players must navigate the tensions, backroom deals, and backstabbing inherent to the struggle for absolute power. It’s a premise where the satirical setting acts as a catalyst to stage how personal ambition trumps party loyalty, forcing us to maneuver through the shadows of secretariats and vice presidencies to reach the coveted president’s chair at the expense of our own colleagues.

Mechanically, simultaneous action selection serves as the core engine. To claim ultimate victory, players compete to be the first to reach seven victory points on their character board. This progress is achieved both by climbing the internal org chart—from the entry-level secretariats to the presidency at the top—and by capitalizing on public popularity and influence granted by key elements like TV cameras, the institutional medal, or the ever-tempting corruption token.

Each round plays out across four phases. In the planning phase, each participant secretly chooses an action card from their hand and places it face-down. Next, in the resolution phase, players reveal and execute their actions in hierarchical order based on the org chart, from the bottom position up to the president. After this, a press conference is held to reward contenders who managed to hog the media spotlight (accumulating camera tokens and/or holding an interview), wrapping up the round by checking daily events, which allow played cards to be recovered from the play area if certain conditions are met before moving on to the next round.

The actions players can resolve are fairly varied. For instance, with the promotion action, we can swap positions on the org chart with a candidate in the level directly above us, climbing at the expense of dropping a rival (who will resolve their action immediately upon filling our previous spot).

The interview action allows the player highest on the ladder to score a victory point (anyone else who offers an interview but isn’t the highest-ranked to resolve the action that round comes away empty-handed). The camera action allows a player to claim a camera token that turns into fame at the end of the round (a sub-type of points where reaching 3 grants a victory point, and once 5 is reached, every additional fame point translates directly into a victory point).

The slander action allows us to place an accusation on another player’s board to attempt to guess the action they will execute (if multiple players slander the same target, each must bet on a different action); whoever guesses correctly (if anyone does) steals a victory point from the slandered player.

To create synergies, we have the deal action, which rewards cooperation between two players. The first to reveal the action opens the scoring opportunity, and the next player to reveal the same action triggers the effect for both. It is one of the actions that sparks the most table talk during the game, as players encourage one another to play these cards with execution order in mind to try and secure points—though such promises are notoriously unreliable.

If we prefer to expand our range of options, the envelope action gives us cards with effects similar to action cards that can be executed right before revealing the main action card. This generates a lot of tension in the game, as unlike standard action cards, you never know what tricks a player holding these cards has up their sleeve until they choose to play them. On top of that, whoever holds the most unused envelope cards gets a virtual victory point, just like the president at the end of each round.

Finally, the vacation action recovers all used cards, a common mechanic in games using this framework. Cleverly, the design offers an alternative route to recover cards one by one through shift cards, which allow players meeting the specified requirement to pick a played card to get back.

Alright, with that, you have more than enough context for us to start discussing feelings and dynamics. The first thing that catches your eye is the psychological weight inherent to any design centered around simultaneous action selection. Players are forced into a level-zero, level-one, and level-two tactical thinking exercise to try and anticipate opponents’ moves. Reading intentions isn’t just about catching a rival red-handed to land a precise slander card—it’s also key to positioning yourself effectively on the org chart and maximizing the payoff of your own cards depending on table dynamics.

This might be the first time you’ve read me mention “level-zero, level-one, and level-two exercises.” It’s not something I pulled out of a hat—it’s an established classification. Tactical thinking is the ability to analyze a situation, anticipate scenarios, evaluate options, and make the best decision under time pressure or environmental constraints.

The levels refer, among other things, to the time horizon involved in making a decision. Level zero refers to an almost automatic decision or one that simply responds to a direct stimulus (like checking a king in chess). Level one usually involves several available options, where the player must read the opponent’s position or the situation and choose the optimal response based on a variable. Level two doesn’t just respond to what’s happening now, but to what will happen in subsequent actions. It requires chaining moves together, reading intentions, managing timing, and deceiving or disrupting the opponent.

And all of this happens in every single round of a game of President. A prime example of this tactical escalation occurs when a player in the Secretariat wants to rank up. At level-zero thinking, they would play the promotion action hoping the higher-ranked rival executes a passive action like envelope. However, if a rival acting earlier anticipates the move (level one), they could plan a slander action to punish that ambition head-on and strip away a victory point.

The twist (level two) happens when the first player, sensing that slander card coming, opts to play camera instead of promotion. This defuses the opponent’s accusation and maximizes their gain without exposure, postponing the promotion for a later round with less risk of being slandered since the slandering player’s card is now locked in their discard pile.

Beyond immediate tactical reads, it’s essential to highlight the fascinating dynamics that shatter any attempt at rigid long-term card counting regarding opponents’ hands. First, the introduction of envelope cards brings high uncertainty to the table, maintaining constant tension since nobody knows what perks or out-of-turn tricks players might have up their sleeves.

Second, shift cards add a crucial strategic layer by rewarding players who meet their criteria with recovered action cards from their discards. This mechanic disrupts hand predictability, paving the way for a contender to chain the exact same action across consecutive rounds to completely throw off opponents—though fulfilling those requirements often demands playing counterintuitively.

Another aspect I find particularly noteworthy is how fluidly table talk is encouraged before entering the planning phase. The design opens the floodgates to bluffing, verbal agreements, and spur-of-the-moment negotiations, making the phase before playing a card fertile ground for debate. It’s incredibly satisfying to watch players bridge gaps to align on a deal card for mutual gain, or use persuasion to intimidate an ascending opponent, threatening them with a slander card if they insist on the move everyone sees coming.

Best of all, this array of experiences unfolds in games that rarely exceed thirty minutes. President strikes a very interesting balance by offering a satisfying decision space without cluttering the game with clunky mechanics or cumbersome phases that drag down the overall pacing. The quick turn turnover made possible by simultaneous selection keeps momentum going, with tension escalating right up until game end without ever becoming monotonous.

Not long ago I wrote a tocho-review of The King’s Crown (here is its tocho-review) and criticized these exact aspects in Pablo Clark’s design, as the game’s mechanical premise is similar (simultaneous action selection, bluffing, and reading intentions), but seasoned with too many conceptual layers to expand available choices—something that, for a game of this style, I feel works against it, even if the game is turning out to be a hit and bringing satisfaction to a broad swath of the board game community.

In that tocho-review, I suggested options that I believe fulfill the premise in a much more satisfying manner, such as Libertalia (here is its tocho-review) and, above all, Mission: Red Planet (here is its tocho-review). President feels like a streamlined take on the latter, trimming down action effects (making them simpler and more atomic) and cutting out area control (which works great, but increases rules overhead and game length).

I’m not claiming that President is definitively better than the aforementioned titles, but I do think it offers an alternative that delivers similar dynamics and feelings in a much tighter timeframe, with a conceptual load that is far easier to digest for any type of gamer.

The only drawback I can point out is that this very level of simplification might leave it feeling slightly in no-man’s-land or acting primarily as a gateway game for these dynamics, especially since playtime isn’t drastically different from Libertalia or Mission: Red Planet once the rules are understood.

What might earn it a permanent spot on your shelves is its party game appeal. President supports up to ten players (a rare feat outside of card fillers), playing acceptably well from six players onward without hurting game length or flow at all, thanks to simultaneous action selection. Below six players, it can feel a bit predictable, at which point I’d lean toward one of the other two games mentioned.

That said, replayability might not be top-tier either. At the end of the day, it’s a game where player interaction is everything, but the spread of available choices isn’t particularly broad, making it easy for patterns to emerge after a few plays. That’s why I believe it should be paced appropriately to avoid burning through it.

Moving on to production. Component quality is more than respectable, featuring thick, well-punched cardboard player boards with a dry-erase finish so you can write on them. The cards are of good stock, linen-finished, and have good snap (sleeving is highly recommended to prevent marks from ruining the experience). The rulebook is well-structured and leaves no room for doubt.

The game’s art style stands out for its bold satirical edge, heavily influenced by classic animation and modern comics. Through clean lines, dynamic inking, and a vibrant, high-contrast color palette, the illustrator grants massive personality and expressiveness to each animal (available in both genders). Art direction blends formal attire elegance with cheeky caricature: business suits and official iconography (like government domes and lecterns) mesh with exaggerated poses and absurd items like rubber duck floaties or megaphones. This integration of functional design into the components, supported by clear, intuitive iconography, reinforces the biting, lighthearted tone of a political satire that fits the game design seamlessly.

And let’s wrap this up. President is a straightforward and vibrant design centered around a simultaneous action selection system that triggers constant mind reading within a political party. Seeking synergies through verbal deals, the uncertainty brought by envelope cards, and the ongoing tension of slandering rivals produce games packed with bluffing, table talk, and backstabbing. Although its heavy mechanical simplification might leave players seeking a deeper strategic experience wanting more, its fast turn pacing, frantic tempo, and the tactical depth emerging from psychological play make it a very enjoyable game that condenses a massive amount of interaction into a tight play time. For all these reasons, I give it a…