The Road to the White House

This a simple area-control, card-based U.S. election game aimed at younger children. It comes in a ziplock bag with a plasticized map of the United States, 4 crayons (red, yellow, green and blue), and a deck of 56 cards (50 state cards, a Washington D.C. card and five color-coded wild cards). Players are dealt hands of five, and start by choosing one of their cards as their home state. Each player colors that state with his crayon. Each turn thereafter, a player starts by filling his hand to 5 cards either by drawing from the remaining deck or by stealing blind from another player. To claim additional states, players must play cards for states that are adjacent to a state they already hold. In addition to playing from their hands, players may play the top card of the discard pile at any time. Players color in states as claimed, and only discard at the end of their turn if their hand still has five cards in it. The states are color-coded by region, and there is one wild card for each region, plus a yellow wild card good for anywhere in the country. These allow players to claim non-adjacent states within the corresponding regions. Once all states have been claimed, the player with the largest number of electoral votes wins, with number of states held is a tie-breaker.