Financially-troubled board game publisher CMON says it plans to relaunch its halted crowdfunding operations later this year, after seeing its annual losses soar to almost $20m in 2025.
But a month later it emerged that CMON’s financial problems had been growing long before the tariffs, with the company announcing it had slumped to a loss of more than $3m in 2024 due to falling sales for its crowdfunding campaigns.
CMON’s $23m losses across 2024 and 2025 are now almost 5.5-times larger than its profits from the preceding nine years combined – and have led an independent auditor hired by the company to question whether it has the resources to stay in business for the foreseeable future.
An extract of a report from auditor Zhonghui Anda shared by CMON, which is set to appear in the company’s 2025 annual report next month, considered the publisher’s $19.9m annual loss, its net liabilities of more than $3.5m and contract liabilities of over $7.5m, saying, “These conditions indicate a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt about the Group’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
CMON’s directors have a different view, however, saying in the 2025 financial report that the company “should be able to continue as a going concern” thanks to a trio of factors.
They include financial support from some of the directors “sufficient to finance CMON’s working capital requirements”, the roughly $2.4m proceeds from selling its Singapore office that it received in January, and the roughly $1.25m gross proceeds from a successful share sale last month.
CMON’s hefty liabilities are largely due to its eight undelivered crowdfunding campaigns, which are not recognised as revenue on the company’s books until they are fulfilled to backers.
The company said that delivering crowdfunding projects in 2024 contributed about $20m in revenue – a figure which had sunk to just $200,000 last year according to its latest financial report.
CMON said the 2025 losses were driven by a “significant decline in revenue”, which fell more than 73% to $9.9m last year, compared to the $37.3m total from 2024.
DCeased from CMON || Kickstarter image
It also cited impairment losses on property, plant and equipment, right of-use assets and intangible assets, and a loss it made disposing intellectual properties and related assets as part of its “strategic portfolio restructuring”.
Those IP sales included parting with its most famous and profitable title Zombicide – which has raised more than $40m on Kickstarter since its 2012 launch – to Asmodee, as well as Blood Rage, Rising Sun and Ankh to Tycoon Games.
CMON said all those sales combined amounted to about $5.1m, but added that it actually made an overall $2.4m loss on disposal of intellectual properties and related assets across 2025.
It also made a $5.7m loss due to undertaking an impairment assessment on some of its property, plant and equipment, right-of-use assets and intangible assets “with finite useful lives”.
CMON said in the financial report, “These actions, while negatively impacting short-term results, were undertaken to strengthen the Group’s operational focus and reduce future cost burden.”
The company’s remaining significant IP includes the Massive Darkness series, with the most recent installment, Massive Darkness: Dungeons of Shadowreach, completing a $2.85m crowdfund on Gamefound early last year – a figure which rose to more than $3.7m including late pledges.
That campaign was CMON’s last before it scrapped its future crowdfunding plans two months later. The company has pivoted in the interim to releasing several small-box games direct to retail, including Collect!, Peanuts Talent Show, Fairy Perfume, Rocket Punch and Yokai Carnival.
Collect! from CMON, designed by Jérémy Ducret and Johannes Goupy
Discussing its current strategy in the report, the company said, “In light of the continued uncertainty in the global market, particularly the instability arising from US import tariffs on certain products since the first half of 2025, the Group has taken decisive steps to restructure its operations and strengthen its financial position.
“Our current strategy is to:
1) reduce exposure to large-scale crowd-funding launches in the near term, focusing on fulfilment of games already committed to backers, with plans to resume crowdfunding activities in the second half of 2026 with new titles from current game lines;
2) grow distribution in Asia as a primary strategic market;
3) maintain a streamlined operational structure with reduced headcount and a smaller office footprint in line with the Group’s current scale of operations; and
4) maintain a debt-free position following the full repayment of bank borrowings, significantly reducing the Group’s financial liabilities and improving its financial resilience.
“We remain committed to becoming a quality developer and publisher of tabletop games and believe the strategic refocus toward Asia and selective game development will position the Group more sustainably for the future.”
CMON said it had reduced its revenue exposure to the US to about 21.4% of its total across 2025, compared to around 42% for the previous year, through what it described as a “deliberate strategic pivot toward Asia”.
The report showed CMON’s combined North and South America revenue fell more than 86% last year to about $2.1m, from around $15.7m in 2024.
European revenue also fell more than 81% year-on-year, from about $12.7m to around $2.4m. Asia revenue fell too, but much less sharply, down about 33% in 2025 from $8m to around $5.3m.
CMON said in the report, “Notwithstanding this reduced exposure, tariff-related uncertainties may continue to affect future export sales, revenue and gross margin performance in the US market.
“The Group intends to maintain its current reduced focus on the US market until the trade environment stabilises and market conditions improve.”
CMON also revealed the scale of its staffing cuts in the latest report, with headcount falling from 81 at the start of 2025 to just 41 at the beginning of this year.
The report said total staff costs had fallen in that time from about $4m to around $2.8m, including pay for its directors and their pension fund contributions, but it did not provide a breakdown of those numbers.
Believe it or not, it all started with a dream. My co-founder, Michael, had an unfortunate (and completely unintentional) meeting with the bottom of a swimming pool and ended up with a traumatic brain injury. In late 2023, while his recovery was long and about as fun as watching paint dry, he was grateful to still be alive.
During this slow and frustrating process, something unexpected happened: the concussion started giving him vivid dreams. One of those dreams wasn’t just any dream, it was about a game. Michael woke up and immediately called me to spill the beans about this dream-game. He described a game system inspired by Oh Hell, and he was convinced it could actually work. I got very excited and immediately started throwing ideas around to develop the gameplay further. Together we fleshed out the system, refined the ideas, and built the rules. It ended up becoming a trick-taking game, but with a twist!
Next came the big question: the theme and visuals. At first, we played with the idea of plant evolutions as a theme, but eventually we leaned toward something more character-driven through anthropomorphism. That direction felt stronger, and it ultimately evolved into the sci-fi war theme we have today. As an illustrator myself, I had to do things the old-fashioned way: drawing the cards on my iPad and print them so we could test the game.
Once we realized the game had real potential, we decided to take it up a notch. I turned those scrappy drafts into proper visuals, though it took me the entire year of 2024 to finish designing all the cards! Because it is more of digital painting rather than just graphic design.
And just like that, Cosmic Crowns was born. We were definitely concerned about exposure. Both of us are Deaf, and we didn’t know anyone in the tabletop industry. But we decided to be fearless and just go for it. In early 2025 we made our debut by launching the game on Kickstarter. Now we’re working on an expansion with new designs that will amplify the Cosmic Crowns universe.
Hopefully it won’t take me another year to finish this one! 😄
Sincerely, The other co-founder and illustrator, Alessio
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was the author of the first published computer algorithm before computers existed; to put it succinctly, she was a computer science pioneer and visionary. Sadly, her ambitions were never fully realized during her own lifetime owing both to her gender and her untimely death. In the 200 or so intervening years, society […]
With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.
#71: The Wartburg from Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation, 1517-1555 from GMT Games
Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation 1517-1555 is an experience packaged in a game that attempts to boldly cover the political and religious conflicts of early 16th Century Europe. The game focuses on the struggle of religious reformers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli as they battle the Papacy for changes in their views of God and religion. But it is more than just the Holy War as it deals with the other European countries involved in the affairs of the time including France, England, the mighty Hapsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire in the east. They all played a role in the process of the Reformation and the design brilliantly weaves this all together into an interesting and engaging experience. The game also covers other plot lines and events of the period, including wars, marriages and ascendancies to thrones, using a unique Card Driven Game (CDG) system that models both the political and religious conflicts of the period.
Today, I want to take a look at a very interesting Response card in The Wartburg. Response cards in Here I Stand are event cards that can be played out of turn to interrupt the actions of an opponent or provide immediate reactions to specific game events. Response cards are often used to negate, mitigate, or enhance events and combats, and they may be played during an opponent’s impulse, provided the text allows for this asynchronous timing. These cards also tend to have specific pre-requisites that must be met in order to play the card and The Wartburg states that the card is “only playable by Protestants, and Luther must be alive”. The card itself allows the Protestant player to cancel the play of a card as an event but cannot cancel a Mandatory Event. The card however can cancel the play of the Papal Bull or Leipzig Debate Papal Home Cards, which is probably the way that the card will mostly be used. The card will not only cancel the play of the event but will also end the impulse of the player playing the card. This can be very powerful and when played at the right time can be a game saver for the Protestant player.
For example, in our most recent play at Buckeye Game Fest, I was playing as the Protestants and Bill Simoni as the Papacy. After the forming of the Schmalkaldic League and the Protestants changing into a military power, the focus of the other players turned toward me as I was doing well and near victory. They all then decided to declare war on the Protestants and began to advance upon and attack my fortified Electorates to take away VP I had earned by having both religious and political control in 5 of the 6 as the League was formed. As we came into turn 5, I was at 24 VP and ultimately came up shy of a victory by 1 point at the time. I had been able to take over the entirety of England and change every space and also get about 5-6 spaces in France, but now the Papal Bull came to play and Bill fought me back and forth with him taking over 3-4 spaces followed by me reclaiming 3-4 spaces. It was a beautiful game of back and forth and I used every tool at my disposal to fight him including The Wartburg card to stop the untimely excommunication of Zwingli before he could attempt to embarrass him in a debate. That card play at that very time saved me or most likely he would have used Eck who is his best debater against Zwingli who is just average and I would have lost leading to him being burnt at the stake giving him VP or by allowing him to turn over a few of my hard fought converted spaces back to Catholicism.
The only problem with this card is that it commits Luther so he will be unavailable to be chosen directly to debate during the rest of the turn. But this was a small price to pay at that time and ultimately led to me being able to hold on through the end of Turn 6 where I won a Protestant victory on the tie breaker with England.
Martin Luther stayed at Wartburg Castle from May 1521 to March 1522 under the alias “Junker Jörg” (Knight George) to hide from papal and imperial authorities. During these 300 days of protective custody, he translated the New Testament into German in just 11 weeks, wrote numerous theological works, and grappled with spiritual turmoil. His greatest accomplishment at Wartburg Castle was his translating of the New Testament from Koine Greek into German, which laid the foundation for a unified German language and made the Bible accessible to ordinary people. He also wrote numerous works, including Against Latomus and several tracts. He began his attack on monastic vows during this time, arguing they were contrary to faith. Luther used his time in exile for intense study and writing, referring to his stay as his “Patmos”, referring to the Apostle John’s exile to the Island of Patmos in 95AD. While here though he also experienced significant psychological distress and temptation. According to legend, he threw his inkwell at the devil during a confrontation, leaving a stain on the wall. His exile was organized by Frederick the Wise after the Diet of Worms and the stay was designed to keep Luther safe from those looking for him, ensuring the survival of his reform movement.
Gingham Designer: Robert Hovakimyan Publisher: Bitewing Games Players: 2-4 Age: 12+ Time: 20-40 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/48Jo2I0 Played with review copy provided by publisher The race is on! Ants have found an abandoned picnic blanket ripe with … Continue reading →
Wizards of the Grimoire is a two-player head-to-head battle game. You are wizards and you deal damage to each other by casting spells. To win the game, you need to reduce your opponent's health points to zero. This structure is pretty common. However the way you pick spells to use and manage mana needed to cast them is interesting. The game certainly offers something new.
There is
Petiquette, Thomas Sellner’s card game of picking out patterns among hat-wearing animals, has been named game of the year at this year’s Golden Box Awards.
The Oink Games-published design fought off competition from 2025 winner Isao Mukai, who was nominated for Banana Governance – a card-based drafting and bidding game which sees players attempt to satisfy the needs of hungry monkeys better than their opponents.
A comment from the selection committee about Petiquette called the title “a brilliant and sharp work typical of Oink”.
Cards from Banana Governance, designed and published by Isao Mukai
It said, “I’ll never forget the shock I felt the first time I played it. The rules are simple: just give the answer that fits in the single ‘?’ on the cards laid out.
“But… the eyes of those who give the same answer feel friendly. The mouths of those who give a different answer seem to twist. The loneliness of desperately trying to explain when you’re the only one who gives a different answer.
“A mix of various emotions. The unique experience of this game really stands out.”
The annual Golden Box contest was launched four years ago, modelled on the American film industry’s Academy Awards. More than 40 industry professionals from within the Japanese board game sphere voted on this year’s award.
In addition to ‘Best Picture’ for the overall game of the year, the awards also celebrate the best in game design, art, graphic design, production and rulebook work through individual awards.
Cover art for Sweet Lands
Eve Inc-designed Nusutto Cat – also known as Meow Heist – triumphed in this year’s Game Design Award, while best art went to Totsuca Chuo’s Sweet Lands, which was illustrated by Tatsuki Asano and Broni120.
Moyuki Adisawa’s animal jet ski racing game Tornado Splash picked up the Graphic Design Award thanks to the work of iD Creative Co, while the Production Award went to National Economy and Toshinori Iwai.
The selection committee said of the Production Award win: “It’s great when a great game is revived. It’s even better when a great game is revived in the best possible form.
“This new edition not only makes the seemingly impossible revival of this masterpiece a reality, but also reinterprets it in a more refined way.
“The ‘box within a box’ structure, combining the three parts, is exciting even before you start playing, and the ‘household budget’ mechanism that characterizes this game is implemented clearly and beautifully as a ‘safe’.
“This masterpiece hasn’t lost its appeal even after ten years, and this new edition will be loved for even longer.”
Yoshihiko Koriyama worked on the rulebook for that title, with proofreading from Shota Okano and DTP work from Makoto Takami. The selection committee said, “The fact that you can essentially understand the game rules by reading just one page is excellent.”
Bomb Busters designer Hishashi Hayashi collecting his Spiel des Jahres award
The win marked the first Spiel des Jahres triumph for an Asian designer in the prize’s 46-year history, and underscored the huge rise in tabletop designs making their way across from Asia to Europe and North America in the past decade.
Each winner will receive a golden board game box as a trophy.
Winner: Sweet Lands, Totsuca Chuo (Uchibacoya) – art by Tatsuki Asano and Broni120 A Boar, Crab, Dung Beatle, Takuya Iwamura (Kyuhachi Dog) – art by Takuya Iwamura Ghost Lift, Onegear (Engames) – art by Sai Beppu
Graphic Design Award
Winner: Tornado Splash, Moyuki Adisawa (ArcLight Games) – graphic design by iD Creative Vidro, Keita Kasagi (Bamboo Games) – graphic design by Kakuzato Shady Lady, Kaya Miyano (Mob+) – graphic design by Sai Beppu
Winner: Down Down Dungeon, Reiner Knizia (ForGames) Electra Select (The Society for Appreciating Swaying Buds) Snowp, Eisuke Fujinawa, Kazunori Hori (SzpiLAB)
I attended a fundraising trivia night over the weekend where every table had a theme chosen by the attendees. Our table was Wingspan & bird themed: Most of us wore bird shirts, there were dessert nests with candy eggs, we had two huge owl statues, and I brought a random Wingspan Americas bird card for each of the 10 of us.
The fundraiser was entirely unrelated to tabletop games–it was for the St. Louis roller derby team–but several people stopped by to say how much they loved Wingspan. One comment stood out: “I love Wingspan. It’s the only game I play.”
You might glance at your vast collection of games as you read this and wonder why this person hasn’t tried other great games, but think back to when you got into modern gaming. For me, Catan was the only game I played for a few years, followed by Agricola. The mentality was, “Why would we play something else when we already know–and enjoy–this game?”
Eventually I started exploring other games (Fresco, Dominion, Stone Age, etc), but I would bet that a not-insignificant number of people are “lifestyle gamers”–they pick a game, and that’s the only game they play. They might go deep into a modern game like Wingspan, a classic game like chess, or a trading/living card game like Magic.
I love when someone finds a game that they want to play over and over again. As a publisher, I want to support the things that bring people joy. Here are a few ways I try to support those who choose to play a specific Stonemaier game over and over:
community support: If I go deep into a game, I like to talk about the game on online forums (especially BoardGameGeek and Facebook). I try to help people feel welcome when they venture into the comments for our games, as it can be intimidating to show up in a group of 20,000 people and not know how your first question/comment will be received. Part of community support also includes supporting and encouraging fan creations (e.g., Wingspan’s bird promo packs or expansions like Scythe: The Wind Gambit).
content creators: Here’s a little secret about why we send so many games to reviewers (all games in our catalog, not just the new hotness): It’s just as much to get people excited about the games they already play/own as it is about informing people who don’t already have the game.
digital versions: The tabletop experience is awesome, but it isn’t always an option. We work with developers to bring our games to life digitally so the person who plays Wingspan once a month in person but wants to play every day in between online can do that.
accessories/expansions/promos/merch: For the two games I played over and over for several years (Catan and Agricola), we literally had one copy of the game among us. At a certain point, those of us who didn’t own the game felt the desire to contribute. We bought expansions, upgraded tokens, and promos; we might even have bought Agricola t-shirts if we had thought of it.
spinoffs/sequels: There are certainly many people who just want more Wingspan or more Scythe. But there are some who want different-Wingspan or different-Scythe; hence Wyrmspan, Finspan, and Expeditions.
gift giving: My first few games after Catan and Agricola were all gifts. I’m sure I would have eventually started buying other games myself, but I’m so grateful that people gave me that nudge by giving me Dominion, Stone Age, and Fresco. We have a gift guide at Stonemaier Games, but as I write this, I think it might be helpful to bridge the gap between popular non-Stonemaier games and our games. For example, if someone you know loves Carcassonne, they might also enjoy Between Two Castles. That sort of thing.
Did you–or do you still–have a game that you play over and over? In what ways has the publisher supported your passion for that game?
Operation Barclay is one of the most inspired marriages of setting and mechanic that I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. How did designer Maurice Suckling get the idea to pair the story of Operation Barclay, the Allied plan to feed the Axis false information about an upcoming Mediterranean invasion, with poker and a shell game? It’s such a remarkable idea, such a perfect idea. Most game designers would sacrifice body parts in exchange for an idea this good.
While the real Operation Barclay was about convincing the Axis that the Allies would invade Greece when they were in fact planning to invade Sicily, Operation Barclay the game gives us a bit more ambiguity than that. There are five possible areas of attack, stretching from Morocco-to-France and Egypt-to-Turkey. The Allied player places wooden Intelligence tokens into each of them. One lane, whichever the Allied player decides to make the Primary Offensive Sector, gets four positive Intelligence tokens and one negative. The Secondary Offensive Sector gets three of the first and two of the second, and the other three Sectors, red herrings all, get two and three.
[caption id="attachment_329516" align="alignnone" width="1024"]Operation Barclay Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
About five years ago, I had the chance to play a friend’s copy of the game Arkwright (originally published in 2015 by Spielworxx.) My buddy Jason was a huge fan and wanted to show off his copy to our strategy gaming group, so we got a three-player game rolling at my place. About four hours later, we came up for air to talk through our thoughts: mostly positive, a bit too long, a lifestyle game that really needed to be played often to be truly fulfilling.
My favorite game of all time—then, and now—is City of the Big Shoulders, now known as Chicago 1875: City of the Big Shoulders. “City BS”, as it is known in my circles, is a special game for a lot of reasons. Its focus is on the city of Chicago, in a period where a somewhat shocking number of famous companies were born there: Oscar Mayer, Quaker Oats, Kraft, Florsheim Shoes, Schwinn, Swift & Co., and many more. It’s the only game I’ve ever played that successfully combined the stock manipulation mechanics of popular gaming systems (such as incremental capitalization of 18xx games) with a straightforward worker placement mechanic that drives the middle phases of each round. It’s also a knife fight, a game that has epic swings and great competition, in…
Welcome to this week’s batch of crowdfunding campaigns. We have a variety of offerings here, so we hope you will find something that catches your eye. Also, if you want to chat with the BGQ team, join our Discord Server where we talk about games, movies, sports, and other fun stuff. Or, if Facebook is […]
French board game publisher Don’t Panic Games has continued its expansion into the North American market, telling BoardGameWire the success of several recent titles had reinforced its confidence in the strategy.
The company has made a name for itself providing French localisations of games including Final Girl, Champions of Midgard and Fantasy Realms since it was co-founded by current director Cédric Littardi in 2013.
But Don’t Panic has also found success publishing its own titles such as Chess-like abstract game Above – and said the performance of that, and several other recent games, had persuaded it to bring more of its titles to North America.
Emma Recher, who will head up a three-person team at Don’t Panic’s new US office in California, told BoardGameWire, “Several recent titles have reinforced our confidence in expanding more directly into the US market.
“That is one of the reasons we are beginning this US expansion with titles such as Spyworld, Luminis, Above, and Maiko, which are also the titles highlighted in our North American launch announcement.
“We also have additional releases planned each quarter this year, including Don’t Drop the Soap! toward the end of the year.”
Above, designed by Yves Charamel-Lenain, from Don’t Panic Games
Don’t Panic said those licensed titles would continue to be distributed by Japanime, while the French company’s historical and war line, including Fighters of the Pacific and Fighters of Europe, will continue to be distributed by Ares Games in the US.
Recher said, “What the new US office changes is that Don’t Panic can now directly support additional English-language titles that were not previously represented in the market in the same way.
“For retailers, that means broader access to the catalog, closer communication, more direct follow-up, and stronger on-the-ground marketing support.”
Don’t Panic added that it would be supported in the US by Double Exposure, which will represent the company at both major and smaller conventions – adding that it had a “robust demo schedule” planned over the next few months.
When asked about Don’t Panic’s decision to expand further in the US despite ongoing uncertainty over the country’s tariffs policy – and its effect on board game publishers working in the country – Recher said, “Like many publishers in tabletop gaming, we are watching the tariff situation very carefully. It creates uncertainty across the supply chain, from manufacturing and freight planning to wholesale pricing and retailer margins.
“Our approach is to stay flexible: planning conservatively, reviewing sourcing and logistics options on an ongoing basis, and working closely with our partners to protect continuity of supply as much as possible.
“The current environment is challenging for everyone in the industry, but we believe the best response is to remain pragmatic, adaptable, and transparent with our partners.”
Last month, as I was trolling the internet, I came across a new solitaire game from the guys over at War Diary Publications called Battle of the Bismarck Sea designed by Allyn Vannoy. Battle of the Bismarck Sea is a solitaire wargame that uses individual ships and flights/squadrons of aircraft. The Player assumes the role of General George Kenney, Commander of the 5th U.S. Army Air Force, with the mission of intercepting the Japanese effort to reinforce its ground forces on the island of New Guinea. I am always into a good Pacific Theater of Operations game and I reached out to Allyn to get some inside information about the design.
Grant: Allyn welcome to our blog. First off please tell us a little about yourself. What are your hobbies? What’s your day job?
Allyn: I’m retired, having worked 18 years for Intel as a program manager. Presently, I work for a minor league baseball team in the summer, an affiliate of the Arizona Diamond Backs, and volunteer two days a week at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, both in the Archives and giving tours of Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose; I also write (freelance) for a number of military history and gaming magazines.
Grant: What motivated you to break into game design? What have you enjoyed most about the experience thus far?
Allyn: During Covid, I started getting back into gaming, having become interested in Avalon Hill games in the 60’s and as an early subscriber to S&T Magazine. I enjoy the challenge of trying to turn history into a game—a teaching tool—in the process I learn more and hopefully, understand more.
Grant: What is your new game Battle of the Bismarck Sea about?
Allyn: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea, 1943, was the 5th Air Force’s attempt to interrupt the Japanese effort to reinforce its ground forces on the island of New Guinea. The Player must utilize the limited resources available and determine their application over the 10-week period that operations are conducted. The results of these efforts will be borne out in the effectiveness of air operations.
Grant: What games gave you used for inspiration for your design?
Allyn: I hadn’t seen anything like this design; I wanted to make something new and hopefully unique.
Grant: What is important to model or include in a game about the Air Naval combat in the Pacific during WWII?
Allyn: The most important thing to understand is how to organize and implement an air strike force to accomplish the mission given.
Grant: What type of research did you do to get the historical details correct? What one must read source would you recommend?
Allyn: I tried to locate good and detailed sources:
Arbon, J. and Christensen, Chris. The Bismarck Sea Ran Red; Walsworth Press, Marceline, MO, 1979.
Birdsall, Steve. Flying Buccaneers: The Illustrated Story of Kenney’s Fifth Air Force; Doubleday, NY, 1977.
Henebry, John P. The Grim Reapers at Work in the Pacific Theater: The Third Attack Group of the U.S. Fifth Air Force; Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Missoula, MT, 2002.
Jablonski, Edward. Outraged Skies; Doubleday and Co., Inc., Garden City, NY. 1971.
McAulay, Lex. Battle of the Bismarck Sea; St. Martin’s Press, NY, 1991.
Recommendation: McAulay’s book, Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
Grant: What challenges did the subject cause for the design? How have you overcome them?
Allyn: The design initially focused just on the single action that occurred on March 2-4, 1943, but there was a larger struggle that began in January 1943—that Allied commanders realized they needed to adapt and change their forces and tactics if they were to meet the challenge they faced. Once the design was expanded to a 10-week time frame it became more complex, but also more interesting. This also required more research into the changes that took place within the 5th Air Force.
Grant: What is the scale of the game?
Allyn: Unit scale: single ships and flights (3-10 planes) of aircraft.
Time scale: 10 Command/Support turns, each of one week; 13 Operational turns, over a two day period.
Ground units represent 200-300 personnel.
Grant: What are the different units that the player has control over?
Allyn: The Japanese units include transport ships, destroyers, ground units (presenting the troops and equipment carried on the transports), and fighter aircraft. These are controlled by the Bot. The player controls the Allied units: a mix of aircraft—reconnaissance, heavy bombers, medium bombers, and fighters, and also PT boats.
Grant: What does the concept of Endurance mean for the player? What does this model from the 1943 campaign?
Allyn: Endurance is the amount of time that aircraft can remain airborne. This models the range of aircraft from their bases to the target area. In the initial design, a series of range arcs were used for the individual aircraft types. It was quickly realized this would make for a very complex game. To address playability, aircraft range was changed to consolidate to a single arc (a line on the map) for medium bombers and P-38 fighters, and set Operational turns to 3-hour periods.
Grant: What decisions do they have to make about their assets use and management over the campaign?
Allyn: The game is conducted in two parts: a Command/Support Sequence and an Operational Turn Sequence.
The Command/Support Sequence is a one week period that allows the Allies to receive resource points and reinforcements, then decide how to apply the resource points—rebuilding units, modifying tactics, and determining how to find a convoy at sea.
The Operational Turn Sequence is a two day period where the convoy is moving along convoy routes as the Allies attempt to identify it and then determine the organization of strike forces in an effort to sink it and prevent Japanese forces from reaching Lae, New Guinea.
Grant: As a solitaire wargame how does the Bot behave? What are its priorities and decision points?
Allyn: The Convoy, when dispatched from Rabaul, advances towards its destination (Lae), with random events impacting its progress. The rules introduce the Fog of War that the player must overcome in order to first find the Convoy and then disrupt and attempt to destroy it.
As for decision points, there are several. How are resource points to be spent? When and how to go after a convoy? What assets to use in a given sortie?
Grant: What type of an experience does the Bot create?
Allyn: Designing a solitaire versus a 2-player game presents a whole different set of challenges. Can you design a Bot that will maintain the player’s interest and also challenge them? It should create variety; i.e., when and where will a convoy attempt to make a run; as well as a certain level of anxiety as certain elements are unknown until they can be revealed.
Grant: What are Resource Points and what do they represent?
Allyn: Resource points are the player’s currency and represent personnel, equipment (aircraft), and training.
Grant: What are Resource Points used for?
Allyn: The Resource Points are used by the player to improve tactics, provide replacements for losses, strengthen forces with personnel and equipment, and to launch air attacks. They are the real currency of the game and the player has to use them wisely to do well.
Grant: What is the layout of the board?
Allyn: The board includes the map (the area between New Britain and New Guinea); the turns tracks (for both Command/Support and Operational Turns); the Convoy Display (for air-sea combat); displays for the ships (transports and destroyers) and for tracking victory points and resource points.
Grant: How does combat work?
Allyn: Combat is based on the attack strength of the units for air combat, air-to-surface, and surface combat. The result of a die roll is compared to a unit’s combat strength, and if it’s equal to less than that number (combat strength), a hit is made on the opposing force.
Grant: How are bombers and fighters used in combat?
Allyn: Bombers are used to try and sink the ships of the Convoy. Heavy bombers operate separately from medium bombers, as they drop their bomb loads from altitude, with limited chance of success, while medium bombers engage Japanese ships at low altitude (mast-high approach). Fighters are used to engage the Combat Air Patrol aircraft that the Japanese dispatched to provide air cover for the Convoy.
Grant: How is victory obtained in the game?
Allyn: Victory is based on the number of Japanese troops that fail to reach Lae—by sinking the ships and their cargo of personnel and equipment, they are removed from participation in combat operations on New Guinea.
Grant: What do you feel the game models well?
Allyn: The fog of war; the challenge to figure out how to build and prepare the needed forces, and then how to employ them to accomplish the mission (sink the enemy shipping).
Grant: What has been the experience of your playtesters?
Allyn: Comments led to a major change in design—moving from a single mission to a 10-week campaign and all the elements associated with that larger picture/time frame.
Grant: What are you most pleased about with the design?
Allyn: That it offers two layers to the player experience – organizing and building forces, then utilizing them to execute missions.
Grant: What other designs are you contemplating or already working on?
Allyn: Operation Tidal Wave, the USAAF Ninth Air Force strike on Ploesti, Romania, August 1, 1943.
Storyfold: Wildwoods Designer: Sjoerd van der Linde Publisher: Open Owl Games Players: 1 (well, we play with 2) Age: 13+ Time: 30-60 mins Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4bJevlP Played with review copy provided by publisher Storyfold: Wildwoods is an … Continue reading →
Some friends recently hosted an all-day gaming session; sadly, a work trip forced me to miss out. The theme for the session was loosely inspired by dice drafting games, but it then stretched to include dice chuckers, roll-and-writes, worker placement with dice workers, and games that I am going to include even though I can’t quite place the specific way they use dice. I just know that dice were factored into the equation.
On the flight home, I spent some time dreaming up a perfect day of games based on a variety of dice mechanics. (This is one of my favorite things to explore in BGG’s database: looking up games by family or mechanic.) For my Dream Dice Day, all the games had to prominently feature dice, ideally with the use of dice drafting and/or dice placement mechanics. As long as dice were involved, I made the case to include the game for Dream Dice Day. My dream, my rules!
I used the timeframe that my friends used for their dice game day, about eight hours, give or take. With that as our frame, let’s check out my perfect day!
I’m not a big roll-and-write guy. I don’t love playing games alone, but nothing is stranger to me than playing games with friends while also…well, playing the game alone. More often than not, I watch as someone rolls a pool of dice, then regret my decision to play a game where we are sitting together, trying to figure out who can optimize the results of the shared dice in front of us. Usually, the only time someone speaks is when the next dice chucker says something like “everybody good?” before chucking those dice again.
That changes with two games that now serve as my “It’s halftime of an NBA playoff game and need something to play solo” titles, Railroad Ink and En Route. Both offer a fun, compact, quick challenge for the brain as I try to optimize my scores. I have two versions of Railroad Ink—the Deep Blue Edition and the Archipelago boards—so I can mix and match expansions. En Route’s solo challenge system and wide variety of maps work wonders, and while the base game uses a flip-and-write system, the dice variant from my copy of En Route: Special Edition is my preferred move. And the dice featured in En Route have that nice, hefty chunk to them.
If someone shows up late, I can squeeze one or both of these titles in with ease. That person in your playgroup who texts with the inevitable “Justin, you won’t believe this, but I’ll be 20 minutes late” problem? No problem at all, since I’ll keep the appetizers warm with these games until everyone arrives.
2020’s The Red Cathedral, designed by the duo known as "Llama Dice" (Shei S. and Isra C.) and published by Devir, features a main mechanic that I adore. One of a player’s three options on a turn is to select a die from a central rondel by moving the die in a clockwise direction the number of spaces equal to the pips showing on the die. Then, the active player receives the reward on the space where the die ended up, and the die is re-rolled, giving the next player a fresh set of die selections to choose from.
Moving the die to just the right spot is a crunchy choice I love. The color choice of the die will often trigger a wave of bonuses on the player’s personal board, depending on upgrades made earlier in the game. Finding ways to move a die onto a space with as many as two other dice might triple the bonuses a player can receive. And each quadrant of the rondel offers the active player a different bonus, so figuring out which die to move and to which quadrant is a juicy choice, but one that doesn’t bog down the game with deliberations.
The same two imaginary players who join me for The Red Cathedral would then take part in a play of Tiletum, a 2022 release from the team at Board&Dice designed by Simone Luciani and Daniele Tascini. The dice drafting here is genius. The color of the die and the visible pips represent the number of resources a player receives. The pips on the die’s opposite face (i.e., NOT showing on the die) grant the player a number of actions equal to the D6 inversion of the resource choice.
Every turn, you are choosing how many resources and how many action points you have from a pool of seven, since the total of every D6’s opposite faces always equals seven. If I want to take a merchant action worth three action points, that means I’m getting four resources of the chosen die color.
Dice are limited, and randomly drawn from a cloth bag to start each of the game’s four rounds…with some colors potentially left out of that round. While one of the game’s resources (gold) allows a player to change a die’s pip value, you might not have enough gold to make changes. That might leave you in a sizable hole with very limited choices. Each round’s scoring goal gives players three turns to maximize their chances at points in a round, giving the dice drafting a very nice blend of tactical and strategic choices.
With three players who play as fast as I typically do, Tiletum plays in about 30 minutes per player. That gives us time to play and grab a quick snack between games.
The Devir dice double dip wraps with The White Castle, another Llama Dice masterpiece featuring dice drafting on an epic scale but in a very tidy package. In fact, The White Castle might be my favorite dice drafting game of them all, and even at four players, the game wraps in about 75 minutes.
The die drafting choices here are a blast, but they are even more interesting when there are a wide range of die values to begin each of the game’s three rounds. Triggering the lantern bonuses by taking the lowest-value die is one thing, but it’s a whole other thing when the “lowest” value die is a five or a six, almost guaranteeing a player extra coins to go along with the lantern goodies.
I prefer The White Castle at two or four players, so let’s assume another imaginary friend came over to join the first three players for the middle of the day, giving us a four-player playthrough.
I think most regulars who visit BGG know that Grand Austria Hotel is glorious. Most players in my network prefer Grand Austria Hotel with some of the extras from the Let’s Waltz! expansion, but for the purposes of Dream Dice Day, I’m going with the following modules from that expansion: Start Player (so that players go in a clockwise order every turn, not the “snake” order where the first player also goes eighth in a four-player game), Would You Like Some More? (simply, more cards), and Unique Hotels, so that each player has their own asymmetric player power.
That means the game can wrap in about 90 minutes. The module with the dancers, Vienna Ballrooms, is fantastic, but it usually means adding 30-60 minutes of playtime. On Dream Dice Day, I’m focused!!
I’m finishing the day with the Dream Dice Day Daddy of ‘Em All: Kingsburg, ideally the first edition board with the expansion To Forge a Realm, specifically Module 5. That’s the module which replaces the die roll during the eighth phase of each round with the reinforcement tokens. These tokens give players a chance to plan around the potential baddie (zombies, goblins, etc.) lurking at the end of the round. Once players have seen Module 5 even once, they never go back to playing the game the old-fashioned way.
If forced, I will play Kingsburg at four players…but, we all know that the best way to play Kingsburg is with five players. In that way, Dream Dice Day has to have a fifth player show up only for the nightcap, but I’m sure I could find someone willing and able to stop by to fill that final seat. That’s because you want Kingsburg to be as tight as possible, and five players is solid gold. Scores are always close, and one wrong move (or one destroyed building) is usually the difference between winning and losing.
The dice placement in Kingsburg is brilliant. It’s full of drama. Cursing at the table is a guarantee, especially when two or three players have not rolled well during a season and are all fighting for scraps at the bottom of the pyramid. The +2 tokens are huge, almost as huge as the Market power that lets a player manipulate a die value +/-1 to snipe a space that you thought you had control of.
Kingsburg is a rich way to wrap things up, but I’d love to hear the lineup you would table instead! Maybe I’ll use your advice to plan my next Dream Dice Day…
“Cat Saga is a cooperative, story-driven adventure game. Explore the world together and make decisions that impact your unique saga.”
In this Designer Diary, I will take you on the journey of creating Cat Saga. We have worked on this game for over four years and are very proud of the result. Hopefully, the design lessons will help other aspiring designers bring their games to life.
How the Game Works Before we dive into the journey of creating Cat Saga, let’s briefly talk about how the game plays. As a team, you will make decisions that impact the story, engage in combat, and use your abilities to overcome danger. You will create a wonderful saga together attempt epic actions, get into fights, find valuable items, and level up.
There are no turns; players simply move through the story together, with different paths leading to different endings. To overcome obstacles, players must complete a Try or Fight, using dice, abilities, and items to achieve a good result.
The Vision (4 Years Ago) I have always wanted to create a story-driven game. As a young kid, my dream was to become a writer first and a game designer second. It felt great to combine the two crafts. The idea started when I realized I couldn’t find a good story-driven game or RPG that my wife and son would enjoy.
We began working on different concepts for a game that mixed TTRPG and board game mechanics. Quickly, we struck a balance of complexity that we enjoyed and started the in-depth development. A key goal was to make a game that would also play well solo and allow the “forever DM” to experience a campaign as one of the players. So there is no DM in this game, but we still wanted an exciting story with different paths to explore.
From the start, I wanted a game that plays quickly (under one hour) and carries your progress over to the next chapter. We began by designing something as rules-light as possible while still capturing the feeling of a fantasy adventure game.
It really helps to define your vision and target audience up front. For example, it made sense to keep combat simple and limited, given the targets I had set and the family-friendly nature I wanted to achieve. There are plenty of games with a heavy focus on combat; there was no need for this game to try to be everything for everyone.
Setting We decided to make a family friendly light-hearted game. And we wanted a twist on the classic fantasy tropes. As a family we were discussing at the time to bring a cat into our home. That is when the theme was decided. Cats are cute and loved by many. This was before we called games "cozy" but looking back, this was a decision to make the game look the way it plays: simple, accesible and friendly.
Early Prototyping It was clear that this was going to be a very accessible game, so we decided to only use paper, pencils, and dice. Since dice are the randomizer, it was important to decide how they would be used. In one early prototype, we used classic RPG dice: 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, etc. But to differentiate from well-known games and keep the system accessible, we decided to use only the familiar d6.
Adding the numbers on the dice to reach a certain threshold felt familiar, but it did not offer enough options to mitigate the dice. After some testing, we landed on a system where each number is represented by a trait. This means that rolling a 6 is not always good, it might be great for a Strength Try, but useless for another type of challenge.
For players, this allowed us to add options like flipping a die, adding or subtracting one, and, of course, re-rolling. Testing showed that re-rolling abilities were far more fun. They added a push-your-luck element to the game. Will you use that potion now, or save it for later? When you don’t know the exact outcome, the decision becomes much more interesting.
Development & Artwork (2 Years Ago) The game was in a good state, and we decided to commit to creating artwork. In the meantime, we focused on intensive online testing. Shortly after the art was completed, Lucky joined our family as a cute little kitten.
"When we took these photos two years ago, the game was 90% finished. We have now finished the other 90%, and after the campaign we will complete the final 90%."
Looking back, I remember thinking the game was almost done and that it was time to create the artwork and start more blind testing. But during that phase, an enormous amount of work was still ahead of us. And I know that even after the Kickstarter campaign there will still be plenty left to do.
At this stage we hired an editor. I am not a native English speaker and wrote most of the stories myself, so it was important to have them reviewed and improved. The artwork also grew beyond our initial scope, and we eventually hired several artists to create all the pieces for the game. And we moved into heavy blind-testing. Besides regular playtesting sessions where people played at the same time, we also did a lot of “play-by-post.” We used RoleGate and attracted many blind playtesters from the RPG side of the hobby. Since there are no turns in the game, it flows very well online players don’t all need to be active at the same time.
Now (2026) Lucky is more than two years old and no longer a small kitten. As much as she matured, so did the game. And now it is finally time to share it with the world!
Lessons - Create something YOU are missing in the market. A game you would love to play. Ultimately a lot of hours will go into a design, make sure you will enjoy it. - Start with a clear vision for your game. Whenever you are unsure on which decision to make, going back to the vision and target audience will help you decide. Stating this up front is not a marketing method, it makes sure you end up with a game that hits the targets you set out to achieve. - Tap into other communities. RoleGate was a great way of testing for this game. Perhaps the gameplay or theme can help you find new groups of playtesters. - Games are never finished, but at one point they are printed. Yes be a perfectionist, but also work towards completing a project.
Cities (2024, Devir) was a very late cut from my list of the top 10 games of 2024. I loved Cities, but competition was fierce that year. Cities was my second-favorite “long filler” of 2024, just after Tower Up, another city builder, and a game that was such an elegant and easy teach for gamers of all shades. (This is another reason why I think 2024 will eventually go down as one of the best years in tabletop…it was such a deep year for new releases.)
Had Cities hit the market in 2025, it would have been one of the top three or four games I played. But, that’s the difference, isn’t it? With thousands of games hitting every year, it’s a crapshoot trying to figure out the best time for a game to hit the market.
A box showed up on my doorstep recently…and when I opened it up, I was overjoyed to see that one of my most anticipated games of 2026 was inside. Cities USA is a standalone expansion to the Cities system, with 90% of the rules from the base game and a host of new city boards modeling major US city tourist destinations.
As a man who is pre-sold on the Cities system, I’ll save you some time: Cities USA is…
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