by Steph Hodge

A heavy hitter today with these new releases

[imageid=6268503 medium rep]▪️ Coming this May we can expect to see The Queen's Dilemma released by Horrible Guild. Many of you have played or heard of The King's Dilemma, which was the first legacy game set in the Kingdom of Ankist. The Queen's Dilemma is a follow-up sequel set hundreds of years later. It will use an improved card system and tell a whole new story through a legacy campaign.

From the newsletter:


▪️ The Last Spell: The Board Game is a new release based on the Ishtar Games' video game published in English by Ares Games. This game was successfully funded back in 2023 on Kickstarter from Tabula Games and has been fulfilled to backers and is now available for sale.

This is a cooperative tower defense campaign game, but you can play one-off missions as well.

From BGG:



▪️ Mayfair Games joined forces with Alion – by Dr Ø to exlusively release Recall in the United States. Today is the scheduled retail release date, so you should be able to acquire it! This was a very popular title at BGG.CON Fall 2025 after its Spiel release.

Recall is brought to you by the designers of Revive (Helge Meissner, Kristian Amundsen Østby, Kjetil Svendsen, Anna Wermlund). The games have similar mechanics in a few ways, but the overall gameplay and feeling is completely different. For those who love crunchy Euros, you are in luck for this US release.

From BGG:

There was a moment late in my first game of the medium-weight strategy game Orloj: The Prague Astronomical Clock where I pretty much landed on my final thoughts about the game.

I had just taken a turn that felt pretty dope. That turn began when I took the Construction action, and spent four resources to construct the second-to-last piece of the month dial on the big clock at the center of the board. That netted me eight points, for the gold, two wood, and paint I had spent to build it. Then I placed one of my workers on the clock, and thanks to adjacency rules, scored four more points. Then I got a bonus based on the position of that completed space on an outer wheel that surrounds the clock, a track that lists bonuses on what is known as the Painter track.

That bonus gave me a free apostle. These apostle tiles are earned and placed in one of two storage slots on each player’s personal board. As a free action, I took that new apostle and placed it in a column on my personal, 12-space apostle board. It was the third apostle in one of the columns, which earned me another bonus: an Assistant tile, which went into the newly vacated storage space where that apostle…

The post Orloj: The Prague Astronomical Clock Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

I love it when game designers give us a unique take on mechanics that have been around for a long time. Fight 5 gave us a new spin on the card game war, Samurai Spirit channeled its inner blackjack, and quite a few games have pulled from the ancient game Mancala, notably Five Tribes. Today, […]

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The American arm of high IQ society Mensa has unveiled the latest crop of board games winning its Mensa Select seal, which are voted on by hundreds of organisation members during an annual four-day gaming marathon.

Alex Cutler and Peter C Hayward both saw two of their creations win the seal this year, including their co-design Critter Kitchen, Hayward’s Things in Rings and Cutler’s A Place for All My Books – which he co-created with Michael Mihealsick.

Things in Rings publisher Allplay also saw its title Twinkle Twinkle, designed by Ammon Anderson, pick up a Select seal, while other winners this year included Matthew O’Malley and Ben Rosset’s Fromage, Yoann Levet’s Got Five and Tomáš Holek design Galileo Galilei.

Entries to the annual Mensa Mind Games are judged on aesthetics, instructions, originality, play appeal and play value, Mensa says, with the award aiming to highlight games that are original in concept, challenging and well-designed.

Not all games released during the past year are eligible for the award, however – entries carry a fee of several hundred dollars each, and games up for consideration need to have an average play time of 90 minutes or less.

Barnes & Noble and other major retailers have previously given special consideration to games bearing the Mensa Select seal, while winning games are also featured by American Mensa’s official online retailers and on its website.

Fromage is the most decorated of this year’s seal winners, having previously won the Origins Award for best light strategy game, as well as picking up nominations for medium game of the year, most innovative game and best artwork in the 2024 Golden Geek Awards.

Things in Rings was previously nominated in both the Golden Geeks and Origins Awards in the best party game category.

Last year’s Mensa Select seal winners included Agueda: City of Umbrellas, Diatoms, Hutan, In the Footsteps of Marie Curie and Farms Race: Deluxe Edition.

This year’s Mensa Select seal winners in full:

• A Place for All My Books – designed by Alex Cutler and Michael Mihealsick (published by Smirk & Dagger Games)
• Critter Kitchen – Alex Cutler and Peter C Hayward (Cardboard Alchemy)
• Fromage – Matthew O’Malley and Ben Rosset (R2i Games)
• Galileo Galilei – Tomáš Holek (Capstone Games)
• Got Five – Yoann Levet (Blue Orange Games)
• Things in Rings – Peter C Hayward (Allplay)
• Twinkle Twinkle – Ammon Anderson (Allplay)

The post High-IQ society Mensa reveals its top board games after annual four-day judging marathon first appeared on .

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.

#74: Open Borders from 2040: An American Insurgency from Compass Games

2040: An American Insurgency is a card driven game that attempts to simulate a near future US civil war in the 21^st century. In this 2-player game that plays in less than 3 hours, the blue team is the Federals representing agents of the government in Washington. The red team are the Rebels including militia groups trying to seize control of states, highways, and cities. The conflict spreads across the entire continental US, from Miami to Seattle and from Los Angeles to New York.

This game is not perfect and it has some issues and the graphics are not that great frankly. As I played the game, I actually felt like it was a pretty decent game, with some very interesting mechanics covering an interesting topic. I know it isn’t perfect and in some ways the designer was so careful not to offend anyone in the game that he really didn’t get to say anything about the situation and its causes, and the game somewhat suffers from that. But it was interesting and I believe that we are about the only ones who played the game.

In this post, I will be taking a look at a Neutral Card called Open Borders. Remember, that each event is either friendly, enemy, or neutral. Friendly events help you; enemy events help your enemy while Neutral events can help either player. Gray cards such as Open Borders have no identifying side’s markings in the bottom right corner and when you play a Neutral Card, you may choose to do the Ops or the Event. Open Borders is a very good Neutral Card because it is a 3 Ops card and can be used to take various standard operations, such as raising
troops, fundraising and attacking. The card also is identified as a Momentum Card, which means that if played as the event, the effect will persist until a time specified in the text of the Event or, if none, until the end of the game. With Open Borders, the spaces of Mexico and Canada become playable areas on the board. These areas typically become a way for the Rebels to build and develop bases from which they recruit fresh insurgent units and then cross over the Open Borders to attack those States that border these areas eroding their Order and creating chaos and Revolt. The Open Borders Card allows this but also allows the Federal player to respond by crossing over the border and attempting to squash these recruiting centers.

The other effects of the Event provides both sides with a bonus when they take certain actions such as Tax for the Federals and Recruit for the Rebels. When the card has been played and is in effect, the Federal Tax Action will provide an additional $4 worth of income from the action. This is an effect of open borders and the unrestricted use of free trade and cross border commerce creating new jobs, providing additional sources of income and employing workers who ultimately pay income taxes on those improved wages. The Rebel Recruit Action will gain an additional Militia unit per space where taken. This reflects the stoking of anger at home as illegals and other bad actors are able to pour across the borders unfettered. I very much like this card for its game effect but also for the questions and concerns that it raises in this debate. Such an interesting economic spin on this issue through the game and I think is a very well done part of the design.

The concept of open borders highlights a fundamental tension between national security, economic openness, and civil liberties. Post-9/11, critics argue that porous or “open” borders allow terrorists to exploit security gaps, while proponents of open borders emphasize that excessive restrictions hurt economic freedom and that security should be managed through intelligence rather than isolation. The biggest concern regarding open borders is that unvetted, irregular migration through porous borders can be exploited by extremists to enter countries and perform acts of terrorism, sedition or general mayhem. To manage the tension between security and economic openness, many nations have turned to the concept of biometric borders. This involves using risk profiling and digital identity such as fingerprints and facial recognition to separate “civilized” business travelers from “illegitimate” and bad actors. This use of these high tech instruments in surveillance, data tracking and technology to distinguish between legitimate travel and potential threats has raised more concerns with civil liberty and privacy. This debate often pits “secure borders” against “open doors,” with officials grappling with protecting citizens without sacrificing the democratic principles of open societies. In one of the most famous quotes from history about privacy, Benjamin Franklin stated “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety“. Where do you land on this issue of Open Borders?

Here is a link to our unboxing video showing the components:

Here also is a link to our full video review:

I also posted an interview with the designer Edward Castronova on the blog and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2023/04/04/interview-with-edward-castronova-designer-of-2040-an-american-insurgency-from-compass-games-currently-on-kickstarter/

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at The Second Funnel from The Hunt from Salt & Pepper Games.

-Grant

BGI 416 The One About 3 Degrees from Kevin Bacon in Board Games 

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Intro Music: Happy Rock – Bensound.com

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Also, explore the use of dice in Native American gaming

Continue reading on Board Game Beat LLC | W. Eric Martin

18-19 Apr 2026 was the Malaysia Boardgame Show. It was held at Jaya One shopping mall in PJ. In the past few years there has been several different boardgame-specific events in Malaysia, like Asian Board Game Festival (in Penang), Boxcon, All Aboard, Dice & Dine, Anigames. Not all are recurring. MBS is organised by Jon, who is currently the most active game designer in Malaysia. He has