The summer heat is intense, but it’s not as hot as Gen Con 2026. Soon gamers from all over the world will descend on Indianapolis for North America’s largest board game convention. Just like in past years, hundreds of new board games will make their debut – over 600 this year, an overwhelming number. But never fear, the Meeple Mountain team is here to help you find the gems among the coal. Our staff have scoured through the upcoming titles to select our most anticipated games of Gen Con 2026! So without further ado, here are our picks!
As someone who graduated from high school in 1989 I am, as the marketing literature says, “the target audience” for this upcoming release from Paverson Games. Class of ‘89 is set back in time when hair was…
After years spent engaging with publishers and designers – both at Capstone Games and through his Board Again Gaming podcast – Christopher High believes the several thousand new board games and expansions released each year are pushing publishers towards commercially safer bets. Now he’s wagering his company Valor Mountain Games can succeed by taking chances on the kinds of titles other publishers are passing over.
High, who spent the past two years as a product manager at Ark Nova and Gaia Project publisher Capstone, co-created Valor Mountain in 2023 alongside Tim Densham as an offshoot of the latter’s historical games-focused publisher Catastrophe Games.
He became sole owner of Valor Mountain in May after buying out Densham’s share of the business – and now plans to expand the company from creating small side projects into a business targeting five or six traditional print-run releases a year.
High told BoardGameWire he is “putting his own money on the line” betting on a strategy built around taking chances on games other companies might reject – saying he believes the hobby industry has become increasingly focused on commercially safe decisions, leaving opportunities to back more unusual designs and under-represented creators.
Christopher High and Tim Densham from Catastrophe Games
He said, “Generally publishers make safe decisions. And that’s their job. As far as breaking the mold, I rarely see a game anymore that truly ‘wows’ me in this sense.
“It happens, it just seems like our industry defaults a lot to what they think will sell a game rather than being willing to take a risk”, adding that he highly rates the kinds of designs currently being put out by publishers such as DVC, Hollandspiele and CMYK.
He added, “There are tons of games that get passed over in traditional publishing because they aren’t safe bets. I want to be a smart business person, but I also want to take some risks on designs and designers that are doing interesting things.
“There are literally thousands of products that come out each year which are just iterations of previous designers, maybe smashed together in a new way. It would be fantastic to give some games a chance at a larger audience which would be too risky for other publishers.
“I also want to give voice to more artists and designers who may be from overlooked or under-represented communities. As to genres, I would love to see a truly branching narrative euro game that isn’t afraid to let you push the limits of what’s acceptable in that genre.”
Asked whether his comments about ignoring what other publishers are doing reflected increasing “trend chasing” within hobby games, he replied “Yes”, adding “I have to do my own [thing].
“….What I do need is community and art. I want these things and my values to drive what we do as a company, not the market. The market is and will always be fickle.”
High’s previous employer Capstone partnered with Pink Troubadour while he was with the US company, to bring SETI creator Tomáš Holek’s design Galileo Galilei to North America.
High told BoardGameWire, “I had a good working relationship with the Pink Troubadour team when I worked for Capstone. However, I reached out after I was done working at Capstone to see if there were new ways I could work with them.
“I am planning on taking steps to foster our relationship as I see their trust as essential, since in some ways we are a new company to the market.”
High added, “It’s exciting, and it came about because I reached out to them since I saw that these games were not available in the North American English market. They are a wonderful team to work with, and it is my hope to do more games in the future with them as our capacity increases.”
High seems especially enthusiastic about bringing family-weight competitive movement puzzle game Pilgrims: Curious Adventures to North America, saying, “I played the video game it is based on and it is super quirky. The board game, like the video game, is very straightforward.
“If I had to describe it in one word: chill. I think it is that perfect type of game for those who want to explore board games without diving in too deep, it feels like you are doing something without being overwhelmed.
“It’s one of those bridge games between gamers and non-gamers and has delightful artwork from Amanita Design.”
Valor Mountain has also dipped its toes into crowdfunding again, following campaigns for a trio of small-box titles in 2023 and roll and write game Birdsong in August last year – all of which raised between about $1,300 and $3,000.
He said, “Trick-taking games are probably past the zenith of recent popularity, plus this game has a super obscure scoring system. It’s by an unknown designer, but it is really clever.
“I love it. Will anyone else? Maybe? I think it’s going to be a divisive game though.”
He added, “I hope to eventually move away from crowdfunding. There are lots of reasons I don’t like it. However, with all of the capital outlay I have right now, I need just a little more to ensure I can do everything I want to do this fall.
“My project goal on there is a true goal, it helps ensure the proper operational flow of putting these games out.”
High also credited years of conversations with designers and publishers through the Board Again Gaming podcast with shaping his approach to publishing, and helping “keep my curiosity alive”.
He said, “I love talking to and hearing from designers. It reminds me how little I know and how much there is to learn.
“The world is a big place and people have so much creativity. I want to help bring more of that to a wider audience.”
For High, that curiosity may ultimately be Valor Mountain’s defining characteristic. Whether betting on unusual designs proves commercially successful remains, by his own admission, an open question.
Asked whether a publisher can succeed by deliberately pursuing games larger companies pass over, High said: “I don’t know. I guess I will find out as I put my own money on the line.”
A full day has now passed since we launched 3 new products (plus 2 accessories) on the Stonemaier Games webstore, so I thought I’d share a few observations about the launch and sales data collected for each product.
All of these products are currently in stock at our 4 fulfillment centers, and shipping is underway. The launch discounts will last through July 19.
Wingspan Pocket (details): Create and activate a single row of cards on every turn in this swifter, smaller, and streamlined version of Wingspan. The cards are all double sided: a food side and a bird side. Bird powers are primarily indicated by icons instead of text, and they include a new type of power, ongoing (green) benefits.
Duel of Meloch (details): Clash head-to-head on a tight map in a race to victory in this standalone game of Scythe vs Expeditions (it is also an expansion for those games, and the content in those games is duel-compatible). The duel takes place in a tight space on a new double-sided map—only 10 locations and 2 lakes—in a race to 4 stars on a new double-sided Triumph Track, so every turn is crucial.
Origin Story: Heroes & Villains (details): Triple the number of heroes (and villains) to become in Origin Story! Just shuffle these 21 new superhero–and supervillain–cards into the original deck to vastly increase replayability.
Data
The following 24-hour sales data spans our 4 consumer webstores and our 1 direct-to-retailer webstore:
Wingspan Pocket: 11,046 units sold
Duel of Meloch: 4,479 units sold
Origin Story: Heroes & Villains: 2,359 units sold
We have also sold 2,007 metal mech packs and 2,533 airship add-ons for Duel of Meloch.
Observations
Wingspan Pocket: I anticipated that we would hear from a few people who struggled with the behavioral psychology of paying $10 shipping for a $20 product (or $18, as is the launch price for Wingspan Pocket). I totally understand, and that’s why I largely view Wingspan Pocket as a game for local retailers (mid-August release).
It’s for this psychological barrier that we often launch lower-price products along with other products–with our flat-rate shipping, it’s still $10 even if the order is more robust. In truth, the shipping fee we pay for Wingspan Pocket (postage, packaging, and labor) is $14, so we’re already subsidizing this on behalf of customers.
Despite all that, I’m happy to see how many people have embraced Wingspan Pocket on launch day, whether they’re buying a single copy or several copies (I think it makes a great gift).
Duel of Meloch: I’m a little surprised sales aren’t stronger so far. There are over 600,000 copies of Scythe in circulation worldwide, and for years Scythe fans have asked me to make another expansion. Maybe it will just take a little time for people to see how much this adds to Scythe (and to Expeditions, and as a standalone dueling game).
Origin Story: Heroes & Villains: I wasn’t sure what to expect from this expansion’s initial sales, but so far I’m excited that so many people are giving this mini-expansion a chance. We really wanted to have Origin Story itself back in stock in the US in time for this launch, but worldwide freight shipping is currently quite tumultuous. Many of the restocks we were hoping to have for this launch aren’t arriving until mid-August or early September.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts, questions, and analysis of this launch. What would you like us to learn from it, and what might other creators learn from it?
As a longtime manager and commissioner of fantasy football leagues for American football, I approach the process of drafting and curating a team throughout the season much like a chef might approach a new recipe. From the jump, I feel like I know the flavors of each ingredient, but I never know exactly how it'll turn out until all the pieces are working together at the end. Sometimes it pans out and you have a delightful scone in your hands, and other times you're left with a gelatinous mess. I was curious to see if Huddle: The Fantasy Football Game could replicate that feeling of accomplishment.
Huddle: The Fantasy Football Game: Take a Chance on Me
Just like traditional fantasy football, Huddle includes a preseason draft, a season of head-to-head matchups, and then a championship game between the two best teams to determine the ultimate winner. Matchups are quick enough that the other Managers aren't left out if they aren't in the title game, otherwise they can play consolation games to determine places 3-6 for a full table.
During the Draft, Managers get 20 poker chips to bid on players in one-minute rounds. Players are represented through decks of cards, one each for Quarterback (QB), Wide Receiver (WR), Running Back (RB), Tight End (TE), Kicker (K), and Defense/Special Teams…
Chapter two of Arkham Horror: The Card Game (AH: LCG) is currently in its early stages. With a new core set released and the next campaigns on the horizon, Fantasy Flight Games is ahead of the curve with a new batch of starter investigators. These five pre-built, ready-to-play decks are ideal for those seeking to […]
With the Hammer is an asymmetric wargame covering the German Peasants War in Thuringia in 1525 along with the exploits of one of its most famous protagonists – Thomas Müntzer. With the Hammer comes with wooden pieces, counters, 2 rulebooks, and historical commentary by Professor Andrew Drummond, and a 22×17 inch map.
Each player is a peasant or a noble; the peasants win as a team, or the nobles win as a team. There is no true solitaire system, but like most wargames, it can be soloed two-handed.
The latest in my Play Something Old series is one of my favourite games – Citadels. Citadels paved the way for a slew of games that take its core concepts and build on them It’s a game of set collection, hidden roles, drafting, bluffing and a delicious amount of take-that. I think that everyone should have a copy of Citadels in their collection, so let me justify that.
Last Lantern Designers: Jeremy Ducret, Gricha Cerman, Anthony Perone Publisher: Wonderful World Board Games Players: 2-4 Age: 8+ Time: 30 minutes Played with review copy provided by publisher Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4nP8h9F Last Lantern is a 2 to … Continue reading →
Dirty Work is a party game from Thailand. This is a simultaneous action selection game, and it is very much about guessing your opponents’ intentions. You are all miners mining gold, contributing to a stash of gold, one nugget at a time. Sooner or later someone will be tempted to steal from the stash. However such thieves can be caught by miners who decide to play guard. So these are the
In my quest to find activities that will hold the interest of children with a five-year age gap, I routinely find myself playing board games that normally wouldn’t register more than a fraction of my attention. Blorp!, for example.
What is Blorp!, you ask? Apart from being a noise my offspring produce when they don’t want to empty the dishwasher or hang up their towels, a blorp is apparently the answer to what Dr. Seuss would animate for a David Cronenberg flick. These are queasy creatures in three colors that communicate by, uh, farting confetti at one another. Garth Kaufmann, who both designed and did the illustrating, sure has a knack for tongues, eyeballs, and tendrils, I’ll tell you that much.
Blorps are, um, they’re, like, these blobs that, um, they live in a briny solution and, uh
Blorp! is a tile-laying game. In the vein of many tile-laying games, it traces its DNA back at least to Carcassonne, with its mutable borders, emphasis on joining like-minded edges, and the need to complete one of the titular creatures in order to score it.
But the similarities end there, the byproduct of considerable mutation in the intervening generations. Perhaps foremost, Blorp! assigns each player their own arrangement of confetti-stuffed monsters. There’s no sharing blorps. Not that you’d want to.
Speaking broadly, your objective is to make very large blorps. One of each color, in fact. Completed blorps score a point per tile, but your largest blorps double that value. Which still doesn’t ensure that high of a tally, but keeps the kiddies in the running. Special tiles, such as floating spores, earn points when hemmed in on all sides, while trumpets and confetti…
Okay. Look. Trumpets and confetti might require some explanation.
Making a big blorp isn’t as easy as it sounds. Often, the only tiles available on the table will be better-suited to pinching off a blorp than pushing out an even bigger one. So you tie the knot, but where does that leave you? With a nuggety, low-scoring blorp, that’s where.
Blorps communicate via confetti trumpets.
Enter trumpets. By sticking these things into your blorps’, ahem, orifices, and then directing them to toodle in one another’s direction, you can expand its size even across the buoyant saline that is their substrate. In the image above, there are two red blorps that have merged into one through apocalyptic toodling, with a third that might join the bacchanal if only it gets finished in time.
That isn’t all of it. Some tiles show puffs of confetti. Trumpets can re-route through these, making it possible for blorps to congeal despite the absence of a straight vector between them. It’s even possible to use trumpets to trace blorp adjacency — blorpjacency, a term I just invented — through other-colored blorps. I haven’t actually made this work, but it’s there for real blorp-maxxers.
Probably it sounds like I despise Blorp!, but that isn’t the case. It’s a fine game. Clever, even, at times, with the trumpets that blast into each other’s mouths and make weird adjacencies a genuine possibility. My kids find it amusing. We’re required by blorp law to comment upon each grotesque feature. Sometimes my seven-year-old will decline to take a beneficial tile because it scares her. I get it, kid. Rather than focusing on her score, she tries to gather as many of the green blorp appendages, the ones that seem to be sharting ball-pit balls into the aether. She thinks that’s a hoot.
And it is a hoot, if more for the sheer improbability of its illustrative style than because the tile laying is particularly interesting. And it isn’t as though the game is so competitive that pursuing a sideline in ball collecting presents that much of a ding to anybody’s score. Which makes the game a good enough choice for the kiddos.
Until the novelty of those blorps wears thin, anyway.
I don’t have one for this.
I can feel it coming. That moment of escape. The first couple of times, the girls were eager to see what other misshapen lumps they might schlorp together. After only those two plays, they’re more hesitant. I hope the end is in sight. Despite liking Blorp! well enough, there are better games out there, even if they’re slightly more competitive or tricky. Even if they don’t feature monsters with misplaced holes. Especially then.
A complimentary copy of Blorp! was provided by the publisher.
(If what I’m doing at Space-Biff! is valuable to you in some way, please consider dropping by my Patreon campaign or Ko-fi. Right now, supporters can read the next installment in my series Talking About Games, this time tackling the topic of what makes a good list! Naturally, the piece includes a list.)
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