by Kitsune Games

Hi everyone! How’s it going? Nico here, co-creator of Guanteo along with Flor.

The starting point for Guanteo was: “I want a board where the cards fight each other.” Initially, they were going to be Yokais with superpowers, but as much as I love them, Japanese narratives are quite common. Since I train boxing, at some point, the planets just aligned in my head. (I’m not ruling out future games with Japanese narratives, though!)

The boxing theme allowed us to unify everything we had in mind: a board made of cards (our ring) and the presence of players on that ring, each with a deck of their own color. We had a ring and we were standing on equal ground, with 8 cards each—just like the minutes before a fight begins.

The Cognitive Challenge: Thinking Under Pressure
Just like when you're in the ring, where "thinking" is hard because everything happens fast, in real-time, and you have to be able to respond. That’s how the idea of face-down cards came about—both yours and your opponent's. If you don’t remember them, if you’re not fully engaged in the match, your mistakes will most likely have consequences.

In the first prototypes, the activation mechanic was "Oxygen." The game asked you to discard an amount of oxygen from your hand equal to what the board card required to execute a punch—like saying, "you need air to keep fighting." Later, we changed this to Power, as it was more intuitive iconographically and rationally. Thinking about oxygen makes sense, but it’s less adaptable to a game than thinking, "I'm hitting you with power." So, the activation cost shifted to Power while keeping the same logic.

The Dance of Boxing and the Science of Memory
There was some back-and-forth in early playtesting to make it work. As we balanced the idea, extra elements emerged, like moving your own cards or your rival's. While this costs a turn (and consequently some board control), it allows for different positioning. The "dance of boxing" appeared with these movements; it wasn’t just about punching anymore—it was about moving and distributing ourselves differently across the space.

Memory is a key point: to win, you must dominate 12 of the 16 ring cards with your own cards. This means you’ll have at least 10 cards on the board before the final blow. In terms of memory, that’s a lot.

Without boring you with technicalities, Working Memory has a limited retention capacity. For many years, it was set at the "Magic Number" of 7 ± 2 chunks of information. However, more recent studies indicate this was overestimated and the real number is closer to 4 ± 1. This is why the probable number of cards to remember in the game ranges between 5 and 9; you will always be forgetting one, and it’s up to your strategy to plan around that lack of information.

Rewards vs. Frustration
After several tests—and I must confess many losses to Flor—it became necessary to incorporate a way to recover information. We didn't want an extremely frustrating experience; we wanted something that required focus but remained achievable. This is how Rewards were born. By successfully hitting your opponent, you not only eliminate their card and take that space, but the game rewards you by letting you check a number of your face-down cards again. This gives the Working Memory the "nudge" it needs to retain the info. We also added card drawing to rewards; the one who hits takes the advantage—just like in boxing.

What Happens When Memory Fails?
When we accidentally execute a hit against ourselves, our own card is eliminated, and we hand that board space to the opponent, losing out on rewards. This is the penalty for not remembering our cards. Because of this, this isn't a game to play at a crowded event while chatting; it requires focus, memory, and strategic planning.

Aesthetics and the K.O. Octopus
The game's aesthetic is simple; we focused on card values so players don't have to spend too many cognitive resources understanding them. To activate a card, you discard the same value from your hand—which is the most eye-catching part—and we used real boxing punch names to go with it.

The K.O. card features an octopus. Why an octopus? I don't know, really; I just imagined that an angry octopus with boxing gloves would be quite a hostile sight. A kangaroo just didn't have that charm—it's been done before.

We tried to take care of every detail, both in the cards and the box. We know perfection is impossible—my apologies for that—but please know we truly tried. In this regard, Lu from Macuco.art gave us a hand, as always, and her eye as an artist and designer helped everything look a bit better—thanks, Lu!

The Journey
This is our first game. Every step we took had its bumps, and we navigated them while learning. As I write this, we are about to publish our second one, and the progress is noticeable. We don’t necessarily know much more than before, but we’ve stopped making the same mistakes.
Since this is our first, I have to say that, personally, it has been a beautiful journey. Being able to think, have things not work, rethink, test, play, break everything with new ideas, and then break it all again—it's incredibly fun. I insist on this a lot—you might read it elsewhere too—but in this digital age, where everything is immediate and being bored means scrolling through short videos on a platform, allowing ourselves to get bored and get creative is the best medicine.

Not to mention the satisfaction of bringing a game we invented and worked so hard on to a community that gives us great feedback and appreciates it. It is heartening to find people on the other side who enjoy sitting at a table, sharing a moment, and hitting "pause" on the noise we live in.

These are just some personal reflections. My outlook on everything I do is the same: to share, to play, to bring people closer, to become better friends, and, above all, to generate a positive impact on others. I found this in the world of board games; I am quite new to it and have a lot to learn, but it is definitely a world I want to stay in.

Anyway, if you want to know more about Guanteo, you can visit our website, check out the manual there, and find it in shops across Argentina (hopefully the world some day!).

Flor and I hope you liked it and enjoy it. We wish you many great matches and, above all, keep playing—it makes us better.

Thanks for reading! We really appreciate your time and would love to hear your thoughts

Official Website: guanteo.kitsunegames.ar English rulebook available HERE.

by Steph Hodge

Speaking of shiny new editions...

▪️ Rose Gauntlet Entertainment just released a new edition of Keystone: North America – Second Edition along side with a new expansion called Keystone: North America – Coastal Expansion. From designers Jeffrey Joyce and Isaac Vega (Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game, Forgotten Waters, Ashes Reborn: Rise of the Phoenixborn).

Keystone: North America came out in 2022 and hit well for a lot of gamers, especially the solo crowd. A lot of thought went into this second edition, and there is a great interview found here. I wanted to highlight a key difference about this new edition.

The biggest difference is that the game is only 1-2 players; however, there is an expansion pack that will extend the game to 4 players called Keystone: North America – Second Edition: 4-Player Upgrade Pack. From the interview I linked above, there is a quote from Vega:



From the BGG page:


▪️ As mentioned above, there is also a new expansion that was released with the base game called Keystone: North America – Coastal Expansion. You can also buy the extension for 4 players called Keystone: North America – Second Edition: Coastal Expansion – 4-Player Upgrade Pack as well. Here is another quote from the interview with Vega:




[imageid=9498900 large rep]

▪️ We expect to see a lot of new games from Rose Gauntlet Entertainment in the next few months of Q2.

Pebbles is a new area control game for 2-4 players and will play in 60 minutes.

Photo credit to [user=kovray][/user]

▪️ Flock! plays 2-5 players and is a Rummy-style card game to collect flocks in about 20 mintues.

Photo credit to [user=kovray][/user]


▪️ Rook Requiem is a new trick-taking game for 3-5 players and will play in 45 minutes.


▪️ Flock! is a new dexterity game for 1-4 players and plays in 30 minutes.

Photo credit to [user=kovray][/user]

by SumainGames

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

by Justin Bell

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!

Pre-Game Appetizers: Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition and En Route

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.

Noon: The Red Cathedral

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.

1:30 PM: Tiletum

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.

3:30 PM: The White Castle

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.

4:45: Grand Austria Hotel

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!!

6:30 PM: Kingsburg

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…

by Martin van Rossum

“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.

by Marcus E Burchers

Welcome to the RISK G.I. JOE: Special Missions design diary! I am Marcus E. Burchers, and I was the developer on Special Missions. Most of the design work was done by Dan Blanchett. When we set out to make a G.I. JOE-themed RISK, we wanted it to be more than just another version of RISK. We wanted it to be something special that introduced something new, while also being uniquely G.I. JOE. Starting with that theme element, it was important to look at the aspects of the IP and make sure they were core to the game. While, yes, COBRA's goal of world domination fits nicely into the mold of a RISK game, the heroic G.I. JOE side required a bit more nuance.

The important areas of the IP to cover were:

1) The heroes. The villains. The big personalities. Roadblock, Scarlett, Zartan, Destro. G.I. JOE and COBRA both have a gallery of recognizable characters at the fore of the battle. Including them in some way was going to be a core mechanic.
2) Vehicles. G.I. JOE was a toy line in the 80s built around the unique (and often ridiculous – see: Pogo Ballistic Battle Ball) vehicles. Any game that did not include them in some way wouldn't be representing the franchise properly.
3) The two factions working against each other over the course of various missions/episodes.

These pieces of the IP gave some good building blocks to differentiate the game from standard RISK. Looking at point two first, early on we knew the minis would be vehicles, and we wanted them to be more than just force multipliers. In the earliest versions of the game this broke down into four types of units on both sides: Infantry, “vehicles,” aircraft, and tanks. For G.I. JOE, this meant the VAMP Mark II, Skystriker, and Wolverine; while for COBRA, we went with the Stinger, Rattler, and H.I.S.S. Tank. Each category of vehicle was unique (though the sides were equal – Rattlers and Skystrikers were the same, for example), with different move and/or abilities in battle, while the overall concept of battles was similar to traditional RISK.

Through the course of testing, having three separate phases of battle and unique combat abilities of each type ended up being complicated and a little hard to remember. For example, the tanks always rolled three dice, even if there was only a single tank present, while aircraft rolled two, also regardless of number. We attempted to slim it down by making the VAMP and Stinger just a bonus to the Infantry, but found that still wasn't sufficient. They got changed to being simple force multipliers (1 VAMP or Stinger was 5 JOE Infantry or COBRA Trooper), before eventually being cut due to the armies on the board rarely requiring force multipliers. This allowed the overall battle structure to be simplified into just Air and Ground attacks, with rolls of 1-3 dice based on your present units, a bit closer to traditional RISK, but retaining bonuses for the aircraft and tanks to keep them feeling special. The tank's special ability to deal additional hits was the last thing to get dialed in.

Equally important to the vehicles was the “why” of this conflict, or rather the win conditions. As I mentioned, a goal of world domination was all well and good for COBRA, but it didn't make sense for G.I. JOE. The earliest concepts introduced objective points as the solution to this problem. This ended up taking the form of Missions (JOE) and Plots (COBRA). These could be many different things from winning battles, to controlling certain territories. Originally, there was the thought it could be a race to a certain number of objective points, but we quickly decided on just “get the most” by the end of the game (which let us set a number of rounds to limit the game length from dragging). More than just running missions or plotting against one another, G.I. JOE has big, grandiose storylines. In addition to small objectives, the Master Plot/Scenario was something we added that can contribute a lot of objective points to your score. It also gave a story-driven reason for the globe-spanning nature of the game. Originally, we started out with Spread of Terror, and added more throughout testing. Each one added during testing created unique experiences and decisions, building in a degree of replayability.

The vehicles and missions (in particular the Master Scenarios) made the game feel very much like G.I. JOE, but I felt that the most important element would be the first: the characters. One bit of feedback I'd heard after working on Battle for the Arctic Circle was, while it was nice that the leaders were present, fans would have liked to see them on the field of battle. I knew that's something I wanted to make sure we did here with RISK, and Dan was on the same page. As much as the original toy line was about the vehicles, the characters were just as important, leading their troops from the frontline against (or for) COBRA. Since we were using tokens instead of minis, we were able to include a wide assortment of them. Most of the heavy hitters: Duke, Scarlett, Cobra Commander, Destro, Cover Girl, etc.

Though abilities did change, for the most part, the format of the leaders stayed the same from start-to-finish. They had a static or triggered ability that you could just use whenever applicable, a bonus to a certain type of unit in battle, and an activated ability using the resource we called Command Tokens. Those first two (the static/triggered ability and the battle bonus) were going to be used the most so they needed to sell the theme of the characters. For example, Destro as a weapons profiteer lets you build and deploy your aircraft and tanks faster. Cobra Commander can retreat outside the normal timing and throw some of his units under the bus in his place. Snake Eyes improves the JOE's Recon action, and so on. The Command Token actions are more impactful (often involving a Sneak Attack) because the Command Tokens were designed as a limited resource. If you're using them on a leader's ability, you aren't using them on something else. They were also tied to each characters' theme, such as Cover Girl allowing you to bring out or move around additional Wolverines.

When the game ended up going to Kickstarter, I had the opportunity to go back and add some additional leaders that we had not originally included in the game, since we were adding a promo pack (Jinx, Shipwreck, Crimson Twins, and Zarana). This ended up bringing the total count of leaders to 16, plus Serpentor (who is only used in two of the Master Scenarios). I'm pretty happy with how they all came out, both in their gameplay and thematically as the characters they represent.

All of these aspects helped sell it as a G.I. JOE game, but we also wanted to bring something unique to RISK. The primary innovation in that regard was called the Redeployment Track (renamed during testing to the Faction Track). Instead of units being defeated and needing to be repurchased, a period of repairing and refueling felt more thematic to G.I. JOE. It also opened up action possibilities, allowing you to devote precious actions (or Command Tokens) on your turn to get things out more quickly. Some details of the Faction Track did change from the earliest versions, such as which spaces units started on, but the original version largely remained intact in the finished product. It is an integral part of the gameplay that needs to be managed, and so far as we were aware was a brand new concept for a RISK game.

Those precious actions were the crux of the gameplay, and while they weren't brand new for RISK (some variants have used action cards before), they felt like a good way to differentiate it from most entries in the series. The need to plan out your turns in advance by placing the cards allows for a bit of strategic planning (or plotting!) that felt very appropriate to the franchise. Having two options and a potential bonus action still left enough flexibility for pivoting when the unexpected happened. The biggest change overall to the action cards in the course of testing was their interaction with Command Tokens. Giving Command Tokens plenty of desirable uses was important. They were used on the action cards' bonus actions more frequently in early iterations before important bonus actions like Recon became free. To give them additional utility (particularly once there were more free bonus actions), we added the ability to spend a Command Token to perform both of your primary actions on the chosen card. This was a popular change in testing as it opened up a lot of potential big plays. Recruiting new units and immediately advancing them (which, if you recruited a new Leader, sets them up to Deploy) was a popular one, but other choices like Maneuver+Reinforce can't be understated either.

The last major unique gameplay feature I'd like to highlight was another one of the early concepts that remained largely intact throughout testing: hidden units. COBRA isn't always open and brazen with its schemes. It is often hiding in the shadows and pulling the strings (as depicted in the Infiltrate World Governments Master plot!). To represent this, COBRA can put some of their units secretly into their territories, hiding them behind their screen. This took a lot of tweaking to get right, but the result led to a distinct difference between the factions, beyond just the verbiage (plots vs. missions). Playing as COBRA feels quite different from playing as G.I. JOE. We had to make a number of different changes to the concept. The biggest one was originally, all of COBRA's units could be hidden. As you can imagine, this became frustrating to play against as G.I. JOE, and was changed to something close to the current set-up where only a certain number of territories can start hidden.

There were also a number of rule issues that had to be ironed out. Hidden units and visible units in the same territory? No. Visible units passing through a hidden territory? Turned out the easiest answer here was it was ok, if they aren't stopping. The one that's stuck with me though was that COBRA's base had to be deployed secretly. This created a lot of rules questions, till we decided that bases couldn't be deployed secretly. Ultimately, this also led to COBRA getting COBRA Island as a territory they could place for their base at the start of the game as a counterpart to the U.S.S. Flagg (which had been around since the earliest iterations of the game).

I think this all adds up to a unique RISK game, but one that is also distinctly G.I. JOE. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it. It is a game that plays well no matter how many friends you have, as we designed it to work with 2-, 3-, or 4-players. Fittingly for the G.I. JOE vs. COBRA theme of the IP, unlike many RISK versions, the 2-player game is where it really shines. Happy gaming!

by Steph Hodge

I have been playing and hearing about a bunch of new editions for games getting reprinted with new artwork. This excites me because I love it when a game gets a boost, as it often means new gamers can discover and play it.

▪️ Floodgate Games just released a remastered version of Sagrada along with plans to release expansions as well.



The first expansion to be released is Sagrada: Panorama, which will include playing with up to 6 players as well as other new content:


I got permission to share this early.


▪️ CrowD Games had a very successful Kickstarter back in May 2025 for the highly anticipated Nippon: Zaibatsu. Nippon designed by Nuno Bizarro Sentieiro and Paulo Soledade, has been on my shelf since it was released, but it is also an example of a game that was very hard to get. Gamers are looking for this type of game revival. A hot, hard-to-find game with gorgeous presentation and streamlined mechanics.


[imageid=8820600 medium rep]
Nuno Bizarro Sentieiro and Paulo Soledade with Nippon: Zaibatsu pre-production copy at LeiriaCon - [user=deerstop][/user]


▪️ Allplay has been releasing a bunch of smaller boxed games each year, and there are always a handful of games being revived with a fresh new look. I am always in awe of all the games they are able to create each year. Here are just a few.

Piñatas by Reiner Knizia has been reimaged a few times before. Originally, it was known as Voodoo Prince , then later as Marshmallow Test. Piñatas has that burst of color that fits right in line with the other Allplay titles. This is part of the Allplay "Tricky Card Game" series, as it is a trick-taking game.

Another Knizia card game of interest might be High Society which has been through many iterations. The game was originally released in 1995 and has been a staple in many collections throughout the years. I am all in favor of bringing back classic auction and bidding games, as they are mechanics I highly enjoy and would always love to see more of. About High Society:


Container is a game that is always looking for more editions because it is so well-loved. This is an all-new edition releasing in Q4. Container first released in 2007 and then later in 2018 as Container: 10th Anniversary Jumbo Edition!. This is a highly sought-after game, so it is great for Allplay to make the game more accessible now.

by Fat Francis

Michael Rieneck
Franz Vohwinkel
Deep Print Games

Editor's Note - Michael Rieneck and Franz Vohwinkel wrote a designers' diary about the development of Skybridge, published on Feb 3rd, 2026. This diary is a compliment to that piece, but from the perspective of developing the artwork.

Artist Diary: Skybridge
There are moments in life when paths open up that you didn’t know existed at first.
15 years ago I surprisingly received an unusual assignment: design three fantasy puzzles, including a box design, for a new jigsaw puzzle series. Unknowingly, I had embarked on a long journey that has not yet come to an end.

September 2010

When I made this sketch for the first of a series of puzzles, I had no idea that I would write about it today. At that time the drakhes were still dragons, there were still visible sunbeams in Thraen (at that time simply called “Downworld”) and apart from the Queen, Adlem and the inhabitants of the “Skyworld”, Thraen, and Beeledhans Eye were still completely unknown to me.

Although I have discovered so much in Thraen since then, those three original illustrations laid the foundation for what Skybridge turned into today.

From my current point of view, the first puzzle was certainly the most important of the three, because it already contains all the essential elements of the story: the dry, hollow world on the outside, the lush and heavenly world inside, and the tower that will become a bridge, connecting both worlds.

The motif of the construction site from the second puzzle can be seen as “standing” or “hanging” depending on how one wants to view it. Here, the idea of weightlessness is displayed for the first time: In the hollow world, gravity pulls outwards (for us “down”), while the gravity of the central world pulls inward towards its center (for us “up”). In the middle between both worlds, the two gravitational forces cancel each other out.

A heavily revised version of the first puzzle became the cover of the prototype and a reduced version of the second puzzle can still be seen on the cards “Bridge”.

Only the third puzzle has fallen out of the storyline over time. Too much has changed, or looks completely different today: A peaceful encounter of characters from both worlds in a central room of the Skybridge is now completely impossible.

The Work on the Board Game Started
One of the first tasks was to completely revise the cover to match the current state of the worlds. The Skybridge now gleams in hopeful white and Beeledhans Eye is much more visible. The whole image seems much lighter, almost like a vision. The publisher contributed some good ideas like the slightly slanted point of view and the drakhe flying towards the viewer in the foreground.

The Five Main Characters
In addition to the cover, I first developed the five main characters, as they are important for the visual representation of the five ethnic groups on the player boards and the starting cards. Some of the maps of Skybridge were originally created in 2017, as well as this version of Queen Urcela, who always triggered the comment “She looks like Tilda Swinton”.

True. I think Tilda Swinton’s face is wonderful.

To avoid this similarity, I made a new illustration of the queen, which was quite challenging for me as I liked the original illustration so much.

In the new illustration Urcela is now seen wearing the Crown of Agony, which in the meantime had become an important detail of the story.

- In a first step, I revised the original sketch and drew a new face.
- Parts of the background and dress from the original illustration were preserved during the revision.
- Underneath the layer with the sketch I colored and modeled the face.
- Then I worked the sketch into the background with various blending brushes and added textures and details layer by layer afterwards. Finally, light color corrections completed the image.

I must admit that I like the new "Guinn" better than the original version.

While the game mechanics were still being developed feverishly, the illustration of the Skybridge was created. The bridge would no longer appear on its own game board, but was to be designed as a series of large individual cardboard tiles, laid out next to the game board.
This original sketch dates back to 2017. At that time, the bridge still consisted of 12 parts.

The player boards were more complex, because the elements on them changed several times in the course of further development. The background illustrations of the player boards had to be adapted accordingly. At this point, the illustrations of the five main characters were already finished.

In addition, I had to make sure that there were not too many contrasting details behind the game elements. The areas behind the text and at the bottom would be faded later on, but in this case, less was more.

The game board was a challenge as well, as it consists of many individual parts that had to be combined to form a whole. While I was already working on the illustration, a completely new area of the game board was created, which would not have existed without Moritz Bornkast and Peter Eggert of Deep Print Games: the desert map, where rebels and legions move towards each other. However, before we got to this point, we had to overcome a whole series of more or less usable versions, none of which fit particularly well into the board.

In order to keep the game producible and affordable while reducing the amount of different “game-locations”, the actual game board was brought to the format of a double-folded board the size of the box. The original game board for the Skybridge was scrapped and the desert map was merged with the game board.

The idea of depicting a part of the desert of the Sea of Winds was the breakthrough. In the story, rebels gather in Salthras Deen and try to make their way to the Skybridge, while the legions protecting the construction site move to meet them. At the same time, a storage area for the game components on the board was reintroduced. One space for a discard pile was removed and the other two were rotated to make room. The illustration of the game board consisted of individual parts that were illustrated and assembled largely independently of each other: the illustrations of the symbols for the game components, the map of Thraen, the desert map and the forts.

(By the way, the small skull that marks the discard pile represents the Realm of the Dead, the “Unseth”. All cards - countries, cities and characters, that end up here never come back. And so Thraen dies a little more each round.)

Most of the work on Skybridge was, of course, the many cards that really bring both worlds to life. The story of the Skybridge takes place in a fantastic world, completely impossible by our laws of nature. How can gravity in Thraen act outwards in all directions, while at the same time acting inward on Beeledhans Eye? Why is every day seemingly arbitrarily different in length? Where does the light come from? It’s magic! Of course, this is not entirely true: The people in Thraen believe godhs have created the world according to their wishes.

There is no magic in Thraen. There are no spellcasting wizards, just as there are no magic swords or heroes. Even the Drakhes are not magical beings, but animals that are captured by humans, tamed and used for their purposes.

The inhabitants of Thraen are simply humans, with all their faults and shortcomings. What would humanity do, if it could see paradise in the sky at any time? What if, in addition, life became more difficult to bear with each passing day?

Unfortunately, it was not possible to keep the short text passages from our prototype cards. The additional effort for production and translation would have been too high.

In order to be able to convey the worlds of Skybridge as originally designed in the prototype, I wanted to create the cards with a range of different realistic styles. It was important to me to show as many details as possible to make the peoples and their stories seem believable.

A little trick that provides increased detail is the size of the illustration. I created the card illustrations with the required resolution more than doubled. For printing, I then built the illustrations into the card frames scaled down considerably. Of course, some details are lost in the process, but the viewer still “feels” that they were there: Everything seems finer, more real, than in “regular” resolution. A pleasant side effect of this approach is also that the illustrations can later be displayed in larger formats as well.

Here are a few examples:

Vinad

In this important scene, Vinad, architect of the Utreng and Adlems main supporter, discovers that the construction of the Skybridge has been sabotaged.

Painting in Corel Painter, I used some of my own texture brushes, which I use to draw any kind of detailed patterned textiles with ease. I created a whole collection of them over the years, which I mix and paint over as needed. I affectionately call them my “wallpaper” brushes.

Min Vallesk

When a Serath greets someone with the word “Min” followed by his name, that person knows that the remainder of his life has just changed irrevocably.

Another type of textile details can be found in this image. Of course, each nation speaks its own language and thus also uses its own characters. On Min Vallesk’s headgear, two characters of the Selessem are recognizable in the pattern.

Usehet Tuin

Only the nomads of the Great Plains know of Usehet Tuin, the hidden valley in the Sea of Winds, where the ghosts of their ancestors are at home.
The Enebe Ghres only dare to come here when the situation is desperate and hopeless enough, to justify a plea for the help of the spirits.

The camp at the foot of the bridge

A key moment happens when the rebels find the camp of the workers at the foot of the Skybridge. The high price that ordinary folks have paid for the construction of the bridge is revealed.

The concept for the artwork of the Godh cards differs from the other cards in one essential point: They represent art that contains information about the different cultures of Thraens inhabitants. This is another, deeper level behind the obvious motif.

“The medium is the message” means here that different peoples also depict their Godhs using different mediums and styles. The Utreng for example like to carve their sacred images in wood, because wood is difficult to obtain in the high mountains of the Salthras and is therefore considered to be a valuable material. The Selessem also paint their naive art on wood, but only because they are a poor fishing people. They simply can afford no other surface to paint on.

In the enormous rock cliff on the edge of the Lhaedineer lowlands, the Lhaedineeri have found the ideal place for monumental depictions of their Godhs. The Tarrans, on the other hand, have perfected the fine art of sculpture. The work with precious stone has a tradition in the Reich that goes back to the first people of the White Sea.

In order to portrait this variety of styles convincingly, objects and materials need to be presented as realistically as possible. Only through the contrast of the respective art style and the medium on which it is created, it becomes clear that what looks like a drawing on parchment is also meant as to be seen as a “drawing on parchment”.

Valendha

The cultural contexts of the Godhs shown on the cards also become clearer because, unlike the other cards, almost every depiction of a Godh also shows writing in the respective language. Inscriptions, names and descriptions support the impression that the priests of Valendha want to say something about their Godhess in this carving.

Ephalu

The depictions of the Godhs on the cards are only intended as examples. There are certainly a variety of representations of every Godh in Thraen, some similar, some different, depending on which temple you are visiting.

Although mainly Tarrans believe in Ephalu, there are believers among the Enebe Ghres and the Unshackled People as well.
These peoples would certainly represent the blind Godhess of hope in different styles and mediums than the Tarrans. This is a field of the cultures in Thraen that I would like to explore more deeply in the future.

The worlds of Skybridge, initially described only in writing, now come to life in the illustrations for the game. Working with my own creation as a reference was a strange experience. It was often just as exciting and surprising for me as it was for Michael, who could hardly wait to see more every week. Holding the finished game in my hands now, after such a long time and all the ups and downs we’ve been through, still feels unreal to me.
I am looking forward to seeing Skybridge on the gaming tables and hope that lots of people will enjoy playing our game.

If you would like to see more of the art of Skybridge, you can explore it in greater detail on the website: theskybridge.de. (Currently available in German only, but eventually it will be available in English.)

I will also be posting information about further developments there.

by Justin Bell

60,000 gamers (including me) have been intently following the crowdfunding updates for the Brass: Pittsburgh campaign launching on March 24th. I’m a massive fan of the Brass system, as an owner of Brass (aka Brass: Lancashire) and Age of Industry (along with its first set of expansion maps, Japan and Minnesota). I’m also very happy to play your copy of Brass: Birmingham any time you want, for reasons I described in my Meeple Mountain review a few years ago.

While Santa’s elves spend the next few months working on the Brass: Pittsburgh production–sexy metal coins aren’t going to make themselves, after all–I’ve still got plenty to do to pass the time. That’s because campaigns for expansions, second editions, reprints, deluxe copies and additional games in the same universe always do the thing I love most–they fire up the base of players who love earlier games in these series, making these titles much easier to get to the table while riding the hype wave.

***

For about eight months in 2024, whenever I went to a game night, I placed my copy of Brass: Lancashire in my gaming “go bag.”

I tried to have Lancashire ready just in case my ideal scenario popped if we didn’t already have another game lined up. Every week, in every part of Chicagoland, no matter what else had been planned for that game night, I popped Lancashire into the bag. And every week, without fail, I would socialize my bag’s contents, then end with something like “...I’ve also got Brass: Lancashire in the bag, you know, just in case anyone wants to get that to the table.”

As you have guessed, Lancashire never hit during that window of time. There were always reasons, or excuses, why it never hit—”oh, you’ve got that hot review copy of _____”, “nah, let’s do a bunch of fillers instead”; “we only have about two hours left, and I thought Brass takes longer”—but the reality is that I never structured an entire night around getting Lancashire to the table. (I did play Birmingham twice in that time, ironic because I prefer Lancashire over Birmingham if I had to pick just one of those two titles.)

One of the other reasons why Lancashire never hit: I insist on playing it with exactly four players. The game is brutal regardless of player count, but it is perfect AND perfectly brutal with four players. A couple of times, Lancashire didn’t come out because we had three players, or a player count higher than four and needed another title to accommodate the group.

So, I went oh-for-eight-months back in ‘24. But now that we have a new Brass game on the horizon? It’s never been easier to get a game of Brass rolling. Just accidentally cough the word “Brass” while standing in a crowd of gamers right now, and you can probably get it to the table.

“Sorry, did you say Brass? Funny, I was just thinking we should get a game going.”

***

It’s happening at game nights in my circles and at get-togethers across the Chicagoland area…which tells me this phenomenon is probably happening everywhere.

I’m seeing Brass titles on the dance card a little more often right now. One of the heavyweight strategy nights in my area has had Lancashire or Birmingham pop up a couple times in the last month. Another friend had the chance to play the Pittsburgh prototype recently, thanks to copies hitting the hands of local influencers who are completing review plays in time for the wide range of coverage hitting the interwebs this week.

This might be the easiest time to ever get a Brass game to the table. But firing up the base doesn’t stop there, with a number of other titles suddenly getting hot thanks to the news of more expansion goodies hitting shelves soon.

My love affair with Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon means that the game hits my table from time to time. But with the release of the new expansion, Shackleton Base: Below. Within. Above., suddenly everyone else I know is interested in getting games of Shackleton Base rolling, too. It seems like The Old King’s Crown is everywhere right now…and there’s a new campaign active now for the game’s second printing that includes not only an expansion, but another game in the same universe, Annulet.

Now we’re even getting “games in the same universe” spinoffs! Maybe next year, we’ll get Chicago Annulet, helping NBC/Peacock maintain its stranglehold on Wednesday nights after episodes of Chicago Med, Fire, and PD.

Regicide’s new campaign is pushing not just one, but two new titles. The new Pirates of Maracaibo expansion Bermuda Triangle has given me yet another excuse to get plays of the base game in, both in person and on Board Game Arena. And Voidfall has an expansion AND a campaign game coming…which drove me to pull my Galactic Box off the shelf to get more solo plays in. (OK, OK, you got me: I only opened the box to slip faction mats into the triple-layer player boards. Don’t lie, Voidfall players–you’ve done the same thing!)

***

I know a number of people who avoid all these expansions, reprints, and deluxifications (it’s a word, trust me); to each their own. I use these opportunities to remember what I loved about the base game in the first place. Will these new goodies make me feel differently about why I fell in love with the initial titles? We’ll see. But any excuse to get some of my favorites to the table is an excuse that is good enough for me.

Fire it up!

by Adam Porter

Following the huge success of Voyages, many designers were keen to replicate Postmark Games’s model of crowdfunded, print-and-play, roll-and-write games. In early 2022, I was approached by an illustrator and graphic designer. He was unknown to me, but clearly talented, and he asked whether I’d like to collaborate on such a project. The arrangement was simple: I would design the rules, he would handle illustration and crowdfunding. There was no contract or firm commitment, but it felt worth exploring.

I immediately knew I wanted to create a flip-and-write game using a standard deck of playing cards. My favourite titles in this genre are Cartographers, Avenue, and Welcome to, so these served as my inspiration. I pulled together a few initial concepts and approached my good friend and frequent collaborator Rob Fisher (co-designer on Qwuzzle, Kompromat,Happy Hoppers, and Emberheart). As often happens, Rob wasn’t keen on my early implementations, but he liked the core idea. He took it away, and a few days later came back with a clear vision: a tower-building game.

That immediately connected with something from our past. Five years earlier, Rob and I had worked on a trick-taking card game about building totem poles. After each trick, players would pick a card and stack it into their own display, forming totem poles. The game was called Trick Pick Totem, describing the sequence of play. We never finished the design. We were uneasy with the theme, and the card play never quite clicked. But one mechanism stayed with us: when stacking numbered cards, values had to descend from bottom to top, while special cards bent the rules and opened up new scoring possibilities. That idea became the foundation of our new design.

We started referring to the new game as Flip Pick Towers – an evolution of Trick Pick Totem – once again a literal description of the turn structure: flip cards, pick one, draw towers.

Rob’s starting point for our flip-and-write was inspired. With an illustrator already attached, he imagined a game that became more beautiful as you played. Many roll-and-writes have clever systems but unattractive interfaces, like spreadsheets. Others begin with an appealing illustrated sheet that steadily degrades as players cross things out. From the very beginning, we set a guiding principle: the sheet should start relatively plain (framed by a nicely illustrated surround) and become richer and more ornate over the course of play. Players should be able to express themselves through their drawings – but without that being a requirement. Boxes, numbers, letters, or stick figures should work just as well, if players preferred.

I’m a strong believer in identifying a hook early in development. For Flip Pick Towers, it was simple and clear: ‘a flip-and-write game where your player sheet gets more beautiful as you play’.

Two other pillars quickly followed:
1. The game could use only a deck of cards and a sheet of paper.
2. It should be playable virtually, by any number of players (very much a product of our COVID-era mindset).

The earliest version used the numerical cards from a standard deck of playing cards. As in Welcome to, three cards were flipped; and all players chose one to utilise. Numbers represented floors in a growing tower, while suits allowed you to mark spaces in a small grid on your sheet. Completing lines in the grid unlocked decorations – banners, windows, treasure, beanstalks – each scoring in different ways.

Early Sketch. 18th May 2022. At this point, Royal Cards represented different types of roof.
The next step was to find roles for the royal cards. The solution was obvious and intuitive – they would live in the towers. Kings scored if placed in the highest room; Queens scored if royals were grouped together; Jacks scored for the number of banners on their tower.

We pieced together rules for the remaining cards, to maximise the use of a traditional deck. Selecting an Ace granted you a special ability which would allow you to break the tower-building rules in some manner (similar to our special cards in Trick Pick Totem). But what about Jokers? Well… they attracted dragons – fun to draw but they cost you points. What do dragons love? Gold. So we allowed players to discard one of their previously drawn treasures to persuade a dragon to fly on by, avoiding the penalty.

We imagined that players might like to colour and elaborate on their illustrations and share their finished towers online, much as they did with the wonderful map-building game, Cartographers.

21st May 2022. Royals now occupied the towers.
A couple of weeks had passed since the initial proposal by the illustrator, so I dropped him a message to let him know we had a game to show him. And… nothing. No response. Repeated messages went unanswered. And I felt a little deflated. Rob and I were left with a fun little print-and-play game but no collaborator and no obvious route to market. Neither of us was keen to run a crowdfunding campaign ourselves. And I had fallen completely in love with the game. I played it solo over and over. This was some of our best work, and we felt it deserved a full production, with a box and fully-illustrated, dedicated deck of cards.

26th May 2022. First prototype with printed sheets.
As development continued, the limitations of a traditional deck became more obvious. We had clever ideas for roofs and bridges between towers, but they cried out for bespoke cards to make them intuitive. More importantly – inspired by the variable objectives in Cartographers – we could see huge potential in how Kings, Queens, and Jacks might score, but realising that variety required a separate deck of scoring cards.

4th June 2022. Rules continue to develop. In this version, Royals could occupy bridges and roofs and they had fixed scoring, rather than variable objectives.
So we made a pivotal decision: abandon standard playing cards and create a dedicated deck. This allowed us to fine-tune card distribution, deepen thematic immersion, and introduce new options. Jacks became Princesses. Aces became Wizards.

We designed a deck of 30 different scoring objectives. At the start of each game, one objective is assigned to each royal – Queen, King, and Princess – creating an enormous number of possible combinations and dramatically increasing replayability. Queens might score for being adjacent to beanstalks, for each dragon in the same row as them, or for occupying your tallest tower. Kings might score for bridges in the same row, or treasure in the same column, or being adjacent to an empty room. Princesses might score for being above or below windows, or other princesses. I got more and more hooked on solitaire play, and started to think about how to approach the ‘win’ condition when playing alone. I wanted something more engaging than ‘beat your high score’. I’d enjoyed the system in Button Shy’s Sprawlopolis, where multiple objectives each have a target score that combine into a single goal. I borrowed that idea, but added difficulty levels: each objective in Flip Pick Towers has an easy, medium, and hard target. Your chosen difficulty determines your overall target score for the session.

7th June 2022. Rob imagining what a player sheet might look like with a professional illustrator
involved
Osprey Gameswere always our first-choice publisher. I’d pitched to them several times at UK Games Expo without success, but Rob and I admired their catalogue and the care they put into presentation – particularly with the Undaunted series by my friends Trevor Benjamin and David Thompson. I knew my original contact at Osprey had moved on, so I asked David who handled submissions now. His answer was Rhys ap Gwyn, and by sheer coincidence, Rob and I already knew him well. Years earlier, when Rhys was living in Cardiff, he was a regular at our weekly design group. We had playtested many of his prototypes and he’d playtested many of ours. So, our fears of needing to build new bridges with Osprey were unfounded. We just needed to drop Rhys a quick note on Facebook!

11th February 2023. Moving away from traditional deck. Now with icons for different resources, and special cards for roofs and bridges.
I showed Flip Pick Towers to Rhys at UK Games Expo in June 2023. In September, he told us Osprey wanted to publish it, but not until 2026. Because of the long timeline, he generously encouraged me to show the game to other publishers.

At SPIEL Essen that October, I pitched several designs, but two stood out: a worker placement game which would go on to be released as Emberheart, and Flip Pick Towers. Both games got a reaction unlike any games I had pitched before. Multiple companies were interested in one, or both, games. One publisher phoned me a few hours after I pitched Flip Pick Towers to him, and told me he wanted to publish it. I said, “But you haven’t played it yet”. He said, “That doesn’t matter. If there are elements which need to change, we can change them. But I don’t want you to show the game to anyone else.” The pressure spooked us, and Rob and I declined.

On the flight home, I was sat across the aisle from some other SPIEL Essen convention-goers. I could hear from their conversation that they worked for Osprey. I introduced myself and it turned out they had all played the Flip Pick Towers prototype and loved it. After weighing our options, despite the wait, Rob and I agreed that Osprey still felt like the right home. Enthusiasm counts for a lot. We signed the contract.

A couple of months later, Rhys sent us a selection of images from a handful of different illustrators, and asked our opinion about which might be suitable for the game. Hungarian artist, Beatrix Papp, was our preference because of the simple sketchy appearance of her drawings – they didn’t feel a million miles from the type of drawings players might create on their own sheets. Over the following months, Rhys involved us in every aspect of the visual development of the game, regularly checking in with us with each new batch of images from Beatrix.

We were hugely impressed with the attention to detail in the artist’s brief written for Beatrix, which extended to many pages. Here is an extract:

“Whimsical fantasy. This is aimed at casual gamers and families and will be marked as 14+.  However, we are not aiming for elements to be too cute. It would be great to give it a little edge, which is why we’re really excited to have you as an illustrator. Elements need to be simple, to encourage people to draw, rather than intimidate them. As such, we don’t need detailed backgrounds or anything, just little touches to indicate the situations / environment, as with the art that drew us to you. We also love the limited palette.”

Sosban the witch, Welsh for ‘saucepan’.
A challenge at this stage was calibrating complexity. Flip Pick Towers isn’t difficult to learn, but it introduces several unfamiliar systems. Each feature we added increased strategic depth but risked accessibility. We included stars on the player sheets with bonuses if you reached them with your towers. We tried reducing the number of columns. We removed bridges and roofs for a basic introductory game. But all of these changes diminished the game somewhat. Eventually, we accepted that the game needed to be presented in its best, complete form, and trusted players to meet it halfway.

Tall towers look tasty to Mellt the dragon, searching for a nest! Mellt - Welsh for ‘lightning’.
One pivotal design decision was formalising the behaviour of dragons. In the earliest versions of the game, they simply deducted points. In the final version, they arrive unannounced and perch atop your towers, preventing you from building any higher unless you feed them gold. Flip Pick Towers is intentionally low on player interaction. Aside from a few competitive elements – such as rewarding the first player to place roofs, or those with more windows than their opponents – most of the game unfolds independently. This choice ties directly to one of our core design pillars: Flip Pick Towers supports any number of players. However, we also wanted to offer a more interactive variant. Once again, we looked to Cartographers for inspiration, particularly its handling of monster attacks. In Flip Pick Towers’s competitive variant, when a dragon appears, an opponent chooses which of your towers it occupies, adding a sharper edge of player interaction for groups that want it.

At some point in this process, Rhys suggested weaving Welsh references into the game’s backstory. It seemed logical – castles and dragons are a huge part of the Welsh identity. ‘Y Ddraig Goch’, the red dragon, symbolises the country and appears on our national flag. Rob and I have both lived in Wales throughout our entire adult lives, and both of us have children who are Welsh. Rhys is Welsh – his surname ‘ap Gwyn’ means ‘son of Gwyn’ in Welsh, with Gwyn meaning ‘white or fair’). My design-focused YouTube channel is called Adam in Wales. This Welsh connection was a wonderful development, and it helped to make the project feel deeply personal. Wales has a rich history of myths, passed down orally by druids, and recorded in medieval manuscripts.

King Llew, Welsh for ‘lion’.
Our King is called Llew after a hero of Welsh mythology, and the Queen is named Blodwen, a name common in Welsh legends. The dragons carry the names Fflam and Mellt – Welsh for flame and lightning, and featuring the familiar Welsh double-letters. The wizards are now magical creatures: Bwca, the Welsh hobgoblin; Mab, the Queen of the fairies, made famous in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. We also opted for some more whimsical titles: a centaur named Ji-Ji, a name inspired by a Welsh nursery rhyme about a horse; a witch called Sosban, the Welsh word for Saucepan… just because it amused us! The rules explain that the winner of the game must jump up and down and shout ‘Bendigedig!’ meaning fantastic or marvellous! The rule book contains a guide to the origins (and pronunciation) of these names.

We explored many possible titles for the game, but they all felt generic. We’d grown attached to Flip Pick Towers, and we were delighted when Osprey agreed to keep it.

With artwork complete, the first half of 2025 was spent refining rules and polishing the rulebook, ensuring clarity without losing the sense of fun and whimsy. Rhys showed me a near-final prototype at UK Games Expo in June 2025. At SPIEL Essen, four months later, a full production copy was available for demo. I loved teaching the game. It’s ideal for learning as you play because, in that first game, every new card flipped introduces a new character – a princess, an imp, a witch, a dragon – or a building feature – a bridge, a roof – and players are always excited to learn what each new element means.

Flip Pick Towers is my twelfth or thirteenth published game (depending on how you count them…) and my fifth co-design with Rob. It is the game where we have had the most direct input at every stage of production, and that has been a real joy, making the project deeply personal for Rob and myself. We hope you love it as much as we do.

by Beth Heile

The Preview lists for both UK Games Expo and Game Market Spring 2026 are now live.

Haven't heard of a Preview list yet? Don't worry! There are so many features on BGG it's hard to keep track of them all.

A Preview serves as a list of new and upcoming games that will be available at a specific convention, either for sale or as a demo. Users attending those conventions are able to search, filter, sort, and save information from this list to help them target games they want to try or buy. Users visiting BGG can view this list to see which new titles are popular and getting a lot of buzz before a large event.

Currently BGG is offering Preview lists for the following conventions:
- Spielwarenmesse - list goes live in December
- Festival International des Jeux (FIJ) - list goes live in early January
- GAMA Expo - list goes live in early January
- UK Games Expo - list goes live in March
- Game Market Spring - Previously known as Tokyo Game Market, list goes live in March
- Origins - list goes live in April
- Gen Con - list goes live in early June
- SPIEL Essen - list goes live in July
- PAX Unplugged - list goes live in October

Please do not contact BGG to suggest other conventions to add to this list. We do not have plans to expand our preview lists at this time.

You can find all active and past Preview lists by clicking on "Browse" in the top menu of BGG and then choosing "Previews".

If you are a publisher, the process to submit games for a Preview list has been overhauled in the last few months. Please email news@boardgamegeek.com for a full tutorial or if you are running into any problems.

by Steph Hodge

In Q2, we will expect to see a handful of expansions released for many popular games!

▪️ Czech Games Edition (CGE) plans to release Codenames: Expansion Packs this Q2 2026 designed by Vlaada Chvátil. Introducing three new packs to mix with Codenames , Codenames: Duet, and Codenames: Pictures !



▪️ The Codenames: Fairy Tales Expansion Pack contains 50 new fairy tale-themed word cards, 3 agents, and 4 pictures. You will need the base game from either Codenames, or Codenames: Duet to play.



▪️ The Codenames: Sci-Fi Expansion Pack contains 50 new sci-fi-themed word cards, 3 agents, and 4 pictures. You will need the base game from either Codenames, or Codenames: Duet to play.



▪️ The Codenames: Pictures - Cute Critters Expansion Pack contains 40 new picture cards.You will need Codenames: Pictures to play.



▪️ Taking a side-step from expansions, CGE also announced Codenames: Critical Role Adventures . The adventure begins Q3 2026.

From a recent newsletter, Hachette Boardgames USA has announced two exciting new expansions, which are planned to arrive in April 2026.

▪️ Gigamic is publishing a second expansion for the hit title Akropolis called Akropolis: Panteon designed by Jules Messaud. The first expansion, Akropolis: Athena was released in 2024, which added new tiles and goals to complete.

Pantheon offers a whole new way to play Akropolis, as it is now possible to play cooperatively. An excerpt from the BGG page:



▪️ Studio H is publishing Cyclades: Maelstrom which expands on Cyclades: Legendary Edition designed by Bruno Cathala, and Ludovic Maublanc.

by Julián Pombo

Nature
Wind farms in Uruguay incorporate mandatory environmental conservation policies, including impact prevention, ecological compensation, habitat restoration, and continuous monitoring, generating additional environmental benefits beyond clean energy production.

The installation of wind farms in Uruguay is coordinated with DINACEA (National Directorate for Quality and Environmental Assessment), the objectives of SNAP (National System of Protected Areas), and national climate policies, integrating renewable energy generation with biodiversity conservation, ecological restoration, and compliance with the country's environmental commitments.

The State: creates fiscal and contractual conditions to attract private investment that provides clean energy, reduces energy costs, meets climate targets, and finances environmental conservation measures.

This is what Pampero: Nature is about...

Why an expansion?

Nature was a part of the base game. A shorter track and the usual rules.
I thought the theme alone should be enough to attract players to follow this strategy.
I was wrong, nobody liked that.
Actually, someone did, Vital Lacerda. I tried to make it work cause if Vital likes it, it's a keeper. Despite all my efforts the Nature Reserve was being ignored so I decided to leave it on pause for the time being.

While I was researching Remote locations, i.e. small settlements not connected to the electrical network, I discovered that those areas have the best winds for installing wind farms. Also, they are inhabited by a lot of wildlife, which in turn affects many flora and fauna.

The focus wasn't to have a system that punished players but to show how wildlife is affected and how companies are incentivized by the government to protect it. In the process of doing it, I wanted to keep it simple - not adding many steps and components to an already busy game.

Since the Nature reserve strategy wasn't working on its own, the most thematic approach seemed to be to unite it with the Remote. So, instead of adding another income track I decided to put them together.

The joint track system with both income markers jumping each other worked out great and Nature was included in the final version of the game.

As you may have noticed I wasn't willing to let the Nature reserve go. The message is important to me. Every bit of Pampero is important to me.

Cardal
Uruguay has already completed the transition in power generation — with a very high share of renewables. The current bottleneck is something else: the grid that moves that energy. The challenge is not generating energy, but delivering it when and where it is needed.
That’s where Cardal comes in.

The Punta del Tigre–Cardal 500 kV transmission line
The transmission line reduces curtailment — clean energy that would otherwise be wasted due to lack of transmission capacity. Without this kind of infrastructure, the transition remains incomplete.

The energy transition does not stop at electricity generation. It requires electrifying sectors that still depend on fossil fuels: electric transport, energy-intensive industry, replacing gas and fuel oil for heat. This demands firm capacity, a strong grid, and system resilience.

The Cardal substation: Increases overall system capacity, adds redundancy (“a second transmission path”) and allows demand growth without increasing blackout risk. It reduces fossil fuel dependence during critical periods: low wind conditions, droughts and peak demand events
A stronger, more interconnected grid: improves energy redistribution, optimizes the use of renewable generation and reduces the need to dispatch thermal plants

I started researching this just by chance, as I was biking as usual and noticed that the old wooden poles were being replaced by newer ones.

“A second transmission path”
One of my goal when designing a game is to keep players involved when is not their turn. One of these situations in Pampero happens when a player takes a contract that is connected through a "red line". That gives the following player the opportunity to gain a connection tile. I wanted to push this even further, to keep more players interested.

Electric Poles
Now, the following players have the chance to place Electric Poles and earn money based on the previously placed Transformers. This was one of the few elements of the game that was an instant success.

Once again, thank you for reading!

Julián

by Sami Laakso

[heading]Delving back to Galzyr[/heading]

Creating Lands of Galzyr was a huge effort. Designing the engine was one thing, but making the game’s open world work took years of effort crafting the necessary stories. Despite the game being a complete, intricate package, we still made sure it could be expanded later if such a time ever came. And that time is now!

We couldn’t jump into making the expansion right away, even if we wanted to. We needed a break to work on other things for a bit, but more importantly we wanted to give the players a chance to experience the game and the stories. Only then could we have a better idea of what we and the players want from the expansion. Let’s see where we ended up.

Lands of Galzyr the base game ready to be explored!

[heading]Determining the scope[/heading]
One of the very first questions was the scope the expansion should have in terms of content and components. During the base game’s development, we had rough plans to make a single expansion of 240 cards (compared to 480 in the base game) and 2 new adventurers (compared to four in the base game). Those plans changed quickly when we started actually working on the expansion, however.

Adding exactly two new adventurers in total was a figure pretty much set in stone. Those two were already featured in the base game’s artwork, it would round out the game’s skill system nicely (each adventurer representing one of the 6 skills), and it’s the number the box and certain game mechanics can accommodate. However, we found out that the necessary content to add both of them would take up roughly 120 cards, half of the planned budget. That wouldn’t have left enough room for other content we wanted to include.

The upcoming adventurers, Noko & Umi and Yamej
So we decided to go bigger, which left us with another choice to make: make one huge expansion or make two smaller ones. We settled on the latter option and a plan of creating two, 240-card expansions, both with one new adventurer and a ton of other content. The base game’s box has just enough room for all of this, even sleeved. The upsides are clear. We can develop the first expansion faster, the players get to play it faster, and we can keep the monetary barrier to entry lower. It just takes some more effort on our part to make sure all combinations of the base game and expansions integrate nicely and provide a good experience. But that was an effort we were glad to spend for the other benefits in this approach.

[heading]Seeking and Receiving Feedback[/heading]
Dreams and Mysteries being a straight-up expansion, we wanted to make sure it would serve its audience, the fans of Lands of Galzyr. So, we sought out a lot of feedback, from our own Discord server, comments here on BGG, reviews, etcetera. Even more importantly, we created a survey where we asked direct feedback from players.

One additional, unique avenue for data was the game’s digital storybook. Normally, you don’t get to know how many times a game has been played or what decisions players made while playing. However, with the game storybook being digital, we’ve been receiving some gameplay information from those who have not disabled sharing their gameplay data. With this data, we can identify which scenes have been played the most and the least, which decisions players have made during the stories, and more. For example, we could introduce more variety to the most commonly played scenes to lessen repetition.

Player feedback: what players would like to see in the expansion
The survey received over 400 responses. We asked players to rank different kinds of content based on how much they wanted more of it. We also asked for general feedback on what they wanted or didn’t want to see in the expansion. Overall, it gave us a good idea of what people wanted from the expansion.

The main takeaway for us was that players wanted more long-form content. More specifically, a lot of people asked for a bigger hook or reason to continue playing, a greater sense of purpose you could say. Some players also wished to gain more power through mechanical character progression, but that would go against the game’s core design. Still, we sought to address that feedback in other ways.

On the other hand, players generally did not hunger for new game mechanisms, as the level of mechanical depth seemed to have hit its mark for a story-driven game for many. The responders generally loved the game and just wanted more story content.

Player feedback: general feedback organised based on type
[heading]Dreams and Mysteries[/heading]
After thoroughly going through the feedback, we were ready to start designing and creating the expansion content. There are four aspects I’ll highlight in this design diary, and how I think they improve the experience without compromising the game’s identity.

As mentioned earlier, the expansion includes a new adventurer. While it technically makes it possible to play with five players at once, it more importantly gives one more character and save slot to allow more players to jump in and out between sessions. Smaller groups likely also enjoy an alternative character and storyline to experience, perhaps when the mood for mischief strikes.

The expansion box is stuffed full of content
Perhaps the biggest new addition is the extended personal stories for all adventurers. We wanted to keep them short in the base game so they would serve as an introduction, not railroad the player and dominate the experience for a long time. That would have taken away from the open-world feel of the game. Still, a lot of people wanted more from them, so we’ll now serve longer stories that are broken up into multiple games. It’s a personal goal to work towards, for both the player and the adventurer they’re playing.

Tied to the extended stories are the new adventurer special abilities. These are alternatives to the existing special abilities, since significant power increases are off the table, but they do still spice up the experience and feel like rewarding character growth during the personal stories.

Noko & Umi are ready to join the adventures
The last thing is a new grand storyline. While the base game already has one large over-arching story, players clearly wanted more. This one also unravels slowly, and the players can influence it a lot. We hope these things together makes it even more fulfilling to come back to Galzyr time and time again.

[heading]Conclusion[/heading]
Those were our plans for the first expansion and how we arrived there. I believe we have been able to address the feedback and make the game even better for those who already enjoyed it. In the end, the total amount of stories in the storybook grew from the base game's roughly 700,000 words to well over one million words. That's pretty crazy!

The expansion is now available at our online store and selected retailers.

What are some of your absolute favourite expansions and why?

– Sami Laakso

by Justin Bell

My latest obsession on Board Game Arena is Nucleum, the Board&Dice production currently in alpha. I thought Nucleum was pretty good as a board game, but playing it twenty more times on BGA—in addition to plays and reviews I’ve now done of two expansions, Nucleum: Australia and Nucleum: Energy Research Institute—has made it become one of my favorite games. After chatting with Nucleum co-designer Dávid Turczi at SPIEL Essen last fall, I have it on good authority that we are going to get more Nucleum games for years to come, so I’m just as invested as the designers are.

I wish I had more time for two-hour live plays of Nucleum, but such is the way with work travel, family life, and “IRL” game nights. So, I do my Nucleum plays async on BGA, meaning I take a turn, then the next player has a window of time—a day, maybe two—to take their turn.

On paper, I always think that means I’ll take at least one turn of my current game of Nucleum every day. The reality is quite different. That’s because right now, while reading this article, there’s someone in Reykjavik, Dhaka, Tuscaloosa or Le Mans waiting for you to log onto BGA and take care of your business.

Yeah, it’s your turn.

***

I am not normally obsessed with my phone; often, I leave my Pixel phone flipped over (Google calls this “Flip to Shhh”) because I don’t want to be bothered. This changes when I’m doing async plays on BGA, stressing my next move. That makes me a phone obsessive, as I stare at my phone between meetings waiting to see if it’s my turn on table #811104232.

I always start async plays with the best of intentions, setting up games with other people who have 100% positive reputations on Board Game Arena. I try to remember asking opponents upfront to join only if they are willing to take at least one, ideally two turns a day…let’s try to keep this thing moving.

How hard can that be?, I ask myself. We’re talking about relatively simple decisions in a game of, say, The White Castle. Pick a die, pick a spot, take the action. Bing, bang, boom!

And usually, everything starts off well enough. Depending on the game, players select their faction, pick a personal milestone card, select their starting hex, and make other pre-game choices to set up whatever game we’ve chosen. They take their first couple of turns within a few hours of getting the e-mail notification, that simple reminder that it is, in fact, your turn.

But sometimes, players don’t take their turn. Sometimes, they agree to start a new game, and only after joining a game do they chase down a rules video or a full read-through of the game’s manual, helpfully linked right on the game’s main page. That takes a day. They open an e-mail notification, then delete it instead of using the link to take them directly into the game. They fiddle over whether or not to take a certain action, then head off to dinner and drinks before coming back to the game the next morning…late the next morning, at that.

Given my obsession, I go back to the virtual game table from time to time, to monitor the game’s progress. I tell myself I’m doing that to see what other players have done on their turn, to help narrow my own choices when it gets back to being my turn again. I use the notes function (gosh, I love the notes function!) to gauge my thoughts, so that I can quickly take my turn when it comes around again.

But mostly, I sit. I think to myself, Next time, just carve out 90 minutes and play the freakin’ game live. Then you don’t have to obsess over all this, and you can sleep better, because you won’t hit the sack dreaming about “what ifs” tied to your most recent turn.

I think about doing these live plays…then, I don’t. I wallow in my own misery, as I wait for other players to stop enjoying their real life and focus on taking their Board Game Arena turns. Because, that’s all that really matters: my obsession, not your social life. Right? RIGHT??

***

It’s finally my turn again on table #811104232.

I wonder if, this time, I should make everyone else suffer for making me wait so long to take my turn. I click here, I hover the mouse pointer there, I double check that I’ve done everything I wanted to do on my turn before I click the “Confirm” button. (Thankfully, most of the new titles on BGA have both the Confirm action and the Undo Turn action, so that I don’t have to curse the sky because I clicked too many buttons too quickly.)

But then, the cycle repeats itself. My favorite is when I see that the next player in turn order has their “green light” on, indicating that they are online at this very moment. Even though they might be playing any of the platform’s other 1400+ games (nah, they MUST be sitting in this game, just itching to take their turn, right?), I sit there after finishing my async turn, hoping I get to watch them execute their own magic right in front of me.

Until they don’t. Or they do, and after their turn wraps up, the next player is offline. Or the next player lurks in the room for a few minutes, then logs off as if they just wanted to start planning their next turn before going to bed.

Luckily, there are dozens of solo games on BGA, so I can keep myself warm at night by jumping into a quick play of anything from Railroad Ink to Ark Nova. But the thrill of human vs. human competition is the beauty of the platform, challenging players from around the world.

So, I’ll wait around…anxiously.

by daryl durston

I began designing Aetherium: The Forgotten Duel about a year and a half ago, and it all started with something unexpectedly simple: a photo I saw on social media. It was just stones resting on a cloth, but the moment I saw it, one thought hit me immediately: “This would be such a cool ancient-looking game.”

From there, my imagination took over. I became obsessed with creating something that felt like it could have existed centuries ago—an artifact from a lost civilization. That inspiration shaped my first design rule: no cardboard, no cards, no modern-looking components. I wanted everything to feel timeless, like it was carved from history rather than printed in a factory. Around the same time, I remembered games that used a drawstring mat—where the play surface doubled as storage, with all the pieces kept inside. That concept fit perfectly with the ancient aesthetic I was chasing.

And just like that, the journey began.

In Aetherium, there are two paths to victory. A player can either:
• Connect four matching elemental colors across the tops of the columns, or
• Guide the powerful Aether token to their end of the Aether track.

Building the game around the four classical elements, with Aether representing something beyond the physical world, helped deepen the mythology. It became more than strategy—it felt like a symbolic duel between nature and the unknown.

From the beginning, I knew it needed to be universal: no words, only symbols. I wanted turns to stay simple, but decisions to feel deep. That’s where the power tokens came in, adding replayability and new layers of strategy.

With the concept in place, things moved fast. Within two days, I had a rough but playable prototype. A few days later, I brought it to my first real playtest with my close friend Yvonne. That moment felt huge—Aetherium was leaving my head and becoming real on the table.

The first draft looked like this:

And the most important thing happened: we had fun. But even then, some mechanics felt weak, and certain moments lacked the weight I wanted.
That playtest opened the door to months of cutting, adjusting, and rebuilding. Version after version began to emerge.

Around this time, my good friend Ruel Gaviola introduced me to the indie board game market. He explained how conventions often host indie sections where designers can showcase their games, connect with players, and gather feedback. When I found out Dice Tower West would have an indie market this March, it felt like the perfect opportunity. Aetherium had the atmosphere and uniqueness to stand out.

As the gameplay evolved, the physical design did too. The mat went through countless iterations, and one action space became a recurring problem—it simply wouldn’t work no matter how many times I reworked it. Eventually, I solved it.

And then I made my next big decision: I decided the game should be handcrafted entirely out of clay. Honestly? That was a bad choice.

Clay was messy, inconsistent, and nearly impossible to reproduce at scale. Pieces cracked, warped, and varied too much. What I thought would make the game feel more authentic was actually making it less sustainable.

That’s when my friend Katie helped me see the truth: the goal wasn’t just to make something that looked ancient… It was to make something people could actually play and return to again and again. That realization changed everything. Once I let go of clay, the project opened up. I shifted toward resin, which solved one problem—but introduced new challenges, especially with the mat.

It needed to be affordable, durable, and still match the weathered aesthetic. I tested countless fabrics before finally finding one that worked. At first, I tried stamping the fabric for a rustic look, but it still didn’t feel professional enough. Later, I found heat-press transfer sheets, which sped up the process while keeping the style I wanted. Even then, making everything by hand was no small task.

Then I discovered how time-consuming resin production really was: mixing, pouring, curing, sanding—creating even one full prototype took hours. Producing 30 full sets of resin pieces, preparing the mats, adding the rope—it all took far longer than I expected. It was exhausting at times, but it was also incredibly rewarding. Watching the game slowly transform from a simple idea into a real physical object made every long night worth it. After all the iterations—mechanics, materials, prototypes, playtests—I finally arrived at something complete: Aetherium: The Forgotten Duel.

Now, as Dice Tower West approaches, Aetherium is no longer just an idea sitting on my table. It’s real.

Bringing it to the indie market feels like the next step in its story—not because the game is finished, but because it’s finally ready to be discovered. I’m excited to watch new players sit down, touch the pieces, learn the symbols, and experience the same sense of mystery and strategy that inspired it from the start. Aetherium has already come farther than I ever expected from that first spark of inspiration.

Now hoping it won’t be easily forgotten.

For more information, you can visit begamingames.com

by Steph Hodge

Hey Friends!

Maybe you missed me, but I was sailing away on the BGG@Sea cruise from Sydney, Australia, all around New Zealand.

I first want to give a shout-out to [user=CaptainQwyx][/user] for hosting such a fabulous event. For those unfamiliar, BGG@Sea has 2 cruises each year. One abroad and one stateside. Check out the details for Jeff's upcoming cruises!

There is a lot to unpack here because traveling to the otherside of the world is a bucket-list sort of adventure. Michael and I decided to join this cruise SUPERRRRRRRRRR last minute because it's a big investment. However, we had both been on the BGG@Sea Alaskan Cruise back in 2018 and had a blast. We decided to make this trip work because it is a trip of a lifetime.

I will be the first to tell you that a 13+ hour-long flight does not excite me. I was not looking forward to all of the travel to make it happen, but New Zealand!! Home of Hobbits! A destination I knew I had to visit at least once.

Now, the cruise did offer an excursion to Hobbiton, but by the time we decided to join the group, it was already sold out. It meant that we had to plan to visit New Zealand before or after the cruise itself to make sure we got to actually go to Hobbiton. Thanks to Jeff, he was able to create a private tour for those who wanted to join before the cruise. There were 23 of us geeks who wanted to visit Hobbiton!! It was an EPIC adventure because we got the ALL IN BUNDLE. A full feast and behind-the-scenes tour included.

Because the cruise was sailing from Sydney, Australia, it meant we had to fly into Auckland, New Zealand, to visit Hobbiton and then make our way to Sydney the following day. It was all well worth it because Auckland wasn't even on the itinerary for our cruise around New Zealand. We got to visit an extra city, but more importantly, we got to visit Hobbiton. A major reason to visit New Zealand anyway!

To be fair, New Zealand is a wonderful place all on its own. You don't need Hobbiton to make it a magical trip, but it is like the icing on the cake.

After a VERY long travel day from BNA to LAX to AUK, we completely lost a day in transit, but arrived bright and early in Auckland. We were immediately greeted by [user=JediLuke] Luke Badger[/user] of Badgers from Mars! If you are not familiar with their game Regicide, I highly recommend it! Michael and I were SO FORTUNATE that he was available to show us the scenes of Auckland. I feel like we got an insider tour of all the best New Zealand offerings. He brought us around to see the sights, but more importantly, to try a variety of foods like the savory pies, delicious gelato, marmite (which is not like Vegemite), and stopped at the food store to grab a bunch of New Zealand treats like Whittaker's Chocolate. 😍

The following day, we were up bright and early to join the tour as we made our way to Hobbiton. It was a few hours by bus. The weather was saying rain and thunderstorms all day. I was super bummed by the forecast, so I just had to hope it would be incorrect. Again, we were incredibly lucky to have the rain hold off until the majority of the tour was completed. Super thankful for that. Going to Hobbiton, I KNEW I needed a Hobbit cloak, so Michael and I found a great deal on Amazon and purchased our cloaks. I expected EVERYONE to have cloaks when we got to Hobbiton, but turns out we were the geekiest of all. Some were jealous for sure! Obviously, the gift shop should be selling cloaks.

When you arrive at Hobbiton, you are at the gift shop and cafe. From there, the studio will take busloads of people during their slotted time. We were a bit special as we paid extra to have a luxury experience with the feast and behind-the-scenes tour. We also got to go inside a hobbit home. We were told that about 2200-2500 people visit daily, and they host an average of 2 weddings a week. I will be honest, I didn't listen to the tour guide all that much. I was too busy being in the moment and taking a million photos. As a photographer, I just wanted to get the right shot, and that often means waiting until everyone leaves the area or running ahead before everyone shows up. I hope you enjoy some of my photography. The entire set is set up to give the perspective of Hobbit vs Humans in size. You can see that perspective from the photo of me in the door and Michael outside.

[imageid=9457317 medium rep]

Once we walked through Hobbiton, we ended at The Green Dragon, where we were given a free drink. We had only a little bit of time before we were escorted to the Watermill for our feast. But, Michael and I still tried to get in a game of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – Trick-Taking Game. Once we were at the mill, we gazed upon 4 spreads of food for 23 people. It was FAR FAR FAR too much food. I think 2 spreads would have covered us all. Everyone was sad that there were no doggie bags to go! We learned that all the leftovers are fed to the pigs down the road. Those pigs are quite well fed, wow!

We saw some extra Hobbit holes and then moved along to the behind-the-scenes tour. You see the workspaces of actual on-site workers who are mending and making set pieces. You see a ton of concept artwork and the model for the Hobbit home. It is SO COOL!

As you can tell, this was a major highlight of my trip! We haven't even made it to the cruise portion of the adventure! The day after Hobbiton was a travel day where most of us flew to Sydney and explored. Michael and I didn't do much planning for what to see, but we knew we wanted to use the public transit. The trains are super convenient to use as you just tap your credit card to enter and exit. Same thing when using the tranis in New Zealand. They make it so easy!

We were able to easily get around and walk the streets of Sydney. It reminded me of New York City quite a bit. I am glad we went to see the Opera House at dusk. We got some great photos and then didn't have to rush around the next day to see the touristy sights. On the day we set to embark, Royal Caribbean really makes it easy. You can drop your luggage off, and it will be delivered to your room. It made it so we didn't have to wheel around luggage while we waited to board the ship. We could instead just explore more of Sydney. I opted to try the Pancake House for lunch. Delicious. There is a whole area by the ship called The Rocks with little marketplaces and shops. It was super cute. We explored there, but found access to the harbor bridge and walked across it! I highly recommend the walk. It took us to Luna Park, which is an old school amusement park. We missed the Squid Game experience, but they still had remaining features. 😂 Oh, how I would have loved to experience that! From there, we were easily able to take the ferry boat (tap on and off!) back to the port where the ship was waiting. It was excellent.

All in all, I didn't get a lot of time to explore Australia, so maybe we will just have to come back.

YAY! The Cruise!! We board the ship and find our cabin. But, soon after, we sought out the conference area. Bring on the games! It is a great location as you can see out the back of the ship. You can tell by a few photos that we had an excellent view of Sydney Harbor.

There are a lot of cool aspects of BGG@Sea. You have access to a bunch of great games, and you meet a lot of fabulous people. Since we were leaving from Australia, we had a bunch of Australian attendees, which was awesome, since they don't generally come to BGG.CON or other US conventions. Attendees will get to select 2 games for the library. There were about 140 of us, so about 200 games were brought. Since you only get two choices, a lot of the choices were bigger games. Thankfully, there was a pile of games that others brought that we could play as well. It was a good mix of games! Michael and I tried to learn at least one big game a day!

The cruise offers a wide variety of entertainment throughout the trip. The itinerary worked out so that there were 3 days at sea, followed by 5 port days, followed by 3 days at sea back to Sydney. Those days at sea are simply great for playing the big games! I got to playing a bunch of great games. I will highlight more at the end of the blog, but I will point out that on the 3rd day when we were sailing through the sounds of New Zealand, we got to learn and play Great Western Trail: New Zealand. That was super special and a fantastic game to play while sailing through the sounds. It was glorious!

So we had 5 days at port, where we could debark the ship and explore the area. Michael and I didn't splurge on any excursions; we just went at it day by day and place by place. Wherever the winds took us, we went.

Stop 1 was Dunedin. There was a lot to see at this port. As I said, we didn't have a plan, so we just started walking around and looking at the maps. New Zealand loves to put big murals on buildings. I find it fascinating. There is an Octagon center with lots of shops and places to eat.

I saw there were a few really cool lookout areas on the map, and Michael found it was about a 45-minute walk, so we opted to try that. The walk/hike took us through a college and the botanical gardens. Eventually, we made it, but it turned out to be to the BOTTOM of the lookout spot. There was no way I was climbing another huge mountain to overlook the area. Funny enough, where we did end up was on top of a huge hill. We were 5 streets away from Baldwin Street... The world's steepest residential street on earth. We didn't KNOW that until after we got back to port and were visiting a local shop. But, I was totally beat from our hike up to that point. We were just a few streets over and I had to walk down Blacks Road. I had to go EXTRA slow, IT WAS SO STEEP! We ended up walking down the street and taking a bus (such great transit!) back to the center. I rewarded myself with gelato. We ended the day with a visit to the local train station.

Stop 2 was Christchurch. So much to see and do here, it was hard to pack it all in. I wanted to check out the botanical gardens. (This was the best botanical garden of the entire trip.) It was a gorgeous day and the day could have been spent right there. Gorgeous summer day! We only spent about an hour there before moving along to visit the Quake City exhibit. This is a small museum that shows you the history of New Zealand's earthquakes. There was a devastating hit at Christchurch in 2011, and you can still see the damage as you walk the streets. Tragic stories, but it is good to have this exhibit for visitors to learn about the area.

From there, we continued walking and explored the city. We found a small festival being set up for the Chinese New Year. There are city trollys everywhere you look. We didn't ride one, but it looked cute! We ended up at a small game bar called Dice & Slice! We grabbed a bite and enjoyed a game of Regicide to honor Luke and New Zealand! Really great spot and great food.

Stop 3 was Wellington! A lot of the BGG@Sea folks took an exclusive BGG excursion to eat food and visit with Wellington designers and publishers. I would have enjoyed that, but I am not a foodie, so it was a bit out of my price range. We didn't have much clue as to what to do, but there was a guy handing out maps who gave us some very helpful insight. Walk the harbor and visit Cuba Street for quirky shops and cafes. Take the cable car up to the botanical gardens and walk down to get back to the port. He told us to make sure to go to the cable car AFTER lunch, which was great advice. We did as we were told, and it was a lovely day! Apparently, we arrived at the cable car at the perfect time since the line was about a 2-hour wait earlier in the day. Crazy!

Stop 4 was Napier. This was amazing timing! Napier was in the middle of their yearly festival. The city is known for the Art Deco-style buildings, and this was a festival celebrating that. Two ships were docked, and the city was PACKED! It was a sight to behold. The streets were lined with old-timey cars, parades, performances, and music. It was pretty amazing, honestly. We almost instantly went to the beach, which was all these stones and not sand. Very weird, but cool. Michael had to go into the water! I had done some minor research on what I might want to do. I found that Te Mata Peak was a great place to visit. We needed to find a tour to get there, though. It was my day because as we walked into the information area, the lady said the tour I wanted to do was leaving in 5 minutes. It was impeccable timing, and it was exactly what I wanted to do.

The tour was great since it was a 30-minute drive to Te Mata Peak, and he took us right to the top! We only had 10 very quick minutes there, but I was on top of the world. Easily another fantastic highlight from my trip. Nothing tops Hobbiton, but Te Mata Peak was a close second. It was amazing.

We got back to town and found gelato, and there was an airshow happening! It was EPIC! loved Napier!!

Stop 5 was Tauranga, but really it was Mount Maunganui. I would say this was the biggest bust of a day. We had very little time on shore so we couldn't plan to go to Rotorua, where we would have wanted to go. We tried to seek Blokarts, but we couldn't find a place to try that. So, I don't have much to report. But it was still a lovely day of walking around.

The rest of the trip on the cruise was all about the gaming and the We Will Rock You show that the cruise put on. I was super excited to see the musical. I'm glad we had such fantastic seats. The show was phenomenal. I am a bit surprised there were only 3 performances the whole cruise. I would have expected more performances of it. We would have seen it more than once if we could have.

Some of the game highlights from the trip. I got to learn Eternal Decks that Jeff so kindly brought along. I think everyone played this game at least once. It was constantly being played when I was looking around the room. It is a cooperative card game and it is basically a game of survival. You have to manage everyone's decks of cards and take care of the threats. I loved it and am excited to play it more.

Of course, I was fortunate to get in a PRECIOUS game of The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship. The whole fellowship made it to Mordor this time! Epic battle until the end.

I requested Fate: Defenders of Grimheim to be part of the library as I heard great reviews. I was not disappointed! Cooperative tower defense games with the ability to upgrade your character as the game plays out. So many things I love in a game. Now to figure out how to get a copy. 🤔

Emberleaf really hit the spot too. Great use of cards and actions. Super cute to boot. Very happy to get the chance to play this game. One I will be looking forward to playing again!

Jeff hosts amazing events at various conventions, and Michael joined his Blood on the Clocktower games. Michael had a fantastic time playing those. We both joined Jeff's Poker tournament! 14 people were playing, including Jeff. I made it to 5th position, but Michael took home the big win! It was a great event.

I had an amazing trip. It only makes me excited to cruise more and see the world. I have a special shout-out to [user=chivvo][/user] for giving me this amazing BGG@Sea gift crafted by his wife during the cruise.

Thanks for checking out my journeys to Middle-Earth New Zealand. I hope you enjoy it! I promise more NEWS in the next post!

-Steph the Hobbit-recruit

P.S. Michael and I go into SO MUCH more detail, if you can even imagine. Here is our FULL recap video.

Youtube Video

by Walter Obert

A few years ago, the call for entries to the first FIW Award, the prize promoted by the Italian Wargame Federation for the best unpublished wargame, gave me the opportunity to bring together in a single project four, long-standing passions of mine:

- The first was the chance to rescue and reuse a double-sided counter mechanism that had been sitting unused for over 15 years.
- The second was the will to condense the extremely complex relationships between the Allied powers during the final phase of World War II into a system accessible to players.
- The third, the opportunity to explore the potential impact of the German secret weapons programs, suspended somewhere between historical reality and speculative imagination - halfway between “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe”.
- And finally, I wanted to design a game with strong player interaction that would feel like a wargame, while still being approachable to all level players. At its core, WunderWaffen is built around these four clear design pillars, with a few more rules than I generally allow myself to use.

From the very beginning, I knew that the thematic heart of WunderWaffen would be the idea of “what if?” What if those experimental weapons had influenced the outcome of the war? This kind of counterfactual speculation is one of the core motivations that drives many wargamers, and I wanted to make it an explicit part of the experience.

Interestingly, the game’s core engine already existed. More than 15 years earlier, I had developed a cooperative design inspired by the movie Armageddon, based on double-sided counters showing a positive effect on one side and a negative effect on the other. Each turn, players had to resolve one positive and one negative effect. When I revisited that system, it immediately proved itself the perfect fit for a game centered on the race to Berlin, where players are forced to cooperate - but only up to a point - while simultaneously trying to slow down the German Research Track.

This became the foundation of WunderWaffen. Each player selects three counters from a pool of eighteen, which in the first part of the game are played over six rounds. On the reverse side of every counter there is an action that benefits one of the other players. Each turn, a player must resolve two counters for themselves and must give one counter, flipped, to another player. This single rule generates a surprising amount of strategic depth.

First, it eliminates self-sufficiency. No player can plan in isolation, because every turn includes a deliberate act of interference. Second, it forces players to evaluate not only what action to take, but who should be forced to deal with its consequences. The system immediately becomes political; the players start to negotiate.

The game is played with four Factions: United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Germany. Although the Allied players compete against one another for Victory Points, they are still collectively opposed to the German player. At the same time, even the German counters include reverse-side actions that benefit the Allies.

The result is an asymmetric, team-based, semi-cooperative system, something I had rarely seen on the market at the time. What makes it particularly interesting is that every player is forced, every turn, to grant an action to someone else, and in the case of the Allies that action may even go to Germany.

One side of the game counters
In practice, each turn offers three possible counter configurations, depending on which counter is flipped to its reverse side. This simple structure generates surprisingly rich dynamics involving planning, negotiation, and the evaluation of side effects.

Opposite side of the game counters
At the end of a turn, players refill their personal supply, keeping their available counters visible to everyone. This transparency allows opponents to anticipate what others can or cannot do, encouraging long-term planning and table awareness: elements that players tend to appreciate more with repeated plays.

The obligation to give actions to other players also introduces a layer of diplomacy and bargaining. Phrases like “I’ll give you this Counter, but don’t use it against me,” or “Advance on the Event Track, but choose this option, or I’ll hand the Counter to someone else” emerge naturally at the table. One of the most common pitfalls of semi-cooperative games is that cooperation often becomes superficial or purely opportunistic. In WunderWaffen, cooperation is structurally enforced, but never comfortable.

This system mirrors historical tensions quite effectively. If the Soviet player advances too quickly toward Berlin, the other Allies may stop supporting them, or even begin handing actions to the German player, coordinating their use in advance. Over time, the weakest Allied player tends to receive the most help, and the system self-balances organically.

The game board depicts Central Europe, divided into Territories corresponding to the Allied starting areas: the Soviet Union in the east, the United States in the south, and the United Kingdom in the west, with Berlin at the center.

Allied players must advance by conquering Territories, meeting each Territory’s requirements by placing specific troops. Each Territory provides tiles with Victory Points and bonuses, all visible from the start of the game. The German player can also occupy Territories by building Fortresses (Festungen in German), but their primary focus is advancing along the Research Track, unlocking WunderWaffen Cards. These cards allow Germany to bend the rules, gain additional Victory Points, and restrict the Allies’ actions.

Additional tracks - such as Morale, Politics, Events, and the Conference Area - represent broader strategic pressures. The Event Track, in particular, reflects real historical events specific to each Allied Faction, granting increasingly powerful effects as players progress and often involving others in their resolution.

One of my goals was to offer a holistic view of the final year of the war, using a streamlined system that keeps all players engaged, even when it is not their turn. Early playtests were promising, but two issues remained: regulating the Allies’ advance toward Berlin and creating a satisfying sense of localized conflict. The solution was to divide each Territory into three spaces, which must be fully occupied to determine control.

Counters have increasing strength values: Infantry, Armor, Aviation, Artillery, and Faction Flags, the latter acting as powerful wildcards. Stronger counters can defeat weaker ones, creating the feel of a contained micro-battle. After resolution, all counters are discarded except one belonging to the controlling player, which stays to mark control with a wooden cube on it. After six rounds, all players will have used their 18 counters, triggering the first Scoring Phase. Players then select 12 of their discarded counters to play the final four rounds.

Early in development, players preferred to graze the rich plains of Germany, collecting bonuses from the Territories. So, I increased the Victory Points in Berlin, encouraging the Allies to push toward the city, but now the game was too fast, ending too quickly! It was indispensable to regulate this situation. The final solution was to require control of at least four of the six Territories surrounding Berlin before the city could be conquered. This change not only solved the issue but added a new layer of tension and coordination, as no one wants to be the player who opens the gates of Berlin for someone else. Bingo!

Designing the WunderWaffen cards was one of the most exciting parts of the process. If a game is called “WunderWaffen”, those weapons must feel truly dangerous, forcing the Allies into close cooperation. The base game includes 24 Research cards, divided into three levels, each offering immediate effects, combos, twisted rules or end-game scoring conditions. I deliberately chose to include only weapons that were historically built or at least concrete projects, leaving more speculative ideas for a potential future expansion with a retro, science-fiction flavor.

WunderWaffen was born as an exercise in synthesis: historical theme, speculation, strong interaction, and accessibility. I wanted a game where difficult decisions did not stem from complex rules, but from unavoidable choices. A game in which every turn leaves someone dissatisfied but always involved. And I think I achieved it.

From the very beginning, the Italian publisher Oliphante, led by Gianfranco Fioretta, has been an enthusiastic supporter of the project, while Ares Games was overseeing the development and international distribution.

After extensive refinement and playtesting, the project was completed and ultimately won the first FIW Award, selected among 19 prototypes submitted. Following an initial folio publication in the Para Bellum magazine in 2023, WunderWaffen underwent a long development phase with Riccardo Vadalà, Roberto Di Meglio, and the Ares Games development team. To top it all off, Alan D’Amico designed the striking cover art.

by Justin Bell

Most people in The Hobby are familiar with the term “the shelf of shame”, a funny name for the games on your shelf that you bought weeks, months, maybe even years ago and still haven’t bothered to play. (Maybe you bought the game because the box’s color scheme paired so well with the other titles on the shelf second from the bottom…maybe.)

I don’t want to discount what the shelf of shame represents. The people in my strategy group know that I’m always pushing people to only buy the games that they know they will play…and usually, they laugh at this advice and go hog-wild, buying everything in sight, whether they think they will ever really table those games or not.

To each their own. For many, simply buying a game and having a sweet new toy on their shelves feels good.

I don’t maintain a shelf of shame. Also, I don’t really have any shame. I do, however, have three games (from a collection of about 200) that haven’t been played yet, and in all three cases, the shrink has been ripped off, the games are punched, stickered, and ready to go, and I just haven’t been able to force them to a table yet. Give me another month or two, and those will hit a table sooner than later.

I’m a bit weird in that way: as soon as I buy a game, I get anxious; my new toy deserves to see the light of day, so I like to push those games to the table whenever possible. Otherwise, why buy the thing in the first place? I am also an enabler; friends know that I usually start game nights by asking if anyone has anything hot they want to bust out, especially if they just bought something they’re excited about.

Lately, though, I have been obsessed—truly obsessed—with tabling the games from a different part of my game closet. These games are known as The Maybe Pile…and I often wonder if everyone has a pile just like it.

***

My Maybe Pile began to form a couple years ago.

It’s such a tricky beast. That’s because The Maybe Pile includes games that have proven to be a challenge for one simple reason: “tablebility”, my made-up term for any game’s likelihood to regularly make it to my game table, given my personal gaming network.

Games that I did not enjoy typically go to one of three places: the sale pile, which usually amounts to the games I will sell or trade with friends or another player in my immediate network to ensure that I can still revisit the game later; my “review crew”, who get the lion’s share of my review copies; non-profit organizations which get my game donations, such as The Gaming Hoopla. The house is only so big, and I typically keep only the games I love.

Honestly, I am thankful each time I play a game that is either a banger or a dud…that makes the decision on what to do with it next very easy.

The Maybe Pile, however, is a problem, and it’s a problem that grows in scope each year. One game on the top of my Maybe Pile is Raising Robots, an excellent engine-building game designed by Brett Sobol and Seth Van Orden, the same people who created my favorite auction game of them all, Stockpile. Each time I break out Raising Robots, everyone loves it. It’s the rare game that plays up to six players. It’s relatively easy to teach and doesn’t devour the entire table. I gave it a glowing review on Meeple Mountain.

Raising Robots is strong work. So, what makes it a Maybe Pile title?
-->Everyone enjoys playing it, but I can’t always get people to play it a second time.
-->Raising Robots is fantastic as a solo game…but I usually do not play tabletop games by myself.
-->I would happily give my copy away…but no one else in my immediate network has it, and I just KNOW the second I move my copy out of the collection that someone will show up at my house and ask, completely randomly, to play Raising Robots. (Yes, I do give games from the Maybe Pile to friends with the not-so-subtle request that they never sell it, so that I can continue to access the game occasionally while having it live in someone else’s home. Shortly after I do this, time and time again, they sell it anyway; it was their game at that point, after all. This is why I have trust issues!)

***

Other titles in my Maybe Pile have their own set of issues. Often, I think the game is a 9 or a 10 out of 10…but the people I game with disagree. A few of the medium-weight Euros in the Pile are good, but they’re an expansion away from being great, so I hold on, hoping the game has sold enough units to warrant additional content. In one case, there’s an 18xx title in the Maybe Pile that I love but it takes a solid eight hours to play. In a world where I have other great 18xx titles that can wrap up in 3-4 hours on a weeknight, I lean towards getting those to the table first.

Two Maybe Pile games are card games I enjoy, but their base mechanics are replicated in other titles more popular with the folks in my groups. Another game I really enjoyed, Zhanguo: The First Empire, is a blast and features a solid main action mechanic…but the teach is just enough of a lift to force some hesitation every time I want to get it back to the table. Arcadia Quest is such a joy, but getting even a short campaign game rolling is becoming a task with my play groups.

In a good year, I get 30-40 of the games in my personal collection to the table with my game groups, and another 20-30 games are popular enough with my kids that they come out all the time at home. But, that’s it. I’m a game reviewer, so I spend most of the year working through review copies provided by publishers. My first priority is playing those review titles first, and I’m often quite satisfied with that responsibility.

That SHOULD mean that every title on the Maybe Pile should move out of my personal collection. But just staring at the games in the Pile gives me pause. Those are games I love…can I really walk away?

by Julia Thiemann

It all started, as so many great ideas do, while walking our dog in the park during the summer of 2018. We were chatting about game mechanics (because, obviously, that’s what normal people talk about on dog walks) and stumbled upon a concept: a set collection system where tiles could serve multiple purposes. Instead of needing specific pieces for a set, players could use a mix-and-match approach. And what theme fits better than paleontology? After all, scientists have been creatively(!) assembling dinosaur bones for centuries. Case in point: Elasmosaurus, which had 71 cervical vertebrae - more than any other known animal - confused paleontologist Edward Cope so much that he placed the skull on the dinosaur’s tail. Whoops.

Back to the game: We began designing fossils composed of 1, 2, 4, or 6 tiles, spread across three excavation site variants. We also categorized fossils into three types: terrestrial, aquatic, and botanical. Interestingly, despite all the iterations and big changes, these core elements remained unchanged throughout development.

The next step was deciding where players would exhibit their fossils. The obvious answer? A museum. This led us to a grid-based display system where rows and columns were linked to fossil types. At first, matching a fossil to the correct row or column provided a placement bonus, but we
later switched this to an income system - because: who doesn’t love a good engine-building mechanic?

Looking back, it’s fascinating how the initial prototype felt both very different and surprisingly similar to the final version. The main actions were already there but instead of a shared action board, players had individual action slots on their boards. Excavations originally involved hiring paleontologists, which sounded fun until it became clear they were causing chaos. It was never clear where they were digging, and players had little incentive to hire more than one or two. So, we did what game designers must sometimes do with their darlings: we mercilessly cut them. In a chat with designer Mandela Fernandez-Graydon, we had a eureka moment: linking worker placement directly to excavation. Now, where you place your workers determines where you dig next. Bonus: Other players' workers unintentionally help you, increasing the number of tiles you can draw. Cooperation through competition!

Fast forward to September 2021. We were confident we had nailed the mechanics and were ready to focus on production. However, one playtest changed everything. A comment that stuck with us was: "Where are the visitors?" Museums need visitors, yet our design focused solely on management and exhibition. Thus, our editor Rico pushed us to introduce visitors, which in turn created interesting new mechanics. Players now gain visitors whenever they complete a fossil, because, in real life, unveiling a new fossil would surely attract a crowd!

This change also allowed for more refined balancing: instead of directly awarding victory points, players now receive visitors, which later convert into points at a 2:1 ratio. It also led to our personal favourite: a visitor queue. Instead of a dull counter, players physically extend a queue track, making it clear just how popular their museum is. After these major changes in 2021, both we and our editor quickly realized that everything had fallen into place. It finally felt like the complete game, allowing us to shift focus to final touches and production management.

We specifically requested a female illustrator and fell in love with April Borchelt’s art style. We were thrilled when she accepted the job. Her fossil illustrations are stunning, and she provided several cover drafts before settling on the final version - a dynamic, eye-catching piece that immediately draws players into the game.

Rico had an early idea to include standees for completed large fossils. Not only do they look fantastic on the table, but they also serve as clear visual indicators of scoring potential. Alongside April, Dennis Lohausen worked on the icons and standee designs, while Gaston handled everything else: boards, rulebook, characters, and more.

Simultaneously, we collaborated with the Natural History Museum of Berlin for scientific accuracy. Despite extensive research, we made numerous mistakes when placing species in the correct time periods or scaling fossil sizes accurately. Dr. Luthardt, Dr. Schwarz, and Dr. Neumann were instrumental in refining these details and contributed fascinating fun facts found in the final rulebook. Dr. Luthardt, in particular, provided invaluable insights into paleo-botany - a field we found unexpectedly captivating. Check out the story behind Wollemia in the game!

Final fun fact: Our dog Jordie is in the game! Look out for the tiny brown puppy with one ear up, one ear down. He’s been with us when we first had the idea and through all the highs and lows, so naturally, he earned his spot.

Looking back, we couldn’t be happier with the journey and where it led us. Fossilium turned into a beautifully crafted, accessible strategy game with high replayability and rich thematic depth. Our fabulous editors Chantal and Rico made sure that even the smallest detail – balancing, icons, rulebook, material, etc. – is addressed with meticulous care. The artwork, components, and table presence are stunning. And, of course, there are dinosaurs. What more could a board game designer wish for? (Okay, maybe a pet dinosaur. But until then, this will do.)