I’ve already shared my thoughts on 2020’s devilishly difficult card game Regicide…and, even 30 or 40 plays later, I still like what the base game is going for. I also love that you could play Regicide with a normal deck of cards if you don’t want to plop down the cash for a more handsome deck instead, using just the rules released by the game’s publisher, Badgers from Mars.

Regicide is great. If you’ve never heard of it or want a primer on the rules, check out my review of Regicide. Today, we’re going to discuss 2025’s Regicide: Legacy, which I picked up at Gen Con and excitedly got to the table.

The legacy game has 12 chapters, positioning your deck as a crew of adventurers who have a mystery to solve in a faraway land. Although Regicide: Legacy does have a world built around its systems, I’ll admit that I cared less about the worldbuilding and more about the gameplay. I have three thoughts that will hopefully steer you towards—or, away from—this very thoughtful legacy experience, in a spoiler-free format!

You Better Really, Really Love Regicide

The game’s first chapter, “A Call to Arms”, is essentially base Regicide. If you’ve never played the game, expect to…

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Around these parts I'm known as the RPG guy for my love of different systems and the opportunity to immerse myself in the theme of a game. Accidental Heroes, an upcoming app-driven adventure game designed by Wojciech Grajkowski and published by Lucky Duck Games, puts your hero on a topsy-turvy joyride through an ever-changing world bursting with familiar references. Let's hop on the tracks and see how it plays.

Accidental Heroes: The World is Your Oyster

I'll preface my discussion of Accidental Heroes by acknowledging that my experiences are based on a prototype copy that was limited in scope compared to what's expected in the complete game. At first I thought that the lack of content would be disappointing, but instead I was surprised by how many branching paths were available to my heroes as I played.

In Accidental Heroes, players assume the role of an "hero", a term surrounded by quotation marks because whether or not you live up to the moniker is up for you to decide. The object of the game is to pass two difficult Tests associated with Final Missions, acquiring a pair of Dragon Eggs before any other player is able to do so.

Heroes have three main attributes: brain, body, and combat. Each of these attributes is represented in an 'exquisite corpse' fashion…

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Mini Rogue: The Council (2026, Nuts! Publishing) is a dream come true for rogue-like video game fans like me. Sometimes, I just want a quick-playing challenge to table by myself, and I now see why the Mini Rogue series (first released in 2016 as Mini Rogue: A Roguelike Microgame) is so popular with tabletop players who also love rogue-like video games.

I was recently musing about my love affair of rogue-like video games such as Dead Cells, Balatro, Brotato, and The Binding of Isaac in an article on BoardGameGeek. Around the same time, I cracked open my review copy of Mini Rogue: The Council and was instantly hooked. That’s because gameplay in Mini Rogue is so easy to parse.

Players take on the role of one of the four included adventurers: Rat Catcher, Plague Doc, Alchemist, and the Flagellant. A series of rooms (laid out as a 3x3 grid of room cards), an enemy hit point (HP) tracker, and a personal play area that tracks player HP, food, spells, gold, and experience points (XP) are all you need to get rolling.

Across four floors, players must navigate 2-3 “areas” per floor, with each area represented by the 3x3 grid. Starting in the upper left corner, players must first complete that corner room before moving orthogonally from room to…

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After doing two plays of the 2025 family-weight card title Mooki Island (one play with my 12-year-old, then a play with my 9-year-old), I’m very sure of one thing: the artwork is the main reason for checking out the title.

That’s because the game itself is barely a game at all. The box hints at this as well, given that it believes it is “perfect for ages 4-10”; now that I’ve done plays, I absolutely recommend Mooki Island for a four- or five-year old child to play with an adult.

Here’s the entire game: a deck of 36 double-sided tarot cards is shuffled and split in half, creating two draw piles. There are five suits of Mookies (Sun, Moon, Fossil, Leaf, and Seashell), and there are also seven spiders in the deck. There are also five “legendary” mookies in the deck, one per suit, for the 72 total options spread across the deck.

On a turn, a player takes one of the two face-up cards, looks at both sides, then decides how to place it into their single personal scoring pile. If a spider is drawn and played, it must be played on an…

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At the end of the day, my review criteria is really simple: is the game fun or not?

Trails & Tails is a new self-published title. (BGG does not list a designer, artist, or publishing company…only “self-published.”) It admits its hook right up front: Trails & Tails is going for a Snakes & Ladders-style gaming experience (or, if you’re a gringo like me, Chutes & Ladders), where players move their playing piece up a board all the way to the top…hopefully taking short cuts along the way to reach the top faster.

The downside of Snakes & Ladders comes when snakes appear in the space where you end your movement…because if that’s what happens, you fall backwards and/or downwards until you reach a much less desirable space lower on the board. So, keep moving forward and things will generally work out.

Trails & Tails adds spice by giving each player two starting dice, differing by player; one player gets a D4 and a D20, while another might have a D6 and a D8. In each round, players roll these dice, then get to use 1-2 dice per turn to their liking. You can add the results of two dice, move forward a number of spaces on one die, or even subtract a larger die value from a smaller one…

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Very few games fall into a gray area for me, but Tales of the Arabian Nights does. It's easily one of the most random games I've played, and it often makes no sense at all. Still, it's given me some of my most memorable gaming moments, especially when my friends and I end up laughing at the absurd stories, like getting rewarded for beating up beggars.

​With so many old games coming back after years out of print, it's not surprising that Tales of the Arabian Nights is returning with a 40th Anniversary Edition. It's a clear sign that we're all getting older.

A New Genie in Town

​But this isn't just a basic reprint, a phrase that gets slapped on far too many of these revivals. Now there's a solo mode, some status cards have been changed or removed, and getting thrown in prison is no longer a death sentence. Many of the passages have been rewritten, though they still hold on to the harsh themes the original Arabian stories were built.

​Even with the updates, the main gameplay is still about earning destiny and story points by exploring, finding encounters, and interacting with them. City cards give you some direction by offering bonuses if you visit them, and…

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“I wish we still had our copy of Flotsam Float.”

This was the response from one of my kids after my third and final review play of the new family-weight title from our friends at Horrible Guild, Rocking Raft. Flotsam Float—a game so nice we actually reviewed it twice—was a big hit at my house for a couple years, in part because it was so much fun to stack things on raft and play through one of the best dexterity challenge games I’ve had the chance to review here at Meeple Mountain.

Both my kids and I thought that Rocking Raft might recreate some of that fantastic Flotsam Float magic. Sadly, we were wrong.

Gemboree

Rocking Raft is a dexterity-based order fulfillment game for 2-4 players that plays in 10-20 minutes. For this review, I played Rocking Raft once at four players with my review group, then twice with my 12-year-old, the latter because our two games took about 15 minutes in total.

The raft in question is a 3x3 grid of space on a square cardboard raft, supported by a plastic base with four flat edges. It stands comfortably in the middle of any play area. In the grid, a number of small gems in four…

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All the Crawl

Co-op dungeon crawlers are becoming so prevalent that they are pretty much their own genre. Open up Kickstarter or Gamefound, and you’re bound to see a flashy ad for some variant of this, often packed with oversized minis, excessive expansions, and a price tag that makes your wallet start sweating.

Early in my gaming career, I was enamored with these games, enjoying my time with Mansions of Madness, Gloomhaven, Arcadia Quest, Cthulhu: Death May Die, and many others. As time marches on, these games start to blur together, many feeling like different mix-ins of the same ice cream flavor. The theme changes, but innovative mechanics don’t always follow.

I had a chance to check out The Stygian Society, a game that came out in 2020 during the pandemic, with a cooperative angle perfect for partners stuck inside together.

But unlike other dungeon crawlers I’ve played, this one is a tower crawl, and a physical tower at that. Dexterity games are definitely not my thing, and it took me a good 15 minutes to build this centerpiece. At the very least, the table presence will turn heads.

The Big Climb

The Stygian Society plays out over a series of turns as players try to clear six…

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Seek No Further

Trading card games are one of the anchor pillars of the tabletop hobby. Whether it’s something mainstream like Magic: The Gathering, Lorcana, or Flesh and Blood, something a little more niche like One Piece Card Game or Final Fantasy Trading Card Game, or the crazy phenomenon that is still Pokémon, TCGs will always run parallel to board gaming.

The downside is that TCGs can require a heavy financial investment, and there’s always a risk surrounding the game’s longevity. Unlike staples like Magic and Pokémon, many TCGs fizzle out soon after release, becoming another name on the tombstone. Is anyone still playing Altered?

X: Seekers of Fortune is a card game that simulates the feeling of a TCG with no continued investment, no chase cards to pull, and no meta deck-building. That’s a huge draw for me since I love the playstyle of TCGs, but I’d rather have a self-contained experience like Compile  or Mindbug.

The folks at Mega Moth Studios were nice enough to send over the deluxe version of the game, which includes crisp playmats and even a first edition booster pack to mix into the base game. Hmm…do I smell a system being built here?

Fortune and Glory, Kid.…

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