by W. Eric Martin

Let’s continue rolling through SPIEL Essen 25 teasers for upcoming games, today visiting Matagot and its associated studios.

▪️ First up is Red Leaf University, a 1-4 player midweight Eurogame from Adrian Adamescu and Florin Purluca that Grail Games will crowdfund in early 2026. Here’s an overview:

Players take actions with their students in six buildings — recruiting new students, upgrading existing ones — while engaging in a different mini-game on each tile, working to gain knowledge in the form of graduation points over the five rounds of the game.

I know some have tired of anthropomorphic animals in games, but Sylvain Leroy has created beautiful representations of historical figures in non-human forms.

▪️ At SPIEL Essen 25, Grail Games also featured the three newest titles in its Pixel game line, titles that were crowdfunded in July 2025 and available for purchase months ahead of their retail release. The games are:

• Ohio Bob, a mini-dungeon crawler for 1-2 players from Christophe Raimbault in which you must collect tools to make your way through all the levels of a temple before your health runs out.

• Harvest Valley, a Bruno Faidutti design in which 2-5 players place shared crops and personal farmhouses into a common field while trying to land the largest harvest.

• Aliens Attack!, a Space Invaders-style shoot-em-up in which you fend off waves of alien ships to get a shot at one of the game’s four motherships, whether on your own or with two players by using the variant rules.

▪️ Matagot featured two recent releases — the latest edition of Mission: Red Planet from Bruno Cathala and Bruno Faidutti and The Peak Team from Scott Almes — at SPIEL Essen 25, and I got a peek at two upcoming releases away from the show.

Bomb5 is a tiny game from Fabrice Puleo, who previously designed the similarly packaged Linx in 2023.

In this 2-5 player game, you’re trying to be the first to have five trophies showing in the grid. You have three tiles in hand numbered 1-4, and on a turn you place a tile face up adjacent to at least one other tile with the restriction that a line of adjacent tiles can’t sum to more than 5 — and when they sum exactly 5, you place one of your trophies at the end of the line. If the other end is empty, you place a random bomb tile at that end.

Whether empty or not, when you place your trophy, you flip the tile at the other end of the line. If that tile is a trophy, you’ve now hidden it (or revealed) it to the frustration (or delight) of whoever owns it; if that tile is a bomb, you carry out the effects of that bomb, which can vary widely.

Bomb5 will debut at the FIJ game fair in Cannes, France at the end of February 2026.

▪️ François Rouzé‘s co-operative game Room 25 has been released in many forms since its debut in 2013, with all forms of the game starting from the same premise: Players find themselves trapped in a prison of some sort, and in order to escape, they must locate room 25, avoiding dangers along the way.

In Q1 2026 Matagot will embark on a crowdfunding campaign for a new standalone edition of the design — the “same, but better” fifth edition — with the Kickstarter edition of the game including extra items, while the retail release will be more streamlined.

Non-final artwork and design

▪️ As for Matagot’s Kolossal Games brand, in early 2026 it will crowdfund Bharat: Kings of Legend, a 2-5 player game from Róbert Kóródi and Lívia Nemeth. Here’s an overview of this, in the publisher’s words, “Eurotrash” design:

Welcome to Bharat: Kings of Legend, an epic game of power, mysticism, and romance set in ancient India. Players take on the roles of kings from powerful clans, all striving to become the greatest emperor in the land. To achieve this, you must expand your influence, form alliances, earn the blessings of the gods, and practice yoga to gain mastery over your life energies. The game ends after three Sun cycles or when all kingdoms are consolidated. The player with the most points wins.

Prototype at SPIEL Essen 25 (Image: Holger Schmid)

Bharat offers a rich, dynamic experience in which every turn counts. Players must choose to advance the Sun or Moon cycle, affecting not only their own strategy but the game’s overall pace. This core mechanism drives deep interaction as players battle for kingdoms, seek favor through rituals, and compete in marriage contests. The Dharma track adds a unique layer of competition and can even decide tied outcomes. With multiple paths to victory, from military conquest and political influence to divine blessings and strategic pilgrimages, the game rewards diverse playstyles and ensures high replayability.