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  Designer Diary: Tanglung

  by MarksmanGames on October 10, 2026

  by Mark William Howdy everyone. I am Mark William, former video editor, current data insights officer and the designer of Tanglung. This post is adapted from the blog series that I wrote on the game’s page. The Malay word tanglung [tahng-loong] is a direct loan from the Cantonese term for lanterns: 灯笼 [dang1 lung4], literally meaning ‘light’ and ‘basket’. Brought in to the Malay Archipelago by early Chinese Settlers, paper lanterns have been part of the Mid-Autumn Festival for centuries. Lighting up animal-shaped tanglung and carrying them around neighbourhoods together have now become a shared cultural experience for Malaysians. Tanglung TokensTanglung is my first published game, developed by Evan CheahEvan Cheah, illustrated by Yuki Joe Gaik KeeYuki Doodles and published by LUMALUMA. It is a game that tries to capture the feelings of the final bit of chess where you are trying to corner the king.To have a better idea of what I am talking about, here is a brief description of the rules.Tanglung has minimalistic rules but it is a deceptively strategic and tactical game that exists mostly in the players heads. You have 18 cards (2 reference cards, 16 Tanglung cards, 1 fan (block) token, 2 player tokens). First to win two matches wins the game. To win a match you need to reveal the final facedown card, bump (capture) your opponent twice, or leave your opponent with no valid moves. You can either move 1 space orthogonally then move the fan token, or use the card you are on for its movement powers, then discard that card after use.Limitation Breeds CreativityThere is a saying that necessity is the mother of invention. I like to think if that is so, limitation is the father of creativity. Tanglung started its life as an entry to the 2025 ABGF MY (Asian Board Game Festival Malaysia) 18 card game competition. During that time, I was already playing around with the notions of minimalism. Of ‘pack small and play big’, and the competition’s constraints of 18 cards with no extra components perfectly encapsulates that idea.Tanglung (formerly known as We Are Kings) won 1st runner up in the ABGFMY 2025 18 card competitionIf I couldn’t have a big sprawling table presence I could still take up that play space not physically, but mentally. The game is represented in reality by 18 cards, but it exists in the yomi/donkey space that is the players minds.Shedding Light On Its PurposeInitial versions of this game were serviceable, but initial playtests had a recurring thread in the feedback. What was the point? The game was technically sound, but the possibilities felt endless and gameplay felt like busywork. It lacked a pulse.The prototype stageIn the beginning, the sole objective was capturing your opponent twice. But that felt more like a side effect rather than an objective. But through some deep soul-searching and playtesting revealed two more goals. Flipping the final facedown card when explored, and outwitting your opponent tactically by leaving them with no valid moves. Now the game has a direction. 3 Acts Told in 16 CardsCole Wehrle said that “Games are these weird narrative spaces. You can’t have beginnings, middles, and ends the way a story can have.” And I agree - but games still need progression. We Are Kings (Tanglung) was extensively tested both offline and onlineAt first all 16 cards were set up facedown. Players had a huge possibility space where every move felt as valid as every other. So I thought let’s have some cards face up - that signposted where players may want to go, and gave a shape to the decision space.But it still felt static where the beginning of the game felt the same as the end. So then we added the rule that when you use the cards for their movement powers, they are then removed. Having cards be removed as you use them also helped to reduce mental load while also letting the game have an escalating tension.[imageid=9768099 medium square]Seeing the Lantern For the Trees: Letting GoThis part will be significantly different from the designer diary - as it was written before the game was released.I have been in the creative industry for the bulk of my working life. I was no stranger to that delicate dance between your creation as a personal expression and as a professional and collaborative pursuit. Yet I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t a struggle.As designers, we become attached to ideas, mechanics, and the stories we tell ourselves about our designs. Yet if I held on too tight and did not allow people into this space that is Tanglung; I believe it would not have made as much of an impact as it does.Tanglung gave Yuki the illustrator a reason to dive deep into the history, aesthetics and cultural significance of the lanterns to the Malaysian people. Tanglung gave LUMA a reason to share about the lanterns at the George Town Heritage festival. My mother-in-law was even interviewed as she made lanterns the traditional way when she was younger.Gameplay wise I’ve seen the smiles that people had while playing the game, the laughter, and of course that face when you are locked in - brows furrowed, jaws clenched and for some people red faced, yet internally they are having the time of their lives (one of the inspirations for Tanglung was this exact feeling when I was playing Hive with a friend and we didn’t speak throughout the game but as soon as it ended we were laughing, teasing and giving play-by-play analysis of what went right and wrong).Perhaps most humbling of all are the testimonials from players using Tanglung (which has a puzzly but cosy solo mode) to keep their minds active and comfort themselves in hospital wards post-op. That deeply moved me.This is all a long-winded way of saying: If I hadn’t let go, Tanglung would have just been my game. But by letting people in, it became ours - a shared experience, with effects outgrowing the people involved.Tanglung is available at retail through “Play Play Asia” an onsite shop that curates tabletop games from across Asia.It will be at Spiel 2026 in Essen, Germany. I will also be there (Say hi!)We are working to get it available to be purchased online in the future.

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  Designer Diary: Dungeon Cube

  by Craving on October 9, 2026

  by Nicolò Chioato Twenty Days, a Couch, and a Rubik's CubeIt was the autumn of 2022, and I had just undergone surgery for two herniated discs in my back.My recovery came with some fairly strict instructions: I couldn't stay on my feet for too long, but more importantly, I couldn't sit down. That meant no board games, no computer, and not much television either. For about twenty days, I could essentially do only two things: walk or lie down.A tragedy.Fortunately, at the time I was learning how to solve a Rubik's Cube. So I spent a lot of those days lying on the couch with the cube in my hands, turning it over and over, studying it, and trying to memorize the algorithms needed to solve it. After staring at it for long enough, one day a rather strange thought occurred to me:"What if the creator had chosen these particular colors for a reason?"What if yellow meant loot? Blue meant the sea? Red meant danger? Green meant open plains?What if, all these years, we had been solving the cube as a simple puzzle without realizing that behind those colors there could have been a story of journeys, monsters, treasures, and adventures?Of course, I didn't actually believe Ernő Rubik had hidden a fantasy game inside his cube. But the idea was there now.One Face, One Tiny AdventureThere was one property of the cube that particularly fascinated me: the six center pieces always remain in the same position relative to one another. Everything else moves, rotates, and gets scrambled, but the centers do not. So I started imagining that each center could represent a hero, while the eight squares surrounding it formed a sort of micro-map. Suddenly, when I looked at one face of the cube, I could see a scene.The yellow hero, for example, became a thief, specialized in recovering as much treasure as possible. There was a monster to his right. Another was approaching from the opposite corner, skirting the orange desert in front of him. Behind him, the sea blocked his escape, but to his left there was treasure waiting to be claimed.All he had to do was defeat the monster beside him, and the loot would be his. Nine colored squares had become a tiny adventure.One of the first scenes I imagined while looking at a face of the cube: the yellow hero surrounded by monsters, terrain, and treasure.The First, Gloriously Useless PrototypeAt that point, I wanted to see the idea physically in front of me. I happened to own a LEGO cube onto which pieces could be attached on every side. I could even place a LEGO minifigure in the center of a face, which seemed perfect for representing the hero. It felt almost made for the job. So I built the first prototype of Dungeon Cube.It didn't work.The first Dungeon Cube prototype. Much more useful for discovering what not to do than for actually playing the game.The problem was that I needed to communicate far more information than those tiny LEGO pieces could convey. A monster, a chest, a trap, a coin, a mountain — on such a small space, each element needed to be recognizable immediately. LEGO pieces were either too abstract, or, when I tried to make them more descriptive, simply too large. I needed symbols.From LEGO Pieces to StickersThe second prototype kept the LEGO hero in the center of the face, but the other squares were replaced with stickers. Monsters, treasures, and obstacles could finally have a clear visual identity.The second prototype. Visually, it was getting much closer to the final idea — but the actual game was still missing. Now I had a hero, and I had a vocabulary of symbols. The important question remained: What was the player actually supposed to do with them? My first idea was to connect the symbols physically to the hero. If a mission required the hero to equip a sword, the sword symbol should end up next to the minifigure's arm. If the hero had to confront a monster, that monster should be directly in front of him. And that was when the core mechanism of the entire game began to emerge:Manipulate the cube to bring the right symbol into the right position.The missions would give narrative meaning to those configurations. You were not simply moving symbol X into position Y: that symbol might be a sword the hero needed to wield, a monster they had to face, or a treasure they needed to reach. A configuration of nine squares could tell a story.Giving the Colors a MeaningAt this point I returned to the question that had started the whole project: "What if these colors really did mean something?" I decided that each color should have its own thematic identity. Red would contain monsters, dangers, and threats to fight or avoid. Yellow would contain treasures, coins, gems, and other rewards. Blue would represent the sea, water, and similar elements. White would contain allies, help, and generally positive elements. Green would represent travel and open spaces. Orange would represent mountains, difficult terrain, and challenging routes.These associations changed and evolved during development, but one thing I still find amusing is that the final version of Dungeon Cube remains surprisingly faithful to them. I now had the heroes, the symbols, the colors, and the missions.It was time to actually play the game.A Puzzle Wasn't EnoughThe first tests were disappointing. Simply using a symbol's position relative to the minifigure wasn't precise enough. It wasn't always clear which square counted as being "in front" of the hero, when a monster was supposed to attack, when it could be defeated, or exactly what consequences it should have. I could have written everything explicitly on the mission card: "Move this symbol to exactly this square."But then the game would have become: "I managed to get symbol X into position Y in three moves instead of four."That wasn't what I wanted. I wanted the player to have a specific objective, but I also wanted things to happen while they were trying to accomplish it.Perhaps while trying to reach a treasure, they would encounter a monster. Perhaps they would be forced across a mountain and suffer fatigue. Or perhaps they would unexpectedly discover something useful. The cube couldn't just be the puzzle. It also had to generate the consequences of solving that puzzle.That was when I came up with what I called the connection points.Connection PointsEvery symbol on a movable square would have one or more small connection points. The hero's center square would have corresponding points of its own.Whenever a connection point on an outer square lined up with a matching point on the hero, that symbol became active.That was all I needed. Now you could look at your face of the cube and immediately understand what was happening. - If the activated symbol was the one required by the mission, great. - If it was a monster, you fought the monster. - If it was an obstacle, you suffered its effect. - If it was a bonus, even better.Connection points solved one of the fundamental problems of the design: they made it immediately clear which elements on the face were interacting with the hero.For the first time, you could actually read a face of the cube. The system seemed to work. Then I ran into a much bigger problem.Too Many Moves, Too Many Monsters, Too Much of EverythingI started writing more complicated missions. A mission might require, for example, two different symbols to be present on the same face at the same time. To create that kind of configuration, the player inevitably needed to make several moves. Initially, I resolved the hero's face after every single move.It was a disaster.Getting two symbols into the right positions could require a long sequence of rotations. Every rotation meant checking the face again, activating new symbols, fighting more monsters, and resolving more bonuses and penalties. A simple mission turned into an endless chain of effects. It was clumsy, slow, and almost impossible to control. This problem stopped development for weeks. I had the object. I had the concept. I had even found a way to turn the squares of the cube into a little story. But I couldn't turn it into a game that was actually enjoyable to play. I seriously considered abandoning the project.The Solution Was Already Inside the CubeThen, one day, I was back on the couch. I was studying algorithms for solving the Rubik's Cube when I noticed something that, of course, anyone familiar with the cube already knows: some algorithms allow you to rotate the lower layer — or even the two lower layers — without changing the upper face.And suddenly I saw the solution. Not every move needed to have the same cost.A player could freely make any number of moves that did not disturb their own face, while having only a limited number of moves that were allowed to change it.In the version I was developing, this meant having two moves that could disturb your own face, plus unlimited moves that did not, before resolving it.That one rule changed the entire game.Complex missions could now be solved in a reasonable number of steps. Players could focus on the objective and manipulate the rest of the cube to prepare their position, but unexpected consequences still happened. I had finally found the balance I was looking for: enough control to make plans, but not enough control to prevent every surprise. That was probably the moment when Dungeon Cube actually started working as a game.Six Faces, Six HeroesI began writing missions and testing them.But while working on them, another detail of the Rubik's Cube kept returning to my mind. There are six center pieces. And in my game, each center represented a hero. Until then, I had mostly thought of the game as an individual experience, but why not use all six faces? What if several players played on the same cube?I loved the idea of the cube representing a single shared world viewed from different perspectives. Each player could have their own hero, their own face, and potentially their own asymmetric abilities. Starting from the mission system, the most natural multiplayer structure was a race. Everyone would try to complete the same mission, but each player would work from their own face of the cube. At the end of their turn, they would physically pass the cube to the next player. The first player to complete the objective would be the one who had managed to do it using fewer turns — and therefore fewer meaningful moves — than the others.This was not a dexterity race. Nobody had to perform cube algorithms faster than anybody else. It was a race of efficiency. And during the first multiplayer tests, something appeared that I hadn't fully planned.When you improve your own face of a Rubik's Cube, you inevitably change the others as well. In other words, while trying to help yourself, you are potentially making life more difficult for your opponents. With the rule allowing unlimited moves that did not disturb your own face, this could even become intentional. A player could use those "free" moves to leave as many problems as possible on the next player's face, forcing them to spend their precious moves clearing the obstacles. The interaction came directly from the physical structure of the cube. And once players became comfortable with the system, it was a lot of fun.IDEAGBy this point, the prototype had almost reached its final mechanical form. I tested it with friends, collected feedback, and continued making changes. Eventually I brought it to IDEAG, the Italian gathering where board game designers bring prototypes to playtest and exchange feedback. That was when I noticed something I hadn't really been able to judge while testing mostly with people I already knew.The prototype attracted people.A Rubik's Cube turned into a board game was immediately curious. People would stop, look at it, and want to understand what it was and how it worked.I received a lot of feedback there, and several of those suggestions found their way into later versions. The game worked. But there was still one thing that didn't feel right. Failing a mission was too frustrating.Failing, but Becoming StrongerThat problem found its solution after the game was signed by Red Glove. Development was handled by Federico Dumas, who introduced an idea that completed the structure of the game: a roguelite-style progression system. If a player failed a mission, they would not simply start over from scratch. The failed attempt still earned them a reward that could be spent on bonuses and upgrades. On the next attempt, they would therefore be slightly stronger. If they failed again, they would gain even more tools to work with.Failure was no longer just a punishment. It had become part of the progression. This also meant that a particularly difficult mission could no longer become an impassable wall. You might not beat it on your first attempt, but by continuing to play you would gradually accumulate enough advantages to find a way through. That was the missing piece.Six Heroes, One StoryAt that point, the main mechanisms were finally in place. But the game still needed something I had not been able to give it myself: a real story capable of connecting all those missions. This was where Simona Lombardo joined the project. She wrote six stories, one for each of the game's heroes. Those six adventures were not separate stories. They intertwined into one larger epic narrative, with meetings, twists, and different endings. That narrative structure finally gave the missions something they had previously possessed only in embryonic form: A context. A reason to face them. A world to be part of.Dungeon CubeThen came the illustrations, the final graphic design, and the components. And the little prototype born during a forced recovery — after passing through a LEGO cube, stickers, minifigures, connection points, countless tests, and more than a few moments when I thought the whole thing would never work — finally became:Dungeon Cube: La Furia dei DrahakorDungeon Cube: La Furia dei Drahakor in its final form.Looking back, I find it amusing that so much of the final game was already hidden, although I couldn't possibly have known it at the time, inside the very first question I asked myself while lying on the couch with a Rubik's Cube in my hands:"What if those colors really meant something?"

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  The Capsule Collector and the Azul Kids Played Codenames on Netflix for the Gunsen

  by boardgamersteph on October 7, 2026

  by Steph Hodge [imageid=9848748 medium rep]▪️ Czech Games Edition (CGE) announced Codenames Party! An all-new way to play Codenames. Now on Netflix! You simply need your phone connected to the tv as a controller. If you have Netflix, you are ready to go!From the newsletter:Alongside the new Party Mode, CODENAMES Party includes: Classic Team Mode (2–10 players): The traditional CODENAMES experience, with teams competing to identify their agents based on one-word clues from their spymasters. Case Studies (1–10 players): The mode that is tailored to everyone who prefers the guesser role in CODENAMES. Players compete with their friends in solving prepared puzzles.CODENAMES Party is included with Netflix memberships at no additional cost, with no ads or in-app purchases.▪️ Office Dog released Gunsen: The Battle for Toshi Ranbo from designers Matthew O'Malley and Ben Rosset (Fromage & The Search for Planet X). This game plays 2-6 players and has a box playtime of 60-90 minutes. The race is on to complete 7 objectives first.From BGG:In Gunsen: The Battle for Toshi Ranbo, Rokugan teeters on the brink of upheaval as the Great Clans—the Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Phoenix, Scorpion, and Unicorn—clash for control of the legendary fortress, Toshi Ranbo. Once a strategic gem on the borderlands, the castle now stands at the heart of a war-torn battlefield, its banners contested by rival warlords seeking glory and vengeance. The air hums with the tension of drawn steel and elemental magic, as ancient shrines smolder and village alliances shift like the wind.In this strategy game, players take on the role of ambitious daimyō representing one of the seven Great Clans: recruiting samurai heroes, drafting powerful orders, and building their clan's military might and strategic influence. Through tactical maneuvers and clever engine-building, they strive to fulfill seven victory objectives—from capturing and holding the coveted castle to completing secret missions and claiming sacred locations. Only one clan will write its legend in the blood-soaked chronicles of Toshi Ranbo.▪️ Azul Kids from asmodee is available now! From designer Michael Kiesling (Azul). This is a new stand-alone game for children and families. Designed with kids in mind ages 5+, Azul Kids plays 2-4 players in 20 minutes.From the Asmodee Website:Welcome to the mosaic workshop! Sit down at your workbench and choose a mosaic you'd like to create. Collect pieces from the bowls and place them on your board. The winner is the first player to complete their mosaic! MY FIRST MOSAIC WORKSHOP: Welcome young artists to their very own workbench! Azul Kids introduces children to the world of strategy as they choose a mosaic to create and collect colorful pieces to fill their personal boards.▪️ Capsule Collector will be one of many games found at Spiel from Korea Boardgames. Capsule Collector is a small box card game for 2-4 players and plays in 15 minutes. From designer Joohyun. Be sure to check out all the titles from Korea Boardgames!From BGG:Capsule Collector is a set-collection game for 2–4 players in which players compete to gather and open colourful toy capsules. Players draw cards from a deck and add them to a communal queue, then choose a colour and take all available cards of that colour to fill a 4×4 personal collection grid. Because cards are initially collected "capsule-side" up, players must strategically activate Action Tiles to flip them to their "toy-side" to score points. The game features a dynamic action system where the number of cards collected in a turn determines which tile is activated, and tiles are shifted after use to change the available actions for future turns. The game concludes when a player fills their 16-card grid, leading to a final scoring phase. Toys vary in rarity; for example, a colour set like red might contain three high-value "5-star" toys, five "3-star" toys, and ten "1-star" toys, which shifts the probability of a big score depending on the colour's total card count. To maximize points, players must use "Open" actions to flip connected groups of the same colour or spend Open Tokens for individual reveal.

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  Designer diary: NASCARD

  by Koyitaxs on October 6, 2026

  by Guillem Coll Nascard aims to capture the excitement and feel of big racing games, but condenses that experience into a deck of just 110 cards.The challenge, however, was precisely that: how could we represent a race—complete with overtaking, risk, car management, tires, and fuel—without a board, without miniatures, and using only cards? And, above all, how could we ensure that this wasn't just a simple abstraction, but truly conveyed the feeling of driving on the edge, deciding when to push and when to preserve the car?The answer came from combining a trick-taking system with a car race. A combination that allowed us to concentrate the decisions of each round on how to drive, how much to risk, and which resources to sacrifice to try and gain positions.However, reaching the current system required a lot of testing, changes, and ideas that would eventually disappear. This is the story of how we went from a trackless race with seven asymmetrical suits to the final version of Nascard.STARTING POINTAt SPIEL Essen 2023, we (Ferran Renalias and Guillem Coll) were presenting our first joint game, Trekking, published by TCG Factory. That year, Ferran was in the spotlight, as his game Lacrimosa, published by Devir, was one of the sensations of the fair. Devir was also presenting their new 'Pocket' games, a line of small-box, economical games that particularly caught our attention.I knew Ferran was passionate about Flamme Rouge—he always brings it to meetups along with all its expansions—and that year I was playing a lot of Heat. So I started mulling over an idea: could we bring the feelings we loved from those games into a Pocket box?Once I had a first idea, I proposed it to Ferran, and we started working on it together.FOUR PREMISESBefore starting to build prototypes, we defined four ideas that we wanted to serve as the foundation for Nascard. Each one addressed one of the challenges the project presented: - How to represent a race without a board - How to differentiate it mechanically - How to convey the theme - How to create interaction between the drivers1. No Track → The Space ProblemIn racing games, the main component is usually the track. Since we couldn't fit a board inside the box, the first challenge was how to represent movement and the distance between cars without a physical track.The initial idea was to dispense with it entirely and represent only the relative distance between the drivers. If a car had a better turn than the one behind it, it would place a space card between them; if it was better than the one ahead, it would remove one and, if there weren't any left, it would overtake it.With this minimalist system, we thought we could accurately represent the back-and-forth of a race. Later on, we would discover that it created more problems than it solved.2. Trick-taking → The Main Mechanics ProblemThe second challenge was finding a mechanic that would set Nascard apart from traditional racing games. Ferran proposed an initial premise: making the race work through a trick-taking system.We didn't know of any game that combined these two concepts, and it seemed like an interesting way to turn every round into a battle between the drivers. But we were clear about one thing: the trick-taking couldn't be an abstract mechanic— it had to be the engine of the race.3. Suit Abilities → The Thematization ProblemThis brought us to the third challenge: how to prevent the trick-taking from being just an abstract card system with a racing theme slapped on top?To achieve this, each suit needed to have an ability tied to car management: tires, fuel, overtaking, and so on. Suits wouldn't just be a way to determine who wins each trick— playing a card would also mean deciding how to drive.4. Turn Order → The Interaction ProblemFinally, we wanted the order of play to convey race feelings as well. Instead of a start player and clockwise order, turn order would be determined by the position of the cars: the driver in first place plays first, followed by second place, and so on. Beyond making thematic sense, this introduces a minor catch-up mechanism: cars behind can see what the ones ahead have done before making their decision. Just like in a real race, the lead car chooses its line first, and the others can react to it.These four premises defined what we wanted to achieve. Now all that was left was to find a system that made it all work.EVOLUTION OF THE TRICK-TAKING SYSTEMThe main challenge was creating a trick-taking system that was interesting enough on its own, yet at the same time fit the feelings of a race. We didn't want to simply use tricks to determine who moved forward the most; we wanted every decision in the game to convey the feeling of deciding when to push and when to preserve the car.The First VersionAt the beginning, we proposed a system of seven suits with values from 1 to 9, featuring a specific ability per suit and a varying number of cards (from three to nine cards).The card of the suit that set the round acted as trump and received a +3 to its value. Thus, a trump 5 became an 8 and could beat a 7 of another suit, while a trump 1 would still lose against a 7.The idea had a lot of potential, but we quickly realized there were too many different abilities and that the system was hard to control and balance. We decided to simplify it and moved to five suits with 10 cards each.The Stage System At this point, we introduced a stage system to add more variety to the rounds. Each round, a stage card was revealed, determining rewards based on your final position in the trick: you would move forward more or fewer spaces and could recover or expend fuel on a track. However, despite all these variants, we still hadn't quite found the kind of decision we were looking for. We wanted players to ask themselves: 'Do I go all out this round, or do I save the car and drive less aggressively?Early stages of the trick-takingThe Key: Trump or AbilityAnd that question led us to what would become the key to the final system. If you play trump, you drive aggressively and move forward more; if you play another suit, you move forward less, but you can take advantage of its ability. From there, we also simplified the stage system. Each round, the winner of the trick moves forward 6 spaces, the second place moves 5, the third 4, and so on down to sixth place, who only moves 1.This simplification made the decision much clearer: do you want to compete to win the trick and move forward more, or do you prefer playing another suit to take advantage of its ability? And above all, this decision was directly tied to how we wanted the driving to feel.The Four SuitsWith the system more defined, we had to balance the abilities of the four suits so that all of them were equally powerful, incorporating a thematic leitmotif into each one: Yellow - Power: allows you to move extra spaces. Orange - Fuel: allows you to draw cards from the deck. Grey - Tires: allows you to recover worn-out cards in front of you. Blue - Leadership: allows the card to always act as a trump.Four ability variants - orange suit (prototype version)And built upon this scheme, we also created four ability variants for each suit—preserving their character and core function, but varying their power and requirements from one game to the next.That way, the trick-taking stopped being merely the system that determined who moved forward the most and became the engine behind driving decisions: pushing hard, saving resources, taking risks to win the trick, or letting it go to leverage an ability instead.EVOLUTION OF CAR WEARWe were clear that, to convey the feelings we were looking for, Nascard couldn't just be a trick-taking game where whoever places best in the trick moves forward the most. We needed the car to experience some wear, and for driving decisions to have real consequences.The first approach was a very simple fuel management system, with a small track that forced players to find a balance between spending and recovering fuel. But we quickly noticed a problem: it isn't very thematic to recover fuel simply by driving. If we wanted to keep that system, we would need to introduce pit stops.And that's where an idea popped up that fascinated us: instead of managing fuel, we could manage car wear by introducing a tire card directly into our own hand.The system was based on two very simple rules: you couldn't change the order of the cards in your hand, and you could only play cards that were to the right of the tire card.At the start of the game, the tire card was placed all the way to the left, so you had all cards available. When you played certain cards—especially when following trump and pushing the car to move forward more—you had to wear down your tires and slide the tire card to the right. Any cards left to its left were no longer available. The more you pushed the car, the fewer options you had left to keep driving. And when you needed to recover, you could make a pit stop: draw new cards and slide the tire card all the way back to the left.We loved the idea because the wear wasn't an abstract tracker: it was physically right there in your hand, directly affecting which cards you could play. However, during playtests we discovered it had a major flaw.It restricted players' options too much. They often ended up with very few available cards, which created a frustrating experience. On top of that, since you had to handle the cards to move the cars and manage other actions, maintaining their strict order without messing it up was an added headache. That's why we decided to simplify the system and remove the tire card. Now, all cards in your hand are always available, but when an action requires you to wear down your tires, you choose and place the affected cards in front of you. These cards remain temporarily out of play, and you can recover them when you make a pit stop or when you use a grey suit ability. And we were still missing one element to represent: fuel. Instead of turning it into another track, we decided to allow certain actions to burn fuel by permanently discarding a card from your hand. That card can no longer be recovered for the rest of the race.This way, we ended up with two distinct forms of wear: tires limit you temporarily, while fuel permanently reduces your options. And both are a direct consequence of the decisions you make during the race.EVOLUTION OF THE TRACKAs mentioned earlier, our starting point was to create a racing game that relied on the relative position of the cars rather than moving them around a physical track board. In early versions, we used a system of adding or removing space cards between cars, but we quickly realized it created too many edge cases and exception rules. On top of that, constantly adding and removing cards felt clunky and tedious.We then tested several alternatives. In one of them, the cars moved down a straight track with multiple lanes, using trick-taking cards to switch lanes and hunt for open spaces. It was more tangible, but at the end of each round we had to reposition the cars to maintain the gaps between them, making the system impractical.In the end, we accepted that maybe we didn't need to reinvent the track and decided to build it simply with cards. Each track card allows space for two cars—one in the inside lane and one in the outside lane. But what happens when a third car tries to occupy the exact same space? Well… NASCAR!NASCAR racing has a key feature that fit our system perfectly: contact and bumps between cars. That's how collisions were introduced, eventually becoming just another part of the race.In the end, the simplest solution turned out to be the best one: a track built with cards that allowed us to represent the race in a tangible way, without sacrificing the pocket-sized spirit of the project.SOLO PLAY AND LOW PLAYER COUNTSFrom the start, we wanted Nascard to work well at different player counts, but there was an obvious issue: with only two or three cars on the track, part of the tension and interaction we were looking for got lost. The solution was to create an automa that could add extra cars to the race. This way, it not only allows for solo play, but you can also use it in two or three-player games to fill out the grid and make the race more competitive.However, we wanted to avoid creating a complex automa that required a lot of its own rules. The automa needed to behave almost identical to any other car in the race, use the same system as the players, and most importantly, enrich the decisions you have to make while playing the game.The solution (after numerous iterations) was as simple as placing a card in front of each automa at the start of every turn. By doing this, you can see the suit played on the card back, but not its value. Five seconds of maintenance, bringing extra tension to the game. A natural extension of the core racing system that also lets you adjust the intensity in lower player counts.WORKING WITH DEVIRA few months after that SPIEL Essen game fair, we pitched the game to Devir. Fortunately, the proposal fit their Pocket line and we began a new development phase—this time working alongside Diego San Martín.Reaching this stage didn't mean the game was finished, though. One of the most interesting parts of the process was seeing how the game continued to evolve with a fresh pair of eyes. We worked to polish the ability cards as well as the turn order, ensuring everything ran as cleanly as possible.The illustration and graphic design were handled by Meeple Foundry, who, as with all their projects, did an incredible job, giving the game a spectacular look.And that brings us to the end of the journey: from an initial idea of making a trackless race to a complete racing game packed into a 100-card deck.This SPIEL, we'll be presenting Nascard, and we hope to have achieved what we set out to do back in 2023: capture the thrill and feel of big racing games, all inside a... Pocket box.We hope you enjoyed this designer diary, and above all, that those of you who try the game enjoy playing it as much as we enjoyed creating it.Ferran i Guillem

• 
  Please Pass the Combo

  by whenindoubteatout on October 5, 2026

  by Justin Bell “I mean…how are you DOING all of that???”The exasperated player to my right had finished their turn, and they were staring at my player board as I was finishing up a very long turn of my own. The game we were playing: Timespan, the upcoming SPIEL Essen release from the team at Alion—by Dr. Ø…the same publisher that gave us last year’s strategy title Recall.As profiled by the designers themselves in a recent Designer Diary posted here on BGG, Timespan is a peaceful, simultaneous play civilization game. Now that I’ve played it, Timespan has a few similarities to the recent “conveyor belt” civ game Ancient Knowledge.While I enjoyed Ancient Knowledge, I think Timespan is the game that will connect with more players, in large part due to its excellent—and exceptionally clean—action and resource management systems, its setup variety, a unique batch of cards, and a very straightforward teach.That, and the combos. Oh my goodness, the combos.As I placed Timespan into the permanent collection—seven plays in, it’s safe to say that Timespan is a keeper—I looked at my other games that offer sexy, combotastic things I look for, especially when the player count stays low.The player count bit is worth noting, because as much as I love combos, I don’t like to wait for every other player in a four-player game to finish combos of their own. So, give me my combos, but all I need is enough time to figure out my next series of combos…ideal for a two-, maybe three-player operation.The loaded combo plate game I come back to the most is Tiletum, a Board&Dice release designed by Daniele Tascini and Simone Luciani. I love Tiletum because I love dice and I love combos…but, I generally avoid Tiletum at its full, four-player count. Two or three players? Perfect. That way, I can wrap up a turn, start milling on the ways I can attack my next turn based on the dice left on the action wheel, and by the time I have a few thoughts, bam: I’m up again.It’s the moment during any combo-rich turn, when you unleash your genius on the rest of the table (stay with me here), that I love most. “I’m going to take the light blue die, which gives me six iron, but only one action point, to take the Merchant action. But thanks to that move I made earlier, I have a +3 bonus action point marker for Merchant actions, so that gives me a total of four action points.”At this moment, your friends might be giving you the side-eye…but, no matter. Remember: you are a genius.“I’m going to use a bonus tile to take a two-point Architect action, so that I can move into position to use the iron and some stone I picked up on a previous turn. Then, I’m going to hoover up a couple more action tiles, then build this pillar in Firenze but also fulfill a contract with that iron I just picked up…”And on and on. In a game of Tiletum, there will be three or four times—maybe more, depending on the players’ skill levels—where you feel like the queen of the world, the king of the castle, a noble of distinction, as you round out a turn with a final, massive VP salvo of scoring bombs that will make you say something out loud akin to “the prosecution rests, your honor.”And it will feel good. No…it will feel great.Sometimes, it’s not even about winning the game. It’s about setting up the massive combo plate that you will deliver late in the third round of a four-round epic, by—depending on the game—moving your pieces into place at just the right moment to sell everything you can all at once, or spend six workers across two action areas to fulfill two huge public milestones and trigger end-game scoring for the card tableau that’s been waiting to explode for a few turns now.Now, watching another player’s combo can lead to mixed emotions, certainly like what I mentioned at the start of this article. “Track envy” might kick in as you watch another player’s combo land them at the end of a 15-space track that you have no chance of reaching. Or, you might celebrate another player’s huge turn with an envious, mocking round of applause as you wonder how that player was able to accomplish so many crucial game elements with a single worker. Or, you might just nod in approval, as you wrap up combos of your own.I have called out my love affair with Rats of Wistar here before; SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is another combo plate special. Sometimes, the combos are small, but I still love them, in games as varied as En Route, Inventions: Evolution of Ideas, or Yokohama. When one thing gets me even a single other thing that allows me to trigger an action I otherwise could not, I want to taste that moment…because I want to feel clever as I can.Combos give you that. And Timespan…Timespan has a LOT of that.Like the best combo-rich environments, Timespan offers a very nice, slow burn that crescendos into a final round that many of you will need to experience in order for it to be believed. I’ve now seen games where it feels like reaching 75 points will be a struggle before the fifth and final action phase…then the game ends, and you look up to see that you have 133 points. Or maybe a lot more.It is for this reason that I think many players, media, and industry types will have Timespan on their end-of-year top 10 lists. As the Diary indicated, Timespan is the kind of medium-weight Euro with zero direct conflict. As much as I love direct conflict in other games, Timespan is very clearly going for a different angle—”peace” is a trackable, scorable resource—and many people in my network are looking for a game that can be just as robust solo as it can be with other players.So, come for the setting and the theme as a race through history, although I would admit that Timespan doesn’t really feel like a civ game. Fine, but stay for the combos.During one of my multiplayer games, I showed the new players how a first round could look, and even during that sampling of gameplay, the two other people sitting with me began to see the magic of getting resources, then using the upgrade system to buy basic resources like wood or spending them to upgrade different resources, to then have enough resources to buy that card you thought was out of reach in the game’s first round.With an expanded worker pool and an action tableau unique to each player, Timespan dials up the combos to fever pitch even by its third action phase. From time to time, I would look up and see other players literally giggling with excitement as they were messing around with their tableau. Luxury tiles boost action strength. Advancing on any of the game’s five tracks (science, culture, spaceship, balloon, and ship) might offer bonuses that change the scope of that round in real time. A player’s tech board might have a one-time bonus that feeds the start of a new combo.Getting all of this into a 90-minute package (or about an hour when playing solo) is quite a feat…but, again, simultaneous play changes everything. Now I see why so many designers are coming up with ways to squeeze these efficiency engine-building experiences into tighter timeframes: everyone loves the puzzle, and no one likes the waiting.Love a good combo? I’d love to hear from you. What are some of your favorites? And do we need to add a “combo” family to the BGG categories we use to track games?

• 
  Publisher Diary: Fadenfroh

  by Nebenerwerbsbauer on October 4, 2026

  by Julian Steindorfer Where and when does this story start? Let me try to untangle the thread and tell you how Fadenfroh* came to be. *(a German word creation merging the words “thread” (Faden) and “colorful” (farbenfroh).Does this story start in June 2025 at the Austrian Game Design meeting? I walked by Alexander Pfister's table and saw a game I had never heard of before, even though we playtest together every week.Could the story start in 2024 when Jordy Adan (Cartographers, Fliptoons) and Alex have their first playtest of their game together after working on it since 2019?Maybe it starts already in 2015 when I sink my axe (rule) into the prototype that would later become the Kennerspiel des Jahres 2016 winning Isle of Skye, that Alex co-designed with Andreas Pelikan. No matter where the story starts. It jumps right into action after my first playtest a week after I saw the game on Alex's table. It's 11pm on a hot summer night a few days after I have seen the game for the first time. Most other designers had already left our weekly game design meeting. Alex and I sit down. He pulls out what can only be described as a creative collage of sleeves. The start player marker is missing; he improvises with a glue cap. Who needs a fancy prototype, sell sheet or pitch video, when the gameplay is awesome?Alexander Pfister and the glue cap in June 2025Alex keeps the glue cap but I leave with the prototype in my backpack. Five days later the contract for the game is signed. Not offered, signed. It's true love at first play. From now on Jordy, Alex and I meet for digital playtests at least once a week. The game is already done, but there is always room for pushing further. Meanwhile we start brainstorming. The designers would like to keep the historic theme based on the tapestry of Bayeux, but I have a clear vision.Fadenfroh is a simple tile laying game (actually it´s cards) with an interactive selection mechanic and the ABCD scoring system many of us have fallen in love with. Given the commercial success and critical acclaim of the two “parent” games, Isle of Skye and Cartographers, I want to make sure that the game is as accessible as possible. Inviting new players into the hobby and showing them the beauty, elegance and finesse of modern board games is what we have tried since 1 More Time Games released Riftforce in 2020.In its core Fadenfroh is an abstract game, but with a very thematic and fun mechanic, that allows players to circumvent the placement rules of the cards in the game. So it´s only logical that my thoughts drift towards Azul and Splendor, games that changed how I see abstract games. They don't have to be cold, black and white. It´s possible to develop and package a brutal and elegant game into a warm, beautiful and inviting product. Castle Combo and Faraway enter my mind from another angle, by showing how much gameplay you can pack in a small box while still keeping the playfulness and making sure that gaming stays affordable even in times of economic hardship.Influenced by all those games, we discuss and try themes that support the mechanics and the reading of the game state, one of the most important things in any (tile laying) game. Julia Beutling joins the team as our illustrator soon after and makes sure that beauty and usability are always interwoven. Fadenfroh will be her first game we actually release, after being the third that she illustrated for 1 More Time Games, but that is a story for another day.The first quotes from the factory land in my mailbox and solutions need to be found. How can we limit certain components to create room for the deluxe treatment I want the game to have? What should the glue cap from my first playtest become? Strom Manufacturing (you may know their excellent productions from Gloomhaven or most of CMYKs catalog) steps in and helps whenever I get lost in what's possible and what´s affordable.How far can we go? Wolfgang Warsch one night puts his game Figment on the table. Now I know that I need the same chunky whiteboard tokens for our game. The central selection mechanic of Fadenfroh has so many “who blinks first” moments, which would profit from something to clinch to and nervously play with (like we all love to do it with poker chips or other heavy coins).Click, Clack, Click, Clack. The tokens fill the room with their sound. While the production cost piles up on the other side of the scale. Deluxe components cost deluxe prices. Recent years have seen prices rise everywhere but we want the game to be affordable for as many people as possible. As a small indie publisher from Austria, we can't calculate with the economics of scale the big publishers can. We only have one wheel to adjust and it´s our own profit margin. Running a company can be an awesome thing, but it also means that you need to take risks. Every big decision asks the question: Do I believe in this? Because how should anyone else believe in your games if you don't do it yourself? And as I mentioned above. This isn't a story about believing. It's about love.Love is powerful. It lets you do the things you can tell stories about. It creates moments and connections. Love takes over the wheel and drives away from our profit margin directly into UV printed wooden discs you usually only see in crowdfunded games. From left to right: greyboard tokens (unknown), wooden discs (generic), greyboard tokens (Fadenfroh test), whiteboard tokens (Figment), UV printed 5mm wooden discs (Fadenfroh final)But let's slow down. Until those wooden discs start competing against other materials we still need to figure out the theme. We discussed all kinds of settings, crafts, and arts. Some come with great titles attached, others just show the beauty of Austria, Germany, or Brazil, the three countries where Alex, Julia and Jordy are from. Weeks pass by. Theme is not the only challenge. Fadenfroh is a very unusual tile laying game. Most other tile laying games that feature some kind of set collection, use 1-3 backgrounds with different icons that are unique to the background or all belong to one category. Alex and Jordy wanted more. They needed nine different icons in three categories, some extra icons and all of them should work on three different backgrounds while still being easy to distinguish (and looking beautiful). What follows are weeks of sketches, sketches and more sketches. Right away Julia builds a test card display so that we can always look at all icons and backgrounds interacting with each other in the way players would see them in front of them. It only takes us 113 different versions of those displays until we are happy. Somewhere between all those versions we accept that the theme of threads, garments and stitching just makes the most sense. Three out of 113 different displays that Julia Beutling createdWe try different approaches. Julia shows the wide range of styles she can excel in. For one version we combined three different techniques to “paint” on garments. I still remember the night when we finished it and I thought we finally nailed it. The following feedback proved me wrong. One of those moments where you have to accept the journey. You fall down and you stand up again. Making games is hardly ever a linear process. You start somewhere. Then feedback and a lot of good and bad ideas happen. We listen and we learn. A few versions later we have picked the technique that most people can resonate with: Embroidery. The circle closes itself. From Bayeux over historic gardens through ([o]Top Secret - so we can maybe do a game with this theme in the future[/o]) to finally arrive at needle and thread again. What did we lose on the way? A lot of historic ballast, horses, knights, kings and wars. Instead we found a small garden in the middle of summer. Full of dewy berries, cute animals and colorful flowers. Julia's mother Bettina, my business partner's mother-in-law Mika, and our graphic designer Andrea Kattnig (all three of them very versed in different arts and crafts connected to fabrics and fashion) make sure that we get things “right”. At least as right as you can be when putting a theme onto an abstract game. I am looking at you Mr. Thimble formally known as glue cap. Alexander Pfister and Mr. Thimble in September 2026Throughout the art process I start thinking a lot about the highly complex and creative works of craftpersons that have been declared a past time, reduced to their function or seen as decorative without being real “art”. My grandmother comes to my mind as she used to be really talented with needle and thread. In the last years of her life she was still climbing mountains in the Austrian alps and creating bobbin laces: A form of textile art so complex that even a playthrough of the heaviest Pfister games seems like a stroll through a garden. My family helps me to find some of her works and Julia manages to turn them into a small illustration for the side of the game box that now pays homage to my grandmother and all the other people who enrich our lives with their craft art. There is so much more to say, but …I lost the thread.Hopefully, you got at least a small and very personal insight into how Fadenfroh came to be.Bobbin lace pattern by my grandmother

• 
  Designer Diary: From Spore to Underwood

  by Khoril on October 3, 2026

  by Remo Conzadori By Remo Conzadori & Andrea MaininiSometimes, a game begins with a simple idea that refuses to grow. Other times, it just needs the right collaboration to finally take root.A Mechanic Looking for a GameFor a few months, I had been experimenting with a “sowing” mechanic. I was intrigued by the idea, but all my attempts felt flat—confined to abstract hex grids that never quite came alive. I knew there was potential, but I couldn’t find the right direction.At the beginning of 2025, during the winter holidays, I decided to reach out to Andrea Mainini. We had known each other for years but had never designed a game together. With IDEAG—the annual gathering of Italian game designers in Parma—just around the corner, I proposed a challenge: build something playable in just a few days, and develop it live during the event.Ambitious? Definitely. But Andrea said yes immediately.After a few online discussions, we aligned on a rough direction. Then Andrea showed me his first prototype—and everything changed. Gone were the hex grids. In their place was a lush, organic vision: mushrooms, a modular board made of leaf-covered tiles, and polyomino pieces of different shapes and sizes. The game already had a strong visual identity and, more importantly, a soul.It was the moment when the project stopped being an experiment and started becoming Underwood.Two Days at IDEAGAt IDEAG, we dove in completely. For two intense days, we playtested constantly, with different player counts and a rotating cast of designers joining our table—sometimes late into the night.One particularly important contribution came from Ignazio Panades, an expert in abstract games, whose insights helped us refine key aspects of the system. We’re truly grateful for his support, as well as for all the other designers who took the time to try the game and share their thoughts.The atmosphere was exactly what makes events like IDEAG special: open, collaborative, and full of creative energy.The game evolved rapidly. We moved through many versions in quick succession: - Simpler versions, focused on clarity - More complex ones, exploring depth - Calm and strategic builds - Others where aggressive play made the experience surprisingly fierceOne of the biggest turning points in this phase came when we realized we had initially pushed the game too far in a very specific direction. Early versions were deliberately aggressive, built around powerful chain reactions that could dramatically shift the board in a single turn.While some players found this approach exciting, others perceived it as too unpredictable to be truly enjoyable. This feedback led us to rethink the core structure of player actions.We eventually developed a system based on two distinct actions, each with a limited impact. The key was introducing a cost tied to the height of the stack on which a player’s token was placed—naturally preventing overly powerful moves and keeping the game within a more manageable and readable space.Each iteration taught us something. Each change brought us closer to understanding what the game wanted to be. And with every test, the feedback kept improving.Over those two intense days at IDEAG, we went through no fewer than 15 significantly different versions of the game, gradually refining the design until we reached a balance capable of engaging both casual players and more dedicated abstract-game enthusiasts.A Turning PointThen something unexpected happened.We had the chance to show the game to a publisher. They sat down, played a full game… and immediately asked for another. By the end of the second play, they were enthusiastic enough to take a copy of the prototype with them.Although that collaboration didn’t move forward, it was a defining moment for us. It confirmed that the game wasn’t just working—it was resonating.Refining the VisionAfter IDEAG, we continued developing the prototype. Our goal was to make the game accessible to a wider audience, without losing the depth and the identity we had built through those intense days of iteration.It was a careful balancing act: simplifying where necessary, but never at the cost of what made the game unique.Finding the Right HomeIn the summer of 2025, we presented Underwood to Reiner from dlp games. We had worked together before, and I had a strong feeling this game would speak to him.After thorough testing, we reached an agreement.Reiner and his team brought the game to the next level. Their development work refined and enriched the experience in meaningful ways. In particular, I really appreciate the addition of clearings and trees—elements that weren’t part of our original design. They expand the game’s possibilities and give it a broader, more dynamic feel.Looking BackUnderwood is the result of a fast start, intense collaboration, and countless iterations. It grew from a stubborn mechanic into a living system, shaped by feedback, experimentation, and shared passion.Like the forest it represents, it didn’t emerge all at once—but layer by layer, decision by decision, until it became something truly alive.

• 
  Designer Diary: Triangulation

  by PeterCHayward on October 2, 2026

  by Peter Hayward [heading]Triangulation Design Diary[/heading]Triangulation was designed in three years and four hours.During the height of the pandemic, I had the idea: two teams, one leader on each team. The leader of Team A is trying to get their team to guess a word (e.g. orange). They write down two clues, hand them to the leader of Team B. They pick one to show to their team, and the team (without seeing the second word) make a guess.Then, the other team sees the second word and makes a guess.I am a huge fan of Decrypto. I’d consider it a perfect game, except it has one flaw: it’s a nightmare to teach. I’m always the one teaching games, which has given me SUCH an affection for games that make my life easier.Decrypto, for all its brilliance, does the opposite. But you can see in the above my attempt to make an easier-to-teach Decrypto. I called it Hash, based on my limited understanding of cybersecurity.The game didn’t work: ‘two clues to guess any word in the world’ is too much of a challenge, and the four-step process was far too much work for a party game. In trying to simplify Decrypto, I’d managed to make something even less intuitive. Impressive!But there was something there. In one playtest, my friend Sean gave the perfect set of two clues:—Tiny—ArmsIn isolation, neither of them mean anything, but together? Everyone immediately, correctly, guessed T. Rex. It was everything I wanted from the game—the idea was working, I just didn't know how to execute it.But what if I could make that moment repeatable? I brought Hash out for my design group a few times before eventually joining my pile of ‘Cool idea, pity it doesn’t work’ ideas, like Future Traders or For Every Card, There Is A Season. Years passed, until one day, the solution came to me:Three.The original idea relied on the opponent's team leader to choose which clue to give, so you couldn’t just write “Big scary dinosaur, you know the one, the first one you're thinking of” on one card and “Ignore this clue” on the other. In an attempt to solve the “wow that’s a lot of steps” problem, I’d tried skipping the selection phase, having the player just shuffle their two cards and reveal one. Even with a 50/50 chance of revealing the ‘good’ clue, I found that players were happy to take that chance. The tricksy thing about players is that if you offer them a choice between ‘engaging with the game in a fun way’ and ‘winning’, they’ll almost always choose winning. Humans are just wired like that—not a criticism, just a fact.90% of design fighting against this human impulse, and ensuring the engaging, fun way to play your game is also the winning path.Two? People were happy to take a 50/50 cance. But three?If you had to write three clues, then you could reveal two to the other team before your own team guesses, and your chance of randomly having the ‘one good clue’ be the last one given was only 33%—well below the threshold of “Oh I’ll just chance it”.I threw some whiteboards in a bag, went to a playtest day, and four hours later, the game I’d been chasing for years was working.I’ve never had a game come together so quickly. Now, those four hours stood on the shoulders of three years of thinking about it, and I was extremely fortunate to spend those hours with several of the best designers I know. But even so: everything clicked so quickly, and it almost immediately became my favorite of my own designs.(I knew I was onto something when I later showed the game to Alex Cutler, my frequent co-designer, and immediately after playing, he swore. A jealous “Damn you, this is perfect” is still the best design compliment I’ve ever received.)For the first hour or two of playtesting, I was just throwing words out: “soap”, “apple”, “the Pope”. And I was lucky to be playtesting with Damon Stea, who spotted that round with "The Pope" as the answer was far more interesting than any of the clues that came before or after it. What if all the words were proper nouns?Not only did this improve the game (Design tip: try to improve your game) but it gave it a point of difference. Aside from Charades and similar games (Monikers, Time’s Up) I couldn’t think of any ‘guess the word’ games that only included proper nouns as the answers.This made the development process so much more complicated (shoutout to John Brieger, Jeff Fraser, Breeze Grigas, and Joe Wiggins for the countless hours they’ve spent refining and playtesting the word list) but was absolutely worth it. In the final game, you draw a card with six options and choose one to clue each round.A fun quirk of Triangulation is that you can’t work out the perfect set of clues and use them again if the word comes back around. If everyone knows them, the other team does too… and they get to guess first.My girlfriend loves horses, so I pitched Triangulation to Allplay with a horse theme (Triple Crown, you’re trying to communicate the name of the winning horse without anyone else realizing what you’re doing). I don’t think Joe has ever hated a theme so much, and my second pitch (Triple-Factor Authentication) wasn’t much better.Instead, Joe hired the incomparable Kwanchai Moriya to bring it into a neon world of 80’s hackers instead. Getting to work with Kwanchai has been a decade-long aspiration come true.There’s nothing else quite like Triangulation, and the design process is unlike anything I’ve worked on before. After three years with no progress, it fell into place in four hours, and it gives me hope that one day, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and figure out the missing piece to make my other shelved games work. Maybe Future Traders has a future!

• 
  The Fugo love the Braided Skies of the Emerland and Smoky Mountains

  by boardgamersteph on September 30, 2026

  by Steph Hodge [imageid=9149394 medium rep]▪️ Tycoon Games released Everdell Emerland, From designers James A. Wilson & Clarissa A. Wilson (Game: Everdell). This is the next Everdell installment for 1-4 players and plays in 30-120 minutes. Many find this a great addition to the Everdell family. From BGG:Deep in the tropical jungle to the west of the Everdell Valley lies the country of Emerland, a vibrant land known for its artistic and musical culture, and for its abundance of natural resources, including valuable gems mined from its many underground caverns. Tiny critters found here — mostly insects — are fastidious and clever Helpers, often assisting the larger critters in their work and in optimizing or bringing beauty to their cities and homes.The jungles are vast and dense, and expeditions into the further realms of the land are undertaken often. There was once a mysterious civilization that dwelt here, long lost to history, but archaeological discoveries are beginning to shed a light on the ancients.In Emerland, you send critter Workers to various locations on the board to gather resources. You use these resources to play cards face-up in front of you, forming your jungle city and helping you to score points. Each turn, you take one of 6 possible actions: Place a Worker (with or without Helpers), Place a Helper, Play a Card, Use an Artisan Card, Excavate with your Archaeologist or Prepare for Season.▪️ Stonemaier Games announced the release of their big Euro game Braided Skies to be available this November, from designer Dan Germain (Grand Central Skyport). This game plays 1-5 players and has a box playtime of 60-90 minutes. Sounds like we will expect to see more in this Smoking Bones universe!From the newsletter:In Braided Skies, you take on the role of an airship captain in the Shallows, seeking to build the greatest magical travel company in the Northlands. Your mission involves exploring land and sky for new wonders, upgrading your travel company operations, and picking up tourists—all while maintaining a steady supply of tapstones, the magical gems that fuel the Northlands. Accumulate fame to become the Commodore of the Clouds!This is the first in a series of games set in the Smoking Bones universe created and illustrated by Andrew Bosley (Everdell, Tapestry, etc). Braided Skies is designed by Dan Germain.▪️ Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains from Lookout Games is coming out this October! From designer Kosch (Forest Shuffle). This is a new stand-alone game that uses most of the same mechanics you find in the other Forest Shuffle games, with an added river mechanic. If you thought the other Forest Shuffle games were gorgeous, you will not be disappointed with the Smoky Mountains foliage and wonderful art by Toni Llobet & Judit Piella. This game is played by 2-5 players in 60 minutes. From BGG:A new continent awaits in the Forest Shuffle universe: After exploring Central Europe in Forest Shuffle and the wilds of southern England in Forest Shuffle – Dartmoor, this new standalone game invites players on a journey to North America.As the third standalone game in the Forest Shuffle series, Forest Shuffle - Smoky Mountains takes us to this popular North American National Park. Building on the familiar gameplay of the series, it introduces new species and clever twists in mechanics. This keeps the experience as fresh as the bubbling waters on the new terrain cards!Here’s what Forest Shuffle – Smoky Mountains is all about: New terrain types centered around water, playable on their own or tucked as universal waters under trees. New synergies between flora and fauna, all revolving around the element of water In addition to a variety of species around the water, the game is also home to various large animals, such as black bears or bobcats.▪️ Fugu debuts at Spiel from Helvetiq. From father and son designers Flavio Foches and Riccardo Foches, this is a small box card game for 1-4 players and plays in 25 minutes. From BGG:Bannerfish love sticking closely to their buddies. Pufferfish prefer their space. Keep bannerfish together and pufferfish apart! Octopus and coral also play an important role in your biome, so place them wisely to score more points. Score by building the best hand. But here’s the twist: everyone starts with face-down cards and must slot new cards into their hand in ascending order, revealing their strategy one card at a time.1. Start with your cards face-down. Draw a card from the center.2. Place it face-up in ascending order. Then reveal the adjacent card.3. Keep your sea dwellers happy to win, but avoid penalties.Who will dive the smartest and reel in the most points?

• 
  Designer Diary: Bake or Break

  by cafestorybook on September 30, 2026

  by cafestorybook Bake or Break started in a somewhat unusual place for a board game...behind the counter of my cafe in Osaka, Japan. I run a picture book cafe called Cafe Storybook, where people come not only for the picture-book-themed food and drinks, but also to read books and spend time together. The cafe looks peaceful and relaxed from the outside. But in the kitchen, it is a completely different story. Inside Cafe Storybook[heading]From Playing Games to Making One[/heading]Outside of running the cafe, I like playing board games with my friends and going to board game events. After I opened the cafe, I started hosting board game events there as well. I wanted to create a place where people could meet, play together, and share that happy time around a table. I have always been drawn to cooperative games such as The Mind or The Crew. I like the feeling of having a shared mission, discussing what to do, and working things out together as a team.But I also noticed that there weren't many cooperative games that captured the kind of chaotic teamwork I experienced in the cafe. That made me think 'What if I could turn that experience into a cooperative board game?' Hot Cakes made in Cafe StorybookHave you ever played games like Overcooked? During the busy hours in that cafe, there never seems to be enough time for everyone to keep up with their own responsibilities. One person is preparing a drink. Someone else is making a cake. Suddenly, two people need the same ingredient. Someone forgets an order. And before you know it, everyone is moving in the same direction.That feeling of “We are all trying to help, so why is everything becoming more chaotic?” became the starting point for Bake or Break. I wanted to make something inspired by that feeling, but not simply recreate it as a board game. I love the way those games turn simple kitchen tasks into complete chaos. But I didn't want to make a game about running a perfect cafe, I wanted to make a game about trying to run one together just like in my cafe. [heading]Designing the Game[/heading]At the start of the process I knew I wanted three things : ● First, it had to be cooperative. ● Second, it had to be easy enough for families and casual players to understand. ● And finally, it had to create the kind of funny chaos that happens when several people are trying to work together at the same time.I wanted the chaos to come from communication and prediction instead. So I choose Simultaneous Action Selection which is simple and has an element of surprise. You can't see what the other players are choosing. You have to read the table, and sometimes you have to take a risk. That made the game much easier to play around a table while still creating the same feeling of a kitchen getting out of control. Early Sample TokenEveryone chooses an action secretly, and everyone reveals it at the same time. Just like in a cafe when preparing an order. Someone thinks I'm going to help the other person by preparing the ingredients in the last order. Another player thinks 'Someone probably needs to prepare ingredients, so I'll do it too.' And a third player has exactly the same thought.Everyone reveals their cards. The three players end up choosing the same action. No one completed the order. “Wait, I thought you were doing it!” Suddenly everyone is laughing, and the kitchen is falling apart.Event Cards of Bake or Break I also wanted the game to be accessible to children, but I didn't want adults to feel like they were playing a children's game. The solution was to make the rules easy but the decisions meaningful.A child can understand 'I need to make a cake.' Experienced players can think 'If I choose this action, the other players might choose it too, so maybe I should do something else.' The same rule creates different levels of thinking depending on the player. It became a game that could be enjoyed by the whole family. Which was exactly what I wanted.[heading]Making It Feel Like a Picture Book[/heading]There was another part of the project that was very important to me. Since Cafe Storybook is an actual picture-book cafe, when I started thinking about the visual identity of Bake or Break, I wanted to bring the feeling of picture books into the game.COPECO's Book Display in Cafe Storybook That's when I thought of COPECO. COPECO is a Japanese picturebook artist and illustrator who focuses on animals and food. She sometimes combines the two in playful and unexpected ways. Her art has a strong sense of childhood, with cute animal expressions and illustrations that seem to have their own little stories. But there was also a more personal reason why I wanted to work with her. When I first started my Cafe, I launched a crowdfunding campaign to help open my cafe. COPECO supported that campaign, and we later organized a collaboration event together. From the very beginning, one of the things I wanted to do with the cafe was to introduce Japanese creators and their work to people from around the world. So when I started imagining what Bake or Break could look like, COPECO's art was actually the first image that came to my mind. Her illustrations bring warmth and cuteness to the cafe, while the game mechanics create a little bit of chaos underneath that funny, cozy world.I designed this game to look like a picture book There is also a little story behind where the game might go next. COPECO loves Chinese food, which gave me an idea for a possible future expansion. Maybe one day, the kitchen won't just be making cakes. Maybe we'll be cooking something completely different. I already have some ideas brewing in my mind. [heading]From a Cafe Experiment to a Real Game[/heading]Bake or Break is my first original board game, and the process has been very different from simply designing something on paper. I started testing ideas with my family and friends, until the ideas matured. I made prototypes and played and tested them with customers, staff, designers, and other players who all became part of the development process.Bake or Break first design on paperEvery playtest taught me something, from beginners to experienced gamers. At first the rules made it really hard to complete even one order. Now, the final game is much simpler than my earliest prototypes. But I also think it is much closer to the original idea. Sometimes a rule looked incompleted, and sometimes removing a rule made the game much better.Playtesting the game with staff in Cafe StorybookThe title also came from the idea that the team can make or break everything. When everyone works together, the kitchen runs smoothly. When things go wrong, everything can quickly fall apart.Can you communicate well enough to keep the cafe running?Can you predict what your teammates are going to do?Can you resist doing the same thing as everyone else?But maybe none of that is really important.What matters is having fun with your team, laughing when everything goes wrong, and enjoying the chaos together. That is Bake or Break. A small cooperative game about cakes, teamwork, and the beautiful chaos that happens when everyone is trying to help.I hope you'll enjoy stepping behind the counter of Cafe Storybook.

• 
  From the King of Siam via Afghanistan to Sweden and back to Berlin: Upland & Prairie

  by Peerchen on September 29, 2026

  by Peer Sylvester Game design is a mix of experimentation and inspiration. If you condensed a description of Upland & Prairie down to a single sentence, you’d be excused for thinking I’ve simply remade The King is Dead: ‘Place one of three colours of marker on a board, then take one for yourself, and whoever has the most markers of the type that wins on the board, wins the game. Oh, and with four players it’s a partnership game’. Okay, so that was two sentences, but my point stands.In reality, these parallels are misleading, though not completely coincidental: In 2007, I designed King of Siam, which was later republished by Osprey as The King is Dead. Playing that game seemingly got Cole Wehrle thinking about designing his own games, the first of which to publish was Pax Pamir (2015). When Matilda Simonsson played Pax Pamir’s second edition (2019) she was inspired to create and publish Turncoats(2021). In turn I played Turncoats in 2022, and it inspired me to create ‘Debatable Lands’ (which has since become Upland & Prairie). So, in some sense Upland & Prairie is inspired by a string of games that trace all the way back to King of Siam!One thing I particularly liked in Turncoats was its way of handling randomness, specifically the drawing of a marker from a bag. I took inspiration from that, but put a spin on it where you draw two markers and place one on the map as well as keeping a marker. The marker you keep is secret and that establishes the important bluffing element — you don’t know what the others are collecting or how many they have. This uncertainty is essential to the design. The board took quite a few iterations, mainly because this style of game shouldn’t last too long, but it also needs the time to feel like you have developed the game state together. The objective is to link certain spots on the board with a chain of markers of the same colour. In a version where those spots are too far away, it becomes frustrating as players may keep on blocking. If they are too close, there is not much of a game. Building tension is important for the arc of the game and it should be possible to control the timing of the endgame a bit. So, the layout was important. However, the breakthrough idea was to add 3a marker to the bag that, when drawn, raises the capacity of all spaces. This creates structure and enables blocking early on, both of which build player commitments, but then the improving capacity of spaces unlocks the end game and a tense finish. For Osprey it was this improving capacity and absence of direct conflict that drew them towards the rewilding theme of Upland & Prairie. The game also had some significant advantages over my other prototypes: It was really easy to make changes (because the components were basically just a few hexes with symbols and a bag of cubes) and it was quick to play. I was able to play a lot with my daughters (great for two and three-player tests) to get the exact cube count and distances of the board perfectly right. But the game was not yet quite where I wanted it — the randomness was stronger than the bluffing. The fix? Draw three markers from the bag instead of two: one for the board, one for the personal supply, and one back to the bag. This changed the dynamics of the probabilities once again, but it struck the right balance between tactical approaches and the whims of uncertainty. With the two and three-player game working well, it was time to think about four. I love partnership games, so it’s no surprise that for the four-player game I once again tried a partnerships mechanic! I just love the way you need to communicate with your partner through play. During the first four-player test game, my friend, Georgios Panagiotidis, mentioned that he had trouble getting information from his partner who kept most of their markers. We agreed that it would be against the spirit if teams just had a shared supply - and it would just play too much like two two-player games - so we came up with the rule: every time the improvement marker was drawn, you would simultaneously (and silently) exchange a marker with your partner. That can of course cause funny moments (especially when you exchange identical markers), but that’s a plus in my book.I have to admit that I played this a lot before showing it to Osprey, perhaps the most I’ve ever played an unpublished design of mine. It helps that it’s so quick and easy to play, and whilst the description may sound The King is Dead-ish, it doesn’t play anything like it. The King is Dead is cerebral, whereas as in Upland & Prairie I’ve even managed to win by targeting one colour but not placing a single one of that colour on the board (and, because I let the others think I was backing a different colour, they did all the work for me)! The team at Osprey must have thought something similar, since they were quick to take it and made a very pretty game out of my very abstract prototype.. Big shoutout to Hannah Cohen, who made it all look playful and gorgeous. I really enjoyed getting art updates on this one (and they include more player screens than strictly necessary, so Hannah can showcase her art). The only thing I kind of regret is that I couldn’t keep the original title, which was Debatable Lands. I understand it has a very specific meaning in the UK, so I understand the decision. Still, I like the tone of it and maybe I’ll make another game with that title someday…

• 
  Behind the Hype: Rawan Anbar, Gigamic

  by whenindoubteatout on September 28, 2026

  by Justin Bell Welcome to my second edition of “Behind the Hype”; if you missed the first, I spoke with Eveline Foubert at Mighty Boards a few months ago.This week, I’m sharing a conversation I had with my friend and colleague Rawan Anbar at Gigamic, the massive French publisher and distributor of quick, family-friendly abstracts, party, and strategy titles such as Quarto, Looot, Akropolis and the team’s upcoming SPIEL Essen release, Odysseus. Between a video call and some back-and-forth via e-mail, our condensed conversation is highlighted below. Enjoy!Justin Bell (JB): Hey hey, Rawan! Hope life in France is treating you well today. Let’s start with your time at Gigamic; how did you find this role, and were you always interested in doing marketing work in tabletop?Rawan Anbar (RA): Hey Justin! The weather isn’t great in France today, but I’m doing very well. I found the role through LinkedIn. I had just graduated when I came across the job posting, so I decided to apply. The process moved very quickly: I had a video interview two days later, then they invited me for an in-person interview the following day. About a week later, I received the good news that I had been offered the position. I have now been at Gigamic for more than four years. To be honest, the board game industry was not originally part of my career plan, but I am really grateful that I had the opportunity to enter this world. It is such a fun and welcoming industry, full of passionate people. I have had the chance to meet wonderful people—publishers, content creators, retailers, and of course my own colleagues. It has been a really rewarding experience, and I’m very happy to be part of it.***JB: Gigamic has been in business for almost 30 years, correct? As an established brand, I’m curious to understand Gigamic’s definition of its market as well as the ways that it markets products to that core market. Many of the Gigamic games I have reviewed over at Meeple Mountain have generally been quick, but outside of that, the broad themes vary quite a bit. How do you and the team define your core audience?RA: Gigamic has actually been creating games for more than 35 years. At our core, we are a family-oriented publisher: we aim to create games that bring people together, whatever their age or level of experience. Our catalogue is diverse. We do have some titles for more experienced players, but our main focus is on accessible family and party games. Akropolis, one of our flagship titles, is a good example: it offers meaningful strategic choices while remaining easy to learn and enjoyable for a wide range of players. We want to move away from the idea that board games are only for dedicated gamers. For us, games should be welcoming, social, and fun for everyone, from children and families to occasional players and more experienced board gamers.JB: Being a French company, it makes sense that Gigamic is pretty big in France, and I know your team’s presence at shows like Festival International des Jeux in Cannes is always going to be sizable. But outside of France, how does Gigamic market its catalog? I’m curious about Gigamic on the global stage.RA: Internationally, we have a dedicated export team made up of three people: Thibaut, Pierre, and Benoît. They work closely with our distribution partners around the world, including in markets such as South Korea, Mexico, Japan, Germany, and many others. Their role is to build strong relationships with our distributors, introduce them to our new releases, and support them in bringing Gigamic games to local audiences. They regularly travel to meet partners in person and attend trade shows and more local events. Maintaining that human connection is particularly important to us. Every market has its own culture, players, and retail landscape, so working closely with local distributors helps us present the right games in the right way.***JB: When you are not at shows, where are you based? So many of my tabletop connections work out of offices, but just as many work from home. What is your situation, and what do you prefer in terms of work environment?RA: We are based in northern France, more specifically in Wimereux. One of Gigamic’s core values is maintaining a close, human, and family-like working environment. We are mainly office-based, although employees can work from home one day a week. This balance works well for us. Remote work provides flexibility, but being together in the office most of the time helps us maintain strong internal relationships, collaborate more easily, and work as a real team. In a creative industry like ours, informal conversations and a shared enthusiasm for games are also an important part of how we work.JB: In my “Behind the Hype” interview with Eveline, we talked a bit about crowdfunding…but it seems like Gigamic does not use the crowdfunding model for release, with all of your “homegrown” games going straight to retail. What is Gigamic’s stance on crowdfunding new titles?RA: Gigamic’s main approach is to bring our games directly to retail through our established distribution network. We value the relationships we have built with retailers and distributors, and we want our games to be accessible to players through those channels. Crowdfunding can be a very useful model for certain types of projects, especially larger productions or games with a strong collector-focused audience. However, for Gigamic’s core catalogue, our focus is on developing games that can have a long life in retail and be easily available to a wide audience. We are always open to following changes in the market, but our priority remains creating accessible games and supporting our retail partners.JB: When you sent me a review copy of your upcoming SPIEL release Odysseus, I had to laugh, and everyone in my circles said the same thing when they saw the box: “it was pretty smart to release a game called Odysseus around the same time that The Odyssey hit theaters worldwide.”So, there’s obviously a big marketing tie-in to the movie. As a marketing leader, that seems like an easy win. Was the game’s theme always tied to Odysseus, or was that just a lucky moment?RA: The Odysseus theme was part of the game from the very beginning—it comes from the game’s own creative identity and mechanics. The timing with The Odyssey film is a very fortunate coincidence rather than an official tie-in. The film has created a broader cultural interest in the story and in Greek mythology, which makes this an exciting moment to introduce the game to players. It has also helped us from an SEO perspective: more people are currently searching for Odysseus, The Odyssey, and Greek mythology, which increases the game’s visibility online ahead of its release and helps new audiences discover it.JB: How are you marketing Odysseus to the strategy gamer channels and markets? What are you doing to help the title stand out?RA: For Odysseus, we are building a multi-channel campaign designed to reach strategy gamers while also making the game visible to a wider board game audience. At the beginning of October, we are planning a contest and giveaway here on BoardGameGeek, which is an important platform for players looking for new strategy titles. We are also producing a trailer in both French and English to present the game’s universe, gameplay, and strategic depth to international audiences. We will support the launch with digital advertising across social media and relevant websites, as well as targeted communication through our press contacts and board game influencers. They will help introduce the game to their communities through previews, content, and coverage around the release. At SPIEL Essen, Odysseus will also have dedicated banners to make it more visible on-site. Our goal is to create visibility before the show, give players a clear idea of the experience the game offers, and make sure it stands out both online and on the convention floor.JB: What do you wish more players understood when it comes to the ways games are marketed and sold?RA: I think I would like more players to understand that marketing a game is not just about making it visible—it is about helping the right people discover it and understand why it might be right for them. There are so many games released every year, so even a very good game needs a clear message. We have to explain the experience behind it: who it is for, how easy it is to learn, how it feels to play, and what makes it special. It is also a long-term process. A game does not become successful overnight just because of one post or one review. It takes communication, relationships with retailers and distributors, events, content creators, and, most importantly, positive experiences shared by players themselves. At Gigamic, we try to be honest and clear about what each game offers, so that players can find the games that genuinely match what they are looking for.JB: Although you seem to be pretty good at the abstract games you show me every year at conventions, I always wonder about how much time you spend playing games outside of your “day job.” So…do you play a lot of games? What are some of your favorites?RA: Actually, I’m not a hardcore board gamer, and I think that gives me a valuable perspective in my role. It helps me look at our games with fresh eyes and better understand the experience of people who are not already deeply involved in the hobby. I play mainly to discover our games, prepare for events, practice explaining the rules, and develop communication plans. But outside of work, I don’t play board games very often at home. That said, two of my favourite games are Slide and Qawale. I really like games that are simple to understand but still offer meaningful choices and strategy.***JB: Because you are Egyptian, I have to ask: do you still believe that Egypt was robbed during the match against Argentina in this summer's World Cup?RA: I’m not the biggest football fan, but yes, unfortunately, I still think we were robbed! I remember you messaging me during the game, saying how well they were playing. In the end, it’s only a game, but I’m still very proud of the Egyptian team. A big thanks to Rawan and the team at Gigamic for a peek behind the curtain. To learn more about Gigamic and the current catalog, you can visit the team’s website at https://en.gigamic.com/.Do you own or support the marketing function for a tabletop publisher? Let’s chat! I’m going to do interviews like this on marketing and other areas of the tabletop business from time to time, and I’m always interested in meeting more people. Just message me here on BGG and we’ll get to work. Thanks for reading!***