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• 
  Designer Diary: President Maker

  by deuxbh on September 15, 2026

  by Bonghwan Ju A Presidential Election... in South Korea??President Maker is an election game in which you become a candidate for president of South Korea and compete to win the office.If you live in a country where democracy actually works, you've probably taken part — as a voter — in that peculiar ritual we call an election.(Don't worry. I'm not here to start a political argument.)My point is simply this: elections — and politics in general — sit very close to our everyday lives, which makes them wonderful material for a game that people can connect with and get absorbed in.The heart of an election is the same everywhere, after all. Get as many votes as you possibly can from the voters.And the lineup of political forces that fills out an election isn't so different from country to country either.Conservatives and progressives face off, some players hold the middle ground, and a few strike out on their own, independent of everyone else.For that reason, I believed this game could resonate with board gamers well beyond its Korean setting — anywhere democracy is genuinely at work.Where the Idea Started: A Bag-Building Voting SystemSouth Korea's presidential election is beautifully simple.Any adult may vote, the votes are tallied nationwide as one big sum, and whoever finishes with even a single vote more becomes president.That means campaigning in a region where you're politically at a disadvantage is never a completely pointless exercise. Squeezing out one more vote — anywhere, by any means — can decide the whole race.When election season comes around, Korean politicians visit traditional markets and eat cheap street food, almost as if they'd all agreed on it beforehand. Presumably to project an image of being a man or woman of the people.One day, watching exactly that scene on TV, a question popped into my head:"How many more votes did they ACTUALLY gain by eating street food at that market?"Nobody could guarantee that a single visit to a market translates into extra votes.But for a politician who needs to make themselves known, it's surely better than doing nothing at all.And that's when I decided I wanted to take the subtle, undeniable gap between "eating street food at the market" and "doing nothing" — and turn it into a game mechanism.I came to define that gap like this: even if no single move converts directly into votes, repeatedly showing yourself to voters gradually raises the probability that someone out there might cast a vote for you.Let's dissect how an election works, mathematically.In the end, it's an equation produced by just two variables: approval rating and turnout.In a region where my approval rating is high, the higher the turnout, the more votes I'm likely to collect.By the same logic, in a region where my opponent's rating is high, the lower the turnout, the better for me.That felt like an excellent starting point. And turning it into a game mechanism wasn't so difficult. Put tokens into a cloth bag equal to each candidate's approval rating, then draw tokens equal to the turnout — that alone looked like a convincing election game.I set that as the core mechanism and began designing, layering the many other elements of an election on top of it.Winning the Hearts of Five RegionsPresident Maker features five regions, including Seoul (the capital area). They're based on South Korea's real geographic and administrative divisions, the do(도) — provinces.Map of South Korean administrative divisionsPolitical leanings in Korea often differ sharply along these provincial lines.So depending on a candidate's Political Orientation, some regions are a home turf while others are hostile ground where you'll receive no welcome at all.In this game, each of the five regions takes one Political Orientation — Progressive, Center-Progressive, Conservative, Center-Conservative, or Neutral (the capital area) — while the four candidates players can choose from are Progressive, Conservative, Centrist, and Independent.Political Orientation has a big effect on the game's initial setup. - A Progressive candidate, for instance, starts at rock bottom in a Conservative region — and vice versa. - The Centrist candidate leads nowhere, but begins with a middling Support level everywhere. - The Independent candidate has the lowest name recognition in every region (much as in the real world). But — unlike in the real world — they carry the underdog's power to flip the whole board.Deciding which Political Orientation went to which region took a fair bit of thought. Political sensitivity in Korea has been climbing for years now, and it's no longer something you can treat lightly. Declaring outright that this region is progressive and that one conservative carried real risk, even when it happened to be true. Such a setup could poke at regional resentments, or lead players who'd gotten a little too invested in the game to genuinely offend one another. So I chose to randomize each region's Political Orientation instead — accompanied by the slightly absurd premise of "South Korea in a parallel world."The result was that a region known in reality as staunchly conservative might come up as progressive, producing situations you can simply laugh off together.Who Actually Shows Up to Vote?The other thing I wrestled with while setting up the five regions was population — that is, the number of voters. As I mentioned, this is an election where a single extra vote wins, so naturally the more populous a region is, the more it matters. Seoul, the capital, was set as the most populous region, just as it is in reality. It therefore becomes, quite naturally, the key battleground where every candidate fights over support.The other four regions hold equal status as provinces, but when I looked up the real numbers, their populations turned out to differ quite a bit. Reflecting that faithfully, though, would have assigned each region a fixed absolute value based on population — and that didn't look desirable from a balance standpoint. So every region outside Seoul was given an identical population.Someone might think: "All four regions with the same population? Won't the game feel flat?"That's half right and half wrong. The population here represents the maximum possible number of voters in a region. And just like in the real world, not everyone in a region actually turns out to vote. Some regions are keenly interested in politics, others much less so. That ratio of actual voters to potential voters is what we call turnout — the Engagement Level in this game.At the start of the game, every region sits at the lowest point of its Engagement Level. As play unfolds, various interactions raise interest in the election in some regions while leaving others relatively cold. In other words, turnout starts to diverge from region to region.Each region's importance as a source of votes therefore emerges organically during play. A region whose Engagement has climbed sky-high becomes a genuine battleground. (So sometimes a region climbs higher in Engagement than Seoul itself!)The Dilemma Between Popularity and AttentionThink about what politicians do when election season arrives. I've already mentioned the traditional market visits, but fundamentally, the thing they care about most is making themselves known to people. One of this game's core actions is the Campaign Rally — putting your face in front of voters.During the Campaign Rally, each candidate may visit only two of the five regions. (You have one body, and time is finite.)Every candidate picks their two regions and reveals them simultaneously. Then, some regions may overlap with other candidates' choices, while others may be visited by one candidate alone. And here an interesting dilemma appears.In a region you visit alone, your Support level rises by 2. You had all the attention to yourself.In a region several candidates visit together, attention is split. Each of you gains only 1 Support level. But a region that politicians swarm to is also, by definition, a politically important region. Voters there feel "our region matters," and more of them turn out to vote. That region's Engagement level ALSO rises by 1.However high your Support climbs, if people don't make it to the ballot box, it never converts into votes. Conversely, even in a high-Engagement region, votes are hardly guaranteed when you're locked in a fierce fight with the other candidates. For these reasons, each of the game's three Campaign Rallies produces a genuinely interesting decision.Be Bad — But Only Just EnoughWe don't have to think badly of politicians. But when building a game on a political theme, scheming, slander, and dirty tricks were the first things that came to mind, and there was no helping it.So yes: the action you'll take most often in this game is running political risk to smear and tear down your opponents. Actions are performed mainly through Political Cards, and they fall roughly into "fairly decent," "bad," and "very bad."A "fairly decent" action means cooperating across the aisle, or honestly appealing to your supporters for their votes. No danger — and negligible effect."Bad" actions offer far more powerful, far more tempting effects. Spread a rumor to slash a rival's Support level, or push a region's Engagement up and down to suit your needs. But every time you take one of those powerful actions, you receive a Risk Card — the embodiment of political risk. The back of a Risk Card shows a risk value between 1 and 3, but players can't check it.And here I introduced another enjoyable dilemma: something close to a game of chicken.At the end of a round, all players reveal every Risk Card they've collected and total their risk values. The candidate with the highest total is branded a corrupt politician and watches their core supporters walk away. The candidates with the second- and third-highest totals suffer nothing at all — because the press only ever chases the biggest story.So throughout the game you're constantly monitoring how many Risk Cards everyone else is taking. All so you can commit your "bad" actions in just the right amount. You only need to avoid being the worst person in the room."Watching" Election NightThe highlight of this game is the Vote Count. Every single thing a player does is ultimately in service of squeezing out one more vote right here.What's unusual is that although the Vote Count is the phase that decides the whole game, players have no way whatsoever to influence the outcome during it. All you can do is watch the count unfold. Exactly as if you were watching election night coverage on TV. (But of course, the Vote Count is nothing but the result of everything you've already done.)The Vote Count proceeds one region at a time, through all five in order. In each region, Vote Tokens equal to each candidate's Support level go into the cloth bag, and tokens equal to that region's Engagement level are drawn out. The tokens in the bag are the voters; the tokens drawn are the supporters who actually showed up and cast a ballot. With every token drawn, the candidates' markers advance along the Vote Count Track in real time. When the final region finishes counting, whoever leads the track is elected president.The Vote Count always produces cheers and groans at the same time. "My Support is that high and this is all I get? Where did my supporters go instead of voting?" "Thank God — both of my two supporters turned out!" A drama unfolds, just like watching the real broadcast. Designing the Vote Count as a spectator experience was both the most daring choice and my personal favorite as a designer. Technically speaking, it is an ordinary scoring phase stretched out horizontally into a long sequence. All the potential points a candidate has accumulated by working the 5 regions meet the probabilistic factor of Engagement and are converted into actual points, one at a time. I couldn't imagine a better way to express the moment an election is decided. And it really did work!One Last ThingThere's plenty more I agonized over in capturing the many faces of an election, but this diary is running long, so I'll stop here. I hope you'll experience the finer details for yourself at the table.A couple of tips for enjoying the game more: try substituting Korea's five regions with regions from your own country. The immersion goes much deeper. Also, when you play a Political Card, say its title out loud. Rather than "I'll move Region A's Engagement track back by 1," it's far more entertaining to declare: "I Expose Corruption in Region A — and so Engagement there drops!"Elections are undeniably fun material for a board game. Someday I'd love the chance to design a game around a different electoral system. Thank you for reading all the way to the end!

• 
  Only the Cream

  by whenindoubteatout on September 14, 2026

  by Justin Bell After a recent business trip, I returned home and made a few updates in my home office before shutting down the laptops. I walked out of my office and took a peek to my right, into the game closet.My closet is a small nook with an actual door (I don’t want visitors to necessarily see the depths of my obsession) that includes the hookups for a washing machine, tile floors, and just enough shelf space to hold my collection. It’s also the room where I keep the two halves of my Game Topper game table and the Costco folding table it lives on top of when I host game nights.Between a smaller shelf facing the entryway and a larger set of shelves to the right, I’ve got space for a mix of about 200 games, depending on box size. But space is getting tight. If you ask my wife, space is already pretty tight. I only keep about 10% of the review copies I get each year and I already have a sizable personal collection, so we are almost completely in “one in, one out” territory.It is time to make hard decisions. Only the cream of the crop is going to stick around when I’m done with the current purge.I have visited friends who own game collections that number in the hundreds. I have a couple friends with collections that exceed a thousand titles. I have an industry connection who has north of two thousand games. I’m sure someone will respond to this article with thoughts on why they will never part with a single member of their three or four THOUSAND game collection.Many of you are collectors, an impressive hobby in and of itself. I know many people buy games with the express goal of never playing most of their games, adding boxes purely to have them live on their shelves. Sadly, they never hear the voices coming from the boxes.“Please, play me!” the box seems to be saying. “I thought you bought me to love me.”“In a way, I did,” you say. “I bought you to love you, but only to look at you, to admire you from afar. No one will ever shuffle your cards, or manipulate your components, or unfurl your board. No, handsome $82 board game product, you will remain here, on shelf 134 of my room-wide Kallax, for eternity.”“But, I was made for play! I was produced in a factory far from here to be appreciated by the players, on a table! This shelf will not do!”“Quiet down, handsome $82 board game product,” you reply. “The decision is final. My shelves are a museum, and I look forward to seeing your smiling side box art staring back at me when I walk past you on the way to the kitchen.”At my house, I only possess games for the purposes of semi-regular play. When those games are not getting enough play, I move them out. It’s strictly business. Some people have a library of hundreds of books that collect dust; others, a liquor cabinet full of spirits that never get consumed. To each their own.My collection is reaching a breaking point. I used to believe that I needed to own no more than 52 games, because I play games often enough to get at least one of my own games tabled every week. Reviewing games has changed that calculus, because now most of my game nights are either review game nights, family game days, play con events, or instances where I enjoy the collections of others. Thankfully, there is a lot of crossover for the latter, so when someone wants to table a game that I also own, I nod in approval…I’d love to play your copy of Orléans, because I haven’t played my copy all year.This has helped me focus on the current exercise. I want to winnow these 200 games (technically, 205 games, per the BGG link to my collection) down to about a hundred this year. That mix will mean about 50 family/party games and about 50 hobby games. That means the games in the Maybe Pile are going to go soon, and I’ll be a little pushier to ensure those get played quickly.The games that I think I love enough to keep, but don’t ever suggest tabling, have to go, too. If it’s a game that is out of this world, truly the cream of the crop, best in class for its respective category, it stays.If I love the game, and anyone else I know also loves it and plans to keep their copy, my copy is a goner. If a game is not on the personal Mount Rushmore of a category, that game is gonna hit the streets. For example, I count on five specific titles to keep me happy on the nights I vote for party games: Wavelength, Just One, Codenames, Caution Signs, and Decrypto. Those games are more than enough. But what about Belratti? OK, alright, fine…I can make room for six.The auction game section is full up: Stockpile: Epic Edition, Amun-Re, The Princes of Florence, Container, and Railway Boom. For Sale will stay because I want to have a quick auction game option. Auction/bidding mechanics are all over the place at my house, in many forms, including in titles like Coimbra and all of the train games.The Lacerda collection previously held as many as ten slots in the collection, and now it is down to seven. No purging needed there; the current selection is tight. Sitting in the same zip code as the Lacerda games lies Carnegie, my #2 game of 2022. I think Carnegie is genius, but even writing this paragraph gives me pause: I haven’t put Carnegie on a table in more than two years.I’ve played Carnegie a few times on Board Game Arena, a place where I KNOW I will play it more than I will play my physical copy at home. That means Carnegie and its expansion are getting moved to the donation pile. This hurts my soul, but I know it’s the right move. While I love the beauty of that board and the satisfying nature of play, it doesn’t come out enough to justify its space in my collection even a moment longer.Maybe that’s it, then. It’s not only the fact that a game has to be the cream of the crop. It has to draw enough attention that I NEED to play a physical version of it at least once or twice a year.That made the purge exercise even easier.Valeria: Card Kingdoms? Exceptional, and my favorite of the “roll dice, get stuff” genre. And, a goner, because I haven’t felt the emotional connection to table it in a couple years now. Ayar: Children of the Sun? A personal top-10 pick from 2025…and, a game that I have not played since I wrapped up my review plays, so it is getting moved into the donation pile. Illiterati? Love it. But word games don’t surface as often in my house any more, so 1973’s Montage will be the only title I need to fit the word game/association bill for the time being. That means it is time to find a new home for Illiterati.The exercise continued deep into the night I began drafting this article.Huge fan of The Red Cathedral. But its expansion, Contractors? It was a mixed bag in my play groups, and I haven’t integrated the expansion content in the plays it has gotten since. So, the expansion has to go. The Mombasa redux, Skymines? A blast. The card system is something I still admire. I just haven’t admired it enough to put Skymines back on the table, and every time I go back to re-read the rules, I find myself more enamored with something else that I want to table instead. Love the game, love those storage tuckboxes, love that the game got a retheme. But Skymines is moving out.For years, I screamed to the masses that designer Martin Wallace’s most underrated design was the skirmish game Wildlands. I still think the game is badly underrated. Those feelings haven’t helped me push the game to the table more, so it’s a goner too.Magnate: The First City? Love it. It’s hard to find a legitimately fun city builder that plays in about an hour, even at the full player count. But the box is a behemoth, and more importantly, a friend in my local playgroups is never getting rid of his copy. If I can play his, I don’t need mine. The third shelf actually thanked me when I moved the Magnate box off the shelf.“Thanks,” Shelf Three said. (I think I heard its voice, but that may have been the cocktail I had earlier that evening.) “I wouldn’t mind some card games living on top of me for the next few months. My back is killing me.”All in, I pulled 33 games off the shelves. I took a moment to stare at the now-former members of my collection because I wanted to be sure. Am I really going to move these games out? It felt like the right decision, but I wanted to give the games one last chance to tell me that I am wrong.Sometimes, there’s the pull of sunk cost. A couple of these games cost a pretty penny at the time, and maybe I don’t want to see them go just yet. In other cases, a portion of a game is something I love even if the complete package is an up-and-down affair. For example, maybe one game mechanic really sings to me, such as the rondels of Sabika, the real-time play of Wildstyle, and the engine-building magic of Raising Robots. But in each of these cases, I haven’t really made eye contact with these boxes in at least a year.After piling all the purged games back in my office, I walked back into my game closet to stare at the remaining games one more time. Is each one a game I can really see myself trying to push the table if I get to pick something for an upcoming game night?One by one, I revalidated my feelings. I still have some work to do, to clear some more space. But for now, the collection is all cream. Now I just have to clear more time to play my favorites.

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  Designer Diary: Buried Memories, Creating from Chaos

  by Anaesthetic on September 13, 2026

  by Kristian Amundsen Østby Creating MemoriesTwo years ago, I stood on the show floor at SPIEL Essen with my daughter Maria, watching strangers play a game we'd made together. That game was Gardlings, and it was hers as much as mine. It was her first design, my however-many-th. And seeing strangers enthusiastically play her game wasn’t just a proud memory for her. Anyone who’s been a shy teenager knows it can be a period full of insecurities, and an experience like this can be a valuable source of confidence. This October, it's my son's turn. Aleksander is twelve, and this is his first game. He's genuinely excited about it, and hopefully the experience can be as meaningful and create just as fond memories for him as it did for Maria. So, here's the story of how Buried Memories came to be. It Started With a Mess of TilesI’ve been interested in game design for many years, and I’ve always been fascinated about games that are truly analogue. And I don't just mean "non-digital." I mean games that aren't tied down to a fixed play area, a board, or a grid. Games that are looser and more organic, and in a way break the fourth wall of games. Many dexterity games do this (like Jenga, Bausack, and Soccer). But it is not that common in regular board games, because it can be difficult to define clear rules for chaos and to convert analogue measures into discreet points. One evening I found myself staring at a box of tiles I'd tossed in there at random, and thinking: could this mess be the framework for a game? You could only take tiles from the top of the pile, tiles that weren't covered. Sometimes you'd spot the corner of something interesting further down, and you could dig toward it, without knowing what you'd actually find along the way.That felt like digging. And I've wanted to make a game about digging since I first played Dig Dug on my computer in the 80s.The First Attempt (Which Didn't Work)The early version had players start with basic digging equipment. You could take two tiles per turn, upgradeable to three or four. I loved the idea of unearthing a big, boring stone tile only to find treasure hiding underneath it.Except the game didn't do much of that. It felt clinical. Predictable. There were no real surprises, no roller-coaster moments. Just a steady, repeated process. I wanted delightful drama, this was just dull disappointment.So, the prototype went into my drawer of shame, which is where prototypes go to think about what they've done.Enter Minecraft and My SonSome time later, my son Aleksander and I were playing a Minecraft-themed board game (If you don't know Minecraft, it's just Dig Dug for Generation Z).Partway through, he said something like: "It'd be cool if you could actually dig, like, dig through tiles or something."It didn’t take long to retrieve the prototype from my drawer. We started tinkering with different equipment, different soil types. But the big emotional moments were still missing. The fixed draw just didn’t create drama.One mechanism that is famous for creating drama is push-your-luck. I wasn't thrilled about making this into a push-your-luck-game. I've already done push-your-luck-games, and I don't like doing the same things twice. Also, the genre can feel very random. But we had an idea for making it feel different.The Trick: Push-Your-Luck With No Required Luck Tiles have two sides. Throw a pile of them into a box, and roughly half will land face-up, half face-down. This is an awesome and underrated feature of tiles (I actually explored this feature in my 2011 game Mammut). Now, on one side of each tile, we put one of six “creepers” (like spiders, snakes and so on). On your turn, you can keep drawing tiles as long as you don't draw two matching creepers. Since half the tiles are already face-up, you're not gambling blind. You can see a lot of what you're risking. Play it safe and only take what's visible. Play it wild and go after the good stuff regardless of what's face-down. Or play it smart, and only take a risk when the reward is big. It's push-your-luck where the luck is optional and you actually have a lot of control. That distinction turned out to contribute with exactly what I was aiming for. We also decided the tiles themselves shouldn't be plain squares with symbols. They're have custom shapes, vases, statues, artifacts. Because digging up a chunk of a vase should feel like digging up a chunk of a vase, not like picking up a tile that says "vase."The Missing Ingredient: Care At this point the game worked, but something felt flat: it was a set-collection game, and early test players didn’t seem to care much about what anyone else was doing. Even though the game was interactive (how and where you dig certainly affects the other players), players didn’t pay attention to what the others collected. If you didn’t care what the others collected, the game didn’t feel very interactive. Everyone was mostly collecting their own stuff in their own corner of the table.The fix was quite simple: put a scoring track on the table and make it a race to 50 points. Same underlying scoring, very different feeling. The moment test players could see each other advancing towards the finish line, they started paying attention to what they were collecting. This improved the level of experienced interaction. What tiles you picked up and left behind suddenly felt much more crucial. The Envelopes We had several cool ideas for different tile effects, but I wanted to keep the rules simple to make sure this was a low-entry game. However, the added variation from the new tiles was also very good. We decided to divide the contents between five sealed envelopes. You unlock them one at a time as you play, each one introducing a new twist or tile type. We deliberately kept this short: You should feel real progress early on, and be able to unlock the full game within about 8-10 games.The ArtSomewhere in the middle of all this, French illustrator and cartoon author Nathan Lemonnier agreed to do the art, and this leveled up the game. His art is distinctive and playful, in a style you don’t often see on board game boxes. And he didn't just illustrate what we'd built, he came up with its own universe, and gave the artifacts their own half-explained mythology. You're not just digging up "a vase" or an ancient artifact. You're now digging up strange memories. It also matched perfectly with the concept of the envelopes, as he could add theme and meaning to them, and the envelopes would tell a little story. The Return to SPIEL/EssenSo, that's the game, built from a box of loose tiles, a Minecraft-related boardgame night with my son, and a lot of trial and error.In October, we'll be at SPIEL Essen together, setting up the table, teaching strangers the art of combined archaeology and paleontology (contrary to common academic belief, these disciplines can absolutely be combined). I did this with Maria two years ago for Gardlings, and it remains one of my favorite memories as a dad. Now I get to experience this with my son. Aleksander has already asked if he can explain the rules to people, and if he ends up explaining the game to you, even though he might seem a little shy, you should know that he is quite good at hiding his pride.

• 
  Designer and Developer's Diary: Chronocritters

  by sucd on September 12, 2026

  by Vladimir Suchy DESIGNER'S DIARY - TRISTAN BEGINNINGS Hello everyone, I am Tristan Geeraert, and I’m happy to share that my first board game Chronocritters is being published by Delicious Gamesand will be released later this year at SPIEL. The design of Chronocritters started eight years ago (somewhere in 2018), more or less one year after I started to get really engrossed in the board gaming hobby. By that time, I had already developed a preference for euro games and especially those that use worker placement (with a twist) and dice manipulation as mechanics. To me, the main advantage of worker placement (beside liking the mechanic itself) is that games incorporating this mechanic are, for a large part, self-explanatory, because turns are straightforward (placing a figure on the board) and the effect of the different action spots can often simply be read from the board. I think that such a rigid core leaves room to go a little deeper into the intricacies between different actions and certain sec-ondary effects, without ending up with an overly complex ruleset.Initially the idea to create a game of my own was purely a passion project, something I wanted to create for myself as a personal challenge and which I could share with family and friends when finished. However, while getting more and more caught up into the hobby, the desire grew to make my game into an official product that could be published and brought into the market. During the first two years of working on the game, I created laser cut MDF game boards and player boards which felt advanced (at least for a prototype) and which led to very tangible playtests. While the game looked cool and beautiful, it was not very practical from a design point of view. Whenever certain things changed, I often had to redesign components which was much more of a hassle than if I had just worked with print and play prototypes. However, I enjoyed the creation process, so I didn’t mind it back then. After all, there was no publisher in the picture with whom I had to share a prototype yet. But the desire to approach a publisher started to grow. CONTACTING THE PUBLISHERFast-forward to autumn 2021: I still hadn’t approached any publishers, but I had done some research on which publishers nearby (in Belgium or the Netherlands) would be possibly interested in the heavy euro game that I had created. At that time, the game was still called "Test of Time" instead of Chronocritters. Without any specific reason, I suddenly decided that it was time, so on that same day – two weeks before SPIEL 2021 would start – I contacted the owner of the Belgian publishing company, Game Brewer, through a DM. I introduced myself, asked if I could show them my prototype during the fair and send them some photos of my latest MDF game board. Looking back at it and acknowledging that my way of communication might not have been the most professional, it was very extraordinary that my request was accepted nonetheless and that I indeed had a chance to present my game. After a playtest by the Game Brewer team, they expressed their interest but indicated that the game was still too complex and contained too many items. Back then the game consisted of eight rounds with five workers per player (not counting two additional unlockable workers) and almost 100 dice. Streamlining and cutting out certain mechanics was of the essence. There were simply too many components to make it feasible to produce the game and too many rules for the game’s own good. Luckily, the Game Brewer team had fun, and they indicated that they were open to revisit the game once I did make sufficient changes.So, I went back to the drawing board and intensively worked on the game for an additional four months before asking for a second chance. A new playtest followed and a couple of days later I signed my first contract. What a great feeling that was! It was clear that a lot of things still had to change, but I looked forward to the development process and improving the game even further. It is not a secret that Game Brewer ceased operation two years later. Test of Time had been pushed back a couple of times and after it ultimately went through a development process in the winter of 2023, I got the news that the game – which was renamed Chronocritters in the meantime – would no longer be crowdfunded due to the cessation of Game Brewer. The rights of the game reverted back to me and I wanted to get back to work on it as soon as possible. However, I realized that to reach different publishers it would be helpful to have an online playable version of my game. Luckily, my brother helped me out and created a Tabletop Simulator version of Chronocritters in no time. At this time, I had again revised the game slightly. During the Game Brewer development, the game was reshaped into a very tight 16 action game (four rounds instead of eight with four workers) and I preferred to make it a little more loose again. Yet, some ideas that originated during the Game Brewer development lived on in the latest iteration of the game. To me, this was the best of both world: a collection of ideas and mechanics that I liked the most combined with some clever streamlining thanks to Game Brewer.I contacted some of the publishers that I valued very highly based on games from them that I had played. One of them was Delicious Games as I was very impressed by Vladimir’s games I had played up until that point. In the summer of 2024, I got a reply stating that usually Delicious Games only publishes Vladimir’s own designs (or sometimes a co-design) but that they were nonetheless interested in the game after reading the rules. They asked me to send the files so that they could assemble a prototype for themselves and test the game. They preferred to test the game in a physical manner instead of through Tabletop Simulator, and while the latter option would certainly have been faster to get a first impression, it can sometimes be hard to get a good grasp of a game’s real potential. So of course I send the files to the Delicious Games team.A couple months went by and in the weeks leading up to SPIEL, I was happy to learn that Delicious Games was still interested in the game after undertaking some tests. They had certain remarks about the current state of the game and pointed out things that needed to change. One of the bigger changes they requested was removing one of the initial four starting workers that each player had. Knowing that the initial prototype in 2018 had six different workers per player which was brought back to four already before the Game Brewer collaboration, the idea to now – two years later – cut out another worker felt almost impossible. Especially since my entire game was built around the fact that each of the four workers had a special passive ability that was an essential factor in deciding where to place it on the board. At this time, each player started the game with a hare, fox, beaver and eagle. The (fast) hare performed a double action when placed, the (cunning) fox could flip a die to its opposite side, the (craftsman) beaver could perform a special Dam build-ing action among other things and the (flying) eagle could reach parts of the board inaccessible to other non-flying workers. The exercise to cut out one of these abilities was not an easy thing to do.Nonetheless, I got back to work and tried to incorporate Vladimir’s feedback. I removed a worker (the eagle) and made other changes based on his suggestions and quickly became aware that the game had improved significantly. Not for the first time I was confronted with the fact that as a designer you can sometimes end up having tunnel vision regarding certain game ideas, making it very helpful to let an external person shine their light on the overall game. The latest feedback I received was very positive and with a feeling of hope I met with Delicious Games at SPIEL 2024, presenting the new revision. It was then discussed that Delicious Games wanted to do some more test before taking a decision. And then something unexpected happened…Out of the blue I received a contract to sign the game from Final Frontier Games (who was one of the other publishers to whom I had sent an email back in the summer). I had once shown them the game through Tabletop Simulator, but didn’t hear back from them until now. They were very enthusiastic about the game I had submitted and wanted to fast forward with developing and producing it without any significant changes. However, there was one “problem”. The prototype as reviewed by Final Frontier Games (FFG) was the previous one (with four workers) and in the mean-time I was convinced that the prototype with the changes based on Vladimir’s suggestions was superior. While it was very nice to hear of their interest, I asked for some time to think about this turn of events as I didn’t want to rush into a decision which I would later regret. I wanted to allow Delicious Games to perform their additional tests, and I was also slightly conflicted about the fact that FFG indicated no changes were necessary. Because even though it can be hard for a designer to change or cut out some things from your own game, it is often worthwhile to remove superfluous parts. Ultimately, Delicious Games sent word that they wanted to publish the game, but that it would require further changes. While the enthusiasm of the FFG team was undeniable, I think Vladimir had already convinced me of my preference for Delicious Games due to his recent suggestions.One thing was clear when comparing feedback from Delicious Games, FFG, Game Brewer, and a couple of other publishers who reviewed the game: the time travel mechanic and the dice grid were considered the standouts of the game and the varying worker abilities were often praised. Once the contract was signed, Delicious Games started to work on the game and introduced changes to intertwine both the time travel mechanic and the dice grid mechanic even further. A long development period followed where many revisions were made and many mails were sent with suggestions, feedback and updates. It was great to know that the game was being continuously polished. What followed were many great improvements, streamlining exercises and clever ideas. Ultimately, it also led to a very hard decision to cut out the different passive animal abilities. These abilities had formed the core of the worker placement decision pattern since the con-ception of the game, but they were removed in an attempt to enhance the focus on the time travel and dice grid mechanics. The game was also further reshaped in order to align more with the tastes of Delicious Games’ audience. This meant removing random factors like dice rolls and card draws wherever possible. While I personally like games to feature some randomness (in the form of widely varying card abilities and – albeit modifiable – dice rolls) this was less the case for the growing testing audience who preferred the game to be more strategic with fewer luck inducing factors. Luckily, Delicious Games know their audience and acted accordingly. In the end, Vladimir and his team were able to make Chronocritters into a beautiful product that retains the time travel and dice grid mechanics which I created all these years ago and I am very excited to see the release draw closer. I am looking forward to seeing players discover the many strategies woven into the game. DEVELOPER'S DIARY - VLADIMIR SUCHÝ In July 2024, Delicious Games received a game proposal from Tristan Geeraert. We do not actively seek out new games, so we usually reply immediately stating that we do not accept game submissions as we have a full publishing plan, or sometimes, the proposal just doesn’t fit into our portfolio of games. However, this particular prototype intrigued us for two reasons: the story behind the game's release (it had originally been slated for publication but the project was abandoned when the publisher ceased operations) and the mechanics and theme, which appeared innovative.We therefore decided to test the prototype, with the understanding that the decision on whether to publish it would be made after testing. While online testing platforms can have their merits at times, we still consider them to provide limited insight, especially when deciding whether to publish a game or not. Consequently, we requested the physical files so that we could build a prototype to playtest.Our initial impression from testing was positive; we saw great potential in the game. We were particularly impressed by the time-travel system - where certain action spaces were inaccessible in time but could be opened up by creating time portals (which also involved a crucial "decay" factor) - and by the dice grid used to complete quests, which created an original puzzle-like mechanic for dice manipulation. The dice in this grid could be used as a resource for other actions, yet they also needed to be collected to fulfill objectives.These two core mechanisms remained the backbone of the game throughout its subsequent development, right up until the point at which development concluded. From the very beginning, we identified several areas where we wanted to steer the game's development. After our initial contact, we requested some modifications specifically to shorten the game (by reducing the number of animals/actions) prior to further testing. However, to make a final decision on the future of the game, we needed to gather insights from play-ers and testers.Further playtesting took place, during which Tristan informed us of a new contract offer for the game. We asked for some additional time, and after further testing, we recognized the game's strong potential and decided to offer the author a publishing contract with Delicious Games.The game after the first graphic and gameplay adjustments at Delicious GamesInitially, we had envisioned this game being developed alongside another title that I would author or co-author. However, we subsequently decided to capitalize on the fact that we had a prototype ready in the autumn of 2024 and so a game that could be released in 2026. This allowed us to adjust our release schedule and workflow at Delicious Games.Previously, the process typically involved me finishing a prototype (either solo or in collaboration) during the summer of one year, followed by intensive playtesting, with the game’s release scheduled for the following year, specifically in time for the SPIEL Essen fair. This tight schedule created significant time pressure, particularly regarding the rules, which often had to be finalized shortly before the game's release.Incorporating a game by an external author (Chronocritters) into our schedule allowed us to extend the entire process; we are now aiming to finalize the prototype two to three months earlier in the spring, while also gaining about a year and a half for playtesting and graphic design. This provides more room to work on the game and reduces stress. We have postponed the release of the game we are currently developing with Ross Arnold, who is the same designer behind Woodcraft, from the original 2026 release date to 2027.After taking over the game for testing, I identified the following key areas requiring change: • Managing, or potentially shortening, the game's duration. This was resolved by removing one round, a change that fit well with the game's structure, logic, and action sequencing. • Introducing elements that fostered engine-building. This involved adjusting how mines operate, adding animal development mechanics, and modifying ability cards. • Eliminating elements with a high degree of randomness specifically dice rolling, event draws (which were ultimately removed entirely), and the luck factor involved in drawing scoring cards. • Removing elements that relied on negative incentives (mechanisms that punished players for failing to meet a requirement) and replacing them with positive incentives. During further development, for instance, the game eliminated penalties for insufficient participation in specific areas (such as the dam) and the requirement to "charge up" workers before they could perform any actions. These negative mechanics were replaced with positive ones: players can now gain turn order advantages and various bonuses at the dam, while critter development provides both extra actions and enhanced capabilities and bonuses when deploy-ing upgraded critters.The final area targeted for improvement was the integration of the game's various components. Previously, the different parts were largely isolated, allowing players to focus on just one are - an approach that tended to make gameplay repetitive. The integration of the various components was achieved primarily by introducing colors for the hard disc quests (tasks arranged in a grid) and implementing a scoring system based on color matching. This feature now effectively motivates players to engage with all parts of the game.I endeavored to implement these elements into the game gradually. This process involved frequent consultations with Tristan, particularly during the initial phase. Once the core components were finalized and the game was nearing its definitive state, we conducted numerous additional playtests, primarily to fine-tune the balance. During this stage, I incorporated insights gained from testing sessions with Katka and other testers, as well as a series of observations provided by our external tester, Štěpán Peterka, based on his own playthroughs and analysis.ThemeOne key insight from the testing phase concerned the game's theme. The original concept featured a rather broad fantasy narrative starring animal workers. However, due to gameplay adjustments, this premise largely lost its justification, and the scenario lacked intuitiveness. Acting on the testing feedback, Štěpán proposed shifting the game to a post-apocalyptic setting while retaining the animal characters. We decided to adopt this theme. Following this decision, we selected artistVlad Ricean to create the game's illustrations and cover art; his work, which was complemented by the contributions of illustrator and graphic designer Anna Zvocová, elevated the game's visual style exactly as we had envisioned.Individual characters beautifully crafted by Vlad RiceanSolo ModeOnce the mechanics were solidified, I implemented a solo mode. As always, the goal was to minimize the administrative overhead required to manage the "automa". Given the game's complexity, the rules and setup are somewhat more extensive than usual, yet the actual gameplay management remains, in my view, just as straightforward as in other DG titles; the objective, as with our other games, is to beat your own high score.Finally, as with other projects, we had to establish the rules. This is usually a rather tedious process, though this time we (Vladimír and Katka) are creating them ourselves.plan without graphic additionsChanging Actions in SeasonsAfter the game’s balance had been refined, the final adjustment involved introducing a system for the random drafting of season actions over time. As previously mentioned, one of the game's key innovations is the time-limited availability of actions and re-sources - a constraint that applies primarily to "engine-building" actions. Randomly drawing these tiles ensures a unique experience in every session, requiring players to adapt their strategies and thereby enhancing the game's replayability.I believe we have succeeded in creating another Euro-style game that, while offering fresh, intriguing concepts from a new designer, stands proudly alongside the best titles from Delicious Games. It excels not only through its original elements but also through its sheer fun factor, offering a vast array of strategies, action combinations, objective fulfillment, and diverse development options that blend into a highly entertaining and innovative mix.Final version of the game - Chronocritters

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  The Railway Boom in Greylune was all the Jibber Jabble across the Oasis

  by boardgamersteph on September 9, 2026

  by Steph Hodge [imageid=8951049 medium rep]▪️ CrowD Games announced pre-orders for Railway Boom with expected delivery this September. From designers Hisashi Hayashi (Bomb Busters) and Simone Luciani (Barrage). Did someone say Trains? Did someone say Auctions? Did someone say network building? Did someone say YES PLEASE!? This game plays 2-4 players in about 60-120 minutesFrom BGG:In the late 19th century, during the early Meiji era, Japan opened its first railway line between Shimbashi and Yokohama. This new mode of transportation sparked a railway boom across the country.Local entrepreneurs, and later powerful tycoons, established new companies that grew into large railway corporations throughout the Taishō and Shōwa eras.As players, you will take on the roles of these tycoons, building and managing your own railway empires as you compete for the most renown.Railway Boom recreates this era of industry through gameplay by having players balance resource management with the growth of their railways connecting various cities across Japan.▪️ The Op Games released Oasis: New Life on A Distant World recently. From designers of Risk Strike: George Feledichuk, David "Duvey" Rudow, and Leo Taylor. This is a new tableau-building card game where you want to keep your tableau lush with cards but also cleared to acquire new cards, it is a fine balance. For 1-5 players and plays in 45-60 minutes. From the newsletter:Cultivate a vibrant biome where the circle of life fuels the ecosystem's survival!In Oasis: New Life on a Distant World, you embody the forces of nature on this primal planet, shaping the planet’s biodiversity by guiding the life cycles of its many bizarre species. Your goal is to cultivate a balanced, vibrant biome where the circle of life fuels the ecosystem’s survivalTiming is key, however, as the annual floods will wash away plants and animals below the floodline at the end of each round. You must manage your hand of cards and maximize your actions to outplay your opponents and build the most dynamic and highest-scoring biome.▪️ Greylune from Sorry We Are French & now Pandasaurus Games should be available in the US this September. From designer William Attia (Caylus), this game reimplements Spyrium. For 2-4 players and plays in 45-60 minutes. Spyrium has a unique worker-placement mechanic, so it will be interesting to see how this new game evolves that original system.From the newsletter:It's not in the adventure, it's in the retelling of the tale.​​Greylune is a strategic game combining worker placement and adventure, set in a rich and captivating medieval fantasy world. Place your villages between the cards that form the city of Greylune, then remove them at the right moment to gather resources, recruit companions, acquire items, and visit important locations.▪️ Jibber Jabble from Allplay Is coming really soon. From designer Cassie Sikes, this is a new party game for 3-10 players that plays in 15 minutes.From BGG:Your goal each round is to convey a secret word to the round's guesser. You and your team get to spell three words in order to do that.Players spell one letter each. The catch? They aren't allowed to discuss what clue they're trying to spell. The first time you have a perfect clue in mind, but the person next to you says a letter you weren't expecting at all... well, that's Jibber Jabble.

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  Designer Diary: ASHES: Blackout Protocol

  by chusoclown on September 8, 2026

  by Chus Rivel ASHES Blackout Protocol began as an in-house design, and as an almost inevitable next step after the intense development work of our previous projects. It is rooted in the universe of Phoenix New Horizon, and this is its story.From Phoenix to ASHESFor us, the best part of Phoenix New Horizon was the development itself. Together we managed to pull together a hugely ambitious team, one capable of hitting some big milestones, and we did it with incredible humanity and a sense of fun that has turned Thursday into the big day of the week: no matter how often we see each other otherwise, we all know that, whatever happens, we will be around the table on Thursday to play and to talk at length, without being afraid of getting things wrong.After the warm reception of Phoenix New Horizon, and while we were working flat out on Orloj: The Prague Astronomical Clock, an idea started coming up at the table more and more often: going back to that universe. We didn't want to make an expansion; we wanted a completely new game.Orloj was still being illustrated when we were already jotting down ideas and setting out the key points of what this title had to be, a game that was born as a prequel from the very first moment. As a starting point, we found it really interesting to design something built around an alarm and an evacuation of the Earth, like The Downfall of Pompeii, Anachrony or Evacuation.And if the first game in the saga was called Phoenix, the prequel could only be called Ashes. We liked giving it a more technological edge by turning its letters into the acronym of the evacuation protocol used after the nuclear catastrophe: Artificial Shelter & Human Evacuation SequenceFor anyone who doesn't know Phoenix New Horizon: the game takes us to a retro-dystopia in which humanity has survived by taking refuge underground after a nuclear war. It begins at the moment civilization comes up from the depths, ready to recolonize the Earth by carrying out the Phoenix Project, a network of regenerators capable of making the planet habitable again.ASHES had to take us to the moment right before that. We wanted players to build shelters, rescue survivors on the board and work toward one big common goal: developing the Phoenix Project. Without knowing it, we had just defined the three main actions of the game.First ContactThat was when Jorge brought us a first draft that helped us pin down a lot of the ideas we had been throwing around. It barely worked as a game, but it hid some very interesting concepts that ended up surviving the whole development: a vehicle to interact with the map, the Phoenix Project as the scoring system, a resource crafting system and, of course, radiation. If we were in the middle of a nuclear emergency, we wanted the game to have radiation.That first prototype already had a pick & delivery system, a mechanism we have never been especially keen on at Perro Loko Games and one that tends to put a lot of players off. Even so, it fit the theme perfectly and we were sure we could give it a twist. Over time it became one of the parts of the game we are proudest of and, in fact, we think plenty of people won't even spot it as a traditional pick & delivery.A shot of the first prototypeSetting a New Starting PointOf all the ideas we had been writing down, there was one we fell in love with from the very first moment: ASHES would be a worker placement game in which the workers could die if they didn't get their anti-rad dose. That idea ended up becoming one of the pillars of the design.We also settled on the elements that had to connect ASHES with Phoenix New Horizon: managing commandos as your workers, and completing missions as extra actions during your turn. It was important that any player could tell at a glance that both games share the same universe.A full evacuation has to be a titanic project for humanity and, the way we see it, a shared one, so we had our first challenge right there: several parts of the game had to feel cooperative, but under an atmosphere of tension and survival. That led us to two conclusions. The first: rescuing survivors would be a common good even though we were all competing for it. The second: building the Phoenix Project had to benefit the other players indirectly.If rescuing survivors is a common good, losing them had to hurt the players, and that idea turned into the happiness track, which for many versions was almost useless until we found the real engine of the game.The Engine of the GameWhile the rest of the design kept evolving game after game, there was one feeling that wouldn't go away: the action engine still wasn't convincing us. Phoenix New Horizon had a central mechanism that had surprised the community, and we felt ASHES needed to find its own.After discarding several proposals, we got to a first serious version of the engine: an action programming system split into two zones, the outside world and the colony. Resources were produced in the colony and the workers were safe there; actions were carried out outside. At the end of each round you had to supply anti-rad doses to every worker who had been left exposed.The prototype in the picture is version 7.0 of the game; you can see the action programming system on the right-hand side of the boardAlthough that proposal was eventually dropped as well, it turned out to be surprisingly useful. For months it worked as a temporary engine that let us develop the rest of the game. It was fascinating to see how we could later swap the engine out without it affecting the rest of the components too much.Across all those versions, one of the ideas that would end up defining ASHES completely started to take shape: survivors would be a resource shared by every player. Rescuing one wouldn't only make your colony grow, it would also increase the number of actions available to you. In other words, ASHES would end up being a worker placement game in which you have to go out and rescue your workers. Getting new ones would be part of the competition too.We were convinced that a big part of the game's character was right there, but it was also the source of some of the worst headaches of the whole development. Snowballs appeared hard to control, turns got too long and games ran on longer than they should. To fix it we took an important step: we dropped the shared area where the actions took place and moved that system onto the personal colony board. Action spaces there would be limited, and any extra rescued survivors would go into a separate flow made up of the shelter cards.And then, finally, everything started to click.Rescue survivors to turn them into your workers, then decide which ones stay active in the colony and which ones find shelter inside it. Without realizing it, we had gone back to the original idea of the two zones, outside and inside, but now in a much more natural way.The system was easy to understand, it let the rest of the game shine, and it made rescuing one more survivor always feel like an important decision. That was when we started to feel that ASHES finally had an identity of its own.How the colony board of ASHES Blackout Protocol evolvedActive Survivors, Essential Survivors, and the Final PictureNormally, once we have a working engine, we like to pin down what the final picture of the game looks like and what we want to see on the table when the game ends: how many spaces will be filled, how many objectives completed, how far each player will have got. In a way, what we're working on at this point is the satisfaction you get from looking at everything you built during the game. To get there, we sometimes have to slow the engine down or speed it up until that final picture works.If the survival of humanity is the ultimate goal in an emergency, it helps to have survivor profiles with different roles within the dynamics of the game. So we defined two categories, essential and active, deliberately neutral names chosen to avoid associations that might be uncomfortable. As a visual cue, the two are told apart by color, with yellow for one of them because of its association with radiation protection suits, a visual code that is widely recognized in the world of safety and protection.Both would help us fill up our shelters, but only active survivors can work outside the colony. On top of that, saving essential survivors would be easier for the players, which let us speed the engine up and fine-tune the final picture of the game.One of the main challenges with this game was that it only has three main actions (Build, Rescue and Develop), and that could easily start to feel repetitive: we had to break the sequence.Phoenix New Horizon was a really interesting design exercise as a game with a single resource, fuel, so in ASHES fuel had to play a big part again. This time it would be used to move the evacuation vehicle and carry survivors to the shelters.But moving the vehicle around the board wasn't enough on its own. We wanted every move to be an interesting decision, and that's how the idea of the area tiles came about: as it travels across the map, the vehicle triggers main actions and turns movement into much more than just getting from one place to another. The board stopped being somewhere you pass through and started to become a key part of the game, and all of a sudden you could find yourself thinking:"I'm stuck... but if I move over here I get fuel, I trigger this action and I can still stretch my turn out a little further."You weren't only watching your own colony any more. You were also keeping an eye on the central board the whole time, making sure nobody else rescued the survivors you needed or claimed that action you had been setting up for several turns.That was when we felt the vehicle had stopped being a thematic element and become one of the most important pieces in the game. Movement wasn't about going from one point to another any more: it had turned into a way of building little spatial combos in which both the route and the order of your actions mattered. It was one of those days when you get up from the table thinking: "Now we're talking."The prototyping processThe Asymmetric FactionsWhen the game was already pretty well tuned and we were starting to feel comfortable with it, we had another one of those ideas that seem fantastic... until you have to develop them.We'd had a great time creating asymmetric factions in Orloj, but with ASHES we wanted to go a step further. Our goal was for each faction to really change the way you play, not just hand you a small advantage at the start.If Phoenix taught us that balancing a game built around a single resource could be maddening, ASHES showed us that doing it with twelve different factions was, quite simply, a small hell.We reckon we've tested them over more than eighty games. On top of that, we played countless solo games with every single one of them to check that they all worked exactly the way we wanted.I'm convinced that once the game hits people's tables, someone will say that one of the factions is broken.I'll give you the answer in advance: they probably all are.Or, to put it another way, they're all very powerful.The difference is that some show their full potential from the very first game, while others need the player to know the game much better to get the most out of them. And funnily enough, those are the ones that scare us the most when they fall into the hands of an experienced player.The TeamASHES is a completely collective game, and that wouldn't be complete without Jorge Tabanera, who climbed into the van with us from the very first moment.Working with him is an absolute delight. He understands exactly the world we want to build, the feeling we want to get across and the visual tone we're after. He blew us away the first time we saw the cover, and he has managed to create a color palette that gives Phoenix and ASHES a very recognizable shared identity.It's hard to imagine this game without Jorge. He is as much a part of the development as any of us. Even if he still loses every single game.But this game wouldn't exist without you either.It might not look like it, but we read every comment, every review, every post and every message we get. We watch all the videos that show up on YouTube and we take note of everything (our German and our Korean have improved a lot over these last few years).The rulebook has been revised with enormous care, taking in a lot of the improvements we learned while making Orloj. We have also put a huge amount of work into making the board easier to read and all the information clear and intuitive, while keeping the visual language of Phoenix.We honestly believe ASHES is the most demanding game Perro Loko has made so far. It is a game that, with barely four rules, keeps you thinking about how to optimize every single decision.You don't need to have played Phoenix to enjoy it, but if you did you'll find plenty of nods that we hope will put a smile on your face. Will there be a third part to this universe?That's in your hands now.For now, all we hope is that you enjoy ASHES as much as we have enjoyed creating it and playing it.Evolution of the box cover

• 
  I'm Excited...Why Aren't You?

  by whenindoubteatout on September 7, 2026

  by Justin Bell Every week, usually on Monday afternoons, someone in our Wednesday night game group starts a new round of messages to set up that week’s game schedule.Someone agrees to host; sometimes, it’s the guy whose partner is out of town and can’t travel anywhere unless they host (those kids will get you!). Sometimes, a person has a game they want to get to the table that is too large to transport easily, a big piece of chicken with a hundred minis, a massive board, a 400-piece poker chip set.In other cases, we need someone with a house or apartment big enough to host; when we have just 5-6 players, everyone in the group has space. But from time to time, a 10+ person group needs a place to go, and not everyone has the table space to take on 3-4 tables at the same time.Once that process is locked up, we get into the real business of the week: the board game horse trading. Everyone has something they would like to get to the table, and subtly nudging the group is just as powerful as using a word avalanche sledgehammer to get commitments.One table is always a non-negotiable: whoever hosts gets to put out whatever they want on “Table One”, as it is known in the thread. “Guys, it’s my birthday this week, so I’m gonna put _____ on Table One, so I’m looking for people to join me. The rest of you: play whatever you want.”Sometimes, even the host pick becomes a warzone. When the host of our night two weeks ago threw out Obsession as his game of choice, just as many people raised their hand to say yes as did those who vehemently tried to argue that Obsession is a different beast depending on player count. After a steady back-and-forth, the host relented, and got The Castles of Mad King Ludwig out instead. (The poor guy couldn’t even get the first-choice game he wanted to the table on his birthday!!!)When you are excited about something, you’re expecting everyone else to be excited about it, too.Until they are not.Last week, I got in line early.I didn’t want to host, but I did have that all-too-familiar train game itch. (Everyone gets this itch, right?) I gently lobbed two options into the thread: Landmarks of the Lost Atlas—the new expansion for Railways of the Lost Atlas, which I picked up a few weeks ago—and Railway Boom, one of my top 10 picks from 2025.I was happy to table either one. (Yes, train game purists: Railway Boom is more auction game than train game. Railway Boom doesn’t have diesels, “double O” city locations, certificate limits, or private companies. But there are nominal routes built on a map, train cards, station tokens, and operating costs. Most importantly, there’s a train illustrated on the box cover. Train game.)The hosts had their eyes on Águeda: City of Umbrellas (a title sitting squarely on the hosts’ Maybe Pile), so Águeda was reserved for the first play on Table One. I waited to see how many other people might want to play one of the train games on Table Two.I was excited. Everyone knows how great these games are, right? The responses should begin piling up in the next few minutes…and now all I need to figure out is the poker chip situation and we’ll be all set.But that’s not what happened. One guy threw me a curveball, knowing that I can be persuaded if we stay roughly adjacent to the family of games I tossed into the ring.“Could I sway you towards 1889 or 1894 instead?” he offered. (This, from the other consistent train game regular in our group, the one who brings Age of Steam to every game night like I used to do with Brass: Lancashire a couple years ago.)I do love Shikoku 1889 (the Grand Trunk Games update of 1889: History of Shikoku Railways is gorgeous and a weeknight train game) and I badly want to try 1894 (the words “dynamic” and “brutal” show up a lot in the game’s BGG comments area). But my mind was made up: I want to table Landmarks of the Lost Atlas, with Railway Boom being a reliably excellent route-building auction game as my backup plan.“Nope, not this week,” I responded to Mr. Age of Steam. “But in future weeks, absolutely.”My confidence was still high. Any minute now, other players will kneel at the altar of the choo choo.“Any minute now” turned into the rest of the day. No one else threw any titles into the chat, but Mr. Age of Steam made it clear that my message did make it out. Do I need to find new friends if I can’t get some buy-in on train game time this week?The mind games carried into the next day. I’m not pushy, so I didn’t send out a reminder—”ahem, guys, who’s with me on the choo choo situation?”—but I considered it.No one bit. I was so excited to get a train game to the table…why aren’t you?Wednesday night rolled around, and I arrived at the host’s house with Landmarks of the Lost Atlas and the base game in tow. No one else had a burning desire to get anything else to the table, so Landmarks made its way to Table Two after all.That was great, and I had a great time playing. We had a train game rookie with us for a four-player game that included Mr. Age of Steam. A short teach, a long setup (we used a pre-built map for the “Short” game), and a surprise bankruptcy meant that we got the thrill of adventure, the agony of defeat, and the commentary from everyone on what they did and didn’t like all packaged up into a two-hour gaming event.As it turned out, no one was as excited as I was…and, I can live with that. I think using everyone else’s passion and energy as a gauge is usually a mistake; at almost every sitting, even for a game that is brand new to all players, someone at the table is significantly more excited for the play than others.It’s usually easy to get me to agree to play a game that someone else is really fired up to get to the table. I may or may not buy in during the play; it’s your game, or it’s the “hot” game, or it’s a game that another reviewer has to work through in the course of their travels, so they are obligated to play it. (As a reviewer myself, those can sometimes be the toughest nights.)I try my best to match the excitement others have for a game if possible, at least as long as the game remains fun and competitive. That’s where the passion can really fall off quickly. A runaway leader saps a game of its chance to shine. Rules complexity—or, worse, a poorly-written rulebook—throws people off the scent of what the designers imagined when they put the game together. Even a single frustrated player can make life tough on everyone; at times, I am that player. That has made it easier to imagine the moment when a play experience derails.Fortunately, none of that happened during our play of Landmarks of the Lost Atlas. And now, my choo choo cup has been refilled; I am excited to pay it forward and join up for someone else’s big night soon. Just a couple weeks before, we had a person that desperately wanted to get Lisboa to the table; happy to oblige. A night full of party and/or trick-taking games? It’s your night, partner.I know how excited you are. I’ll try my best to get fired up, too!

• 
  Designer Diary: Níjar

  by Drogho on September 6, 2026

  by David Bernal Introduction(written by designer David Bernal)Oddly enough, for a long time Níjar wasn't Níjar. This is the diary of how, thanks to the work done together by its designer (me) and the development team at Perro Loko Games, that first prototype ended up becoming the game it is today.The Inspiration That Got the Design GoingDesigning a board game is not an easy job. I always need some inspiration, a spark that makes all the ideas I've been storing up fall into place.The case of Níjar was a curious one. I remember sitting on the sofa at home when I thought of a theme based on the Barcelona '92 Olympics, something completely different from what the game has ended up being.The idea was that each player would be an Olympic bid, competing in the race to become the host city of the Games. To do that you would have to develop your own city and meet the IOC's demands: the best stadiums, transport, hotel capacity, waste management... all the things you need in place to host an event on that scale.When something excites me, what usually happens is that the rest of the ideas and mechanisms start turning up like a whirlwind. That's when the time comes to put some order into everything you're generating.Fitting Into a Design PatternThere is a publisher in Spain with a line this theme fit perfectly, so I got in touch with them to see whether the project might interest them. With no commitment, but with their blessing, I started working on the idea while sticking to production parameters that are very characteristic of their games.I had the theme, I had ideas about how to develop the game and I had the publisher's encouragement to start building something, so I got my hands dirty with the proto.The part I was most convinced about was the player area. It had to show the evolution of the city you represented and how it grew. That would be one of the cores of the game. To fit the idea into the publisher's parameters, the best approach was to build that area out of cards and, to get real development out of very few components, I made the cards interact with each other through horizontal and vertical connections.I soon realized I was walking straight into designing a tableau building game with synergies.At the bottom of the picture you can see the player area with the connections between cards. At the top, the main board with a matrix of discs as the action selection space and the first card selection methodThe Action EngineOne of the problems I had was action selection. I didn't know exactly what mechanism to use to get interesting interaction between players. An action selection system with discs in limited spaces could make sense, but it needed an interesting twist.Anyone who knows me will know that majorities are one of my favorite mechanisms, and the new idea in action selection was that a player could return another player's disc or discs as long as, when placing their own, they went over the number of discs in that action space. Once returned, those discs were available to their owner again.The icing on the cake for the action system was arranging those spaces in a matrix, so that by taking a particular space you could choose one of the main actions matching the X coordinate of that space and a secondary action matching its Y coordinate.All of this sounded great, to be honest. The problems arrived when we played it.The picture shows an action selection matrix already using the Níjar theme and much further alongCard SelectionAnother part of the process was designing the card selection, which was the main engine of the game. The first proposal focused on creating different types of cards and putting them all in the same deck. To add a decision point, the cards would be laid out on one side of the deck or the other, forcing players to choose one of the two available groups.I knew this would cause problems too, but I needed to play the game before designing a more complex card selection mechanism.The game was ready to be tested and, as always, when the playtests start, the real problems start.The First ProblemsThe action selection grid with the stacked discs was interesting, but it didn't work the way I intended. Some players could be left with nothing to do for a long stretch because they had used up all their discs on the matrix and no other player returned them.To fix it, we opened up the possibility of taking secondary actions on the turn of players who no longer had discs available. That gave the players who still had discs a reason to close the round as soon as possible, so as not to hand out extra actions. The action system became richer, and it started to work.Another problem we spotted was that card selection could end up very unbalanced depending on the type of cards showing up in each part of the matrix. The dilemma dissolved and the choice ended up being fairly obvious.The first changes came from the card deck. We had to organize the cards by year and balance them so that they gradually increased in cost and value, making them come out in a more orderly way.We also expanded the matrix so that cards from earlier years were still available during later rounds and didn't just fade away.And so, little by little, over months of playtesting, the game took shape until it became the prototype I ended up showing to Chus.This picture was taken during Protos y Tipos, an event for designers in Spain. You can see the card selection matrix a little further alongMeeting Perro LokoI remember the session where I showed the game to Chus. It was pretty casual. We're good friends and my intention wasn't to pitch him a game, but to ask his opinion on how he saw the prototype. After all, they had already worked on a city building game, a mechanism that shares certain aspects with the tableau building I was working on.To my surprise, he asked for a bit of time to think about the game. It looked like he had enjoyed it and was after a game with those characteristics. That's where the metamorphosis started...Perro Loko is known for putting a lot of work into both game development and the product concept, and the first thing he suggested was a change of theme. The same thing happened with Orloj and, although we didn't know yet how successful it would be, it shows he usually has a good nose for these things. His proposal was a theme he had wanted to work on for a long time: pottery making.A change of theme, with everything that comes with it, can call for very significant changes to a game. Chus took charge of the development and they started working on it. From here on the work was intense and constant alongside the development team at Perro Loko Games, so I think it's better to hand over to Chus and let him finish explaining the process.An Andalusian ThemeWritten by publisher Chus FuentesAs an Andalusian almost from birth, I feel deeply rooted in this land. A special place, full of history, incredible landscapes and enormous cultural richness. That's why I had been turning over the idea of starting a line of games that would show the light of this land.I love games that tell stories and invite you to travel to other cultures, like Japanese, Mexican or Indian culture, but what about the land that took me in, its streets and its long conversations? The time had come to pay tribute to it.I live in Seville, a city with a great pottery tradition, especially in Triana. Real works of art in clay have come out of its workshops. Granada also has a very distinctive ceramic style, as do Úbeda and Bailén. A trip to the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park changed my mind, though, and Níjar was the one: a town bathed by the Mediterranean where the pottery tradition goes back to the Bronze Age.On my first trip to Níjar I had the chance to visit Loli and Ángel's workshop, a family craft workshop. Loli is 79 and still works there. She says it's what she has always loved most; it relaxes her and keeps her entertained. When I arrived she was painting next to her granddaughter and, honestly, I think Loli could make it to 200 with the calm, the good sense and the peace she radiates.On a second trip I wanted to go back to Níjar with the factory printing proof, to show the game to her and to her whole family. They were absolutely thrilled. Her grandson even showed me around the inside of the workshop, which is enormous.From top to bottom and from left to right. 1 Loli and her granddaughter painting in the workshop. 2 The game in the glazing area. 3 The game in the shop area of the workshop. 4 The game in one of the prettiest corners of Níjar. 5 The game in another part of Ángel and Loli's workshop. 6 Me at the workshop, in the sweltering heatAt first nobody on the team agreed with taking on this theme, so from the very first moment I worked on the prototype with a lot of care, to try to win them over.For this phase of development I used AI-generated illustrations purely as visual support for the prototype. The aim was to communicate the proposal better during development. The final product was always meant to be illustrated by an artist.Meeting DavidDavid and I are great friends. We had already published Tholos before he became known with Salton Sea and, later, Koinobori. I would have loved to publish Salton Sea, but back then Perro Loko's finances barely let us go beyond smaller formats.We loved the game he brought us. After all, we were looking for a midweight euro with few components and, after signing Phoenix New Horizon with Devir for the United States and getting access to new markets, developing a product designed especially for that market struck us as a great idea. We took the box size of The White Castle, one of their big hits, as our reference. Changing a game's theme, though, sometimes means radical changes. Once again we were up to our elbows in mud, and never was the expression more fitting.The TransformationPottery is a traditional industry. If we wanted to see it represented in the game, we had to build a production chain with all of its steps: extracting the clay, throwing, drying, firing, painting and glazing.David's game was ideal for this transformation. It had stadium cards that were built using a crane token going around a track inside them: there were our potter's wheels. It also had a main resource, influence; that would become the clay. The hard part was fitting in the rest, so we chose to replace the right-hand side of the player area, bringing in the kilns and the painting area.The production chain would work by moving the pieces from top to bottom, from the drying area at the top down to the glaze kiln at the bottom, passing through the different steps along the way. The pieces would be cardboard: unpainted on one side and painted on the other, so they could be flipped to show the process. On top of that, each kiln or workshop would only have room for one piece, forcing players to manage the whole chain carefully.A piece sitting in a kiln could be sold. With that one detail, players could sell both unpainted and painted pieces.In the picture, the player board of the first adaptation of David's game to Níjar. On the right, the production chain. In the upper kilns, fired pieces that are not painted yet; in the lower ones, fired pieces that are already painted and glazedThe production chain didn't work in the first few games. There were too many steps to make a decent number of pieces in the time a game lasts. We had to speed the process up. The key came with the Fire action: instead of firing a single piece, you could make every possible movement of pieces into your kilns. As well as speeding up the chain, we went from making two or three pieces per game to nine or 10. The best part was that the production chain had picked up a very distinctive rhythm that you had to manage in order to optimize it.We extended the same system to the Paint action to unify the whole chain. At last we started to feel the satisfaction of knowing we were on the right track.In the picture, an example from the Níjar rulebook showing three pieces being fired at once with a single Fire actionBringing in the production chain and the new actions meant redoing all the cards. It wasn't only a matter of swapping icons, but nobody thought it was going to be easy.The New Action Selection MatrixDavid's action matrix was a very original idea, but a bit rigid. The actions were printed on the board and, right from the start, we wanted them to be able to swap positions so that every game would feel different.I don't want to spend too long explaining this, so as not to make this diary too long; I'll just add that it took us a long time to get all the actions to have a similar importance and to be able to swap positions.In Níjar, the most important action in the game, by a distance, is Play a Card. To make everything work, we decided to link the First Player Action to a wild action. That way we reduced the interaction over the Play a Card action and got the matrix working, letting every action swap positions and making each game different.Card SelectionAfter working on the cards, we decided to separate them by type and group them in twos to form three decks. We would reveal five cards from each deck, forming a 3×5 matrix. The mechanism was as simple as it was effective: a two-axis river market in which you could change the point of origin by moving your pawn (later on, the Donkey). In other words, if a card was one orthogonal step away from your pawn, you would pay one coin; each additional step costs one coin more.This example from the rulebook makes the two-axis market easier to understand. After the acquire action, you move your Donkey to change the origin of the costs.On top of that, the cards under your pawn could not be taken by other players, which added one more point of interaction to the system.At first there was a huge variety of cards, but it was hard for players to judge which ones were good or bad without knowing the game. So we decided to unify them, changing only the combo actions. Now it was easier to choose what you wanted, and card selection generated far more interaction.The Customers and the MarketThe point of making pieces was to sell them and, through that, to score victory points.At first we had a customer system. Each round we revealed as many customers as there were players, and each of them asked for a set of pieces. At the end of the round, starting with the first player, players chose a customer to sell their pieces to.The interaction was fierce and turn order was hugely important with that system. It was great fun watching which pieces the other players were making over the course of the round.Some customer cards for the end of the second round. Each piece sold gave 7 or 4 points, depending on whether it was painted or not. You could sell painted or unpainted pieces to fill the shaded requirements. Completing a customer card also gave 2 victory points.We did get that system working, but we decided to swap it for a market where the score drops with every sale, turning selling into an action that uses up a turn instead of happening at the end of the round. It was a way of enriching a system that tended toward a rigid produce-then-sell sequence. Now pieces could stay in your kilns between rounds, waiting for the best moment to sell them.What came out of it was a system with a lot of interaction, more strategic and less punishing. It works with a roll of three custom dice that push up the value of each type of piece, painted or not, at the start of each round. On top of that, the first player can reroll the dice and is the first to sell, which gives even more weight to the turn order action.The Scoring CardsThe game was already finished, but we wanted to invite players to explore different strategies. That's what we designed the Endgame Scoring Cards for.At the end of each round you could play one of these cards to score it at the end of the game, but you could also discard it during your turn to take a wild action. It's an interesting decision: lock in points for the end of the game, or have an extra action this round to make more pieces and score more points right away.Six of these cards score for collecting as many cards of the same type as possible. We worked hard on that balance so that any strategy would be competitive. Some are more obvious than others, but we ran a huge number of tests to make sure they all offered players the same opportunities.The ProductSince we were also working with Jorge Tabanera on ASHES: Blackout Protocol, I couldn't help telling him about this new project. My surprise came when he told me that his father had been a potter. There was no doubt left: this project had to be for Jorge as well. Nobody would convey what the world of pottery craft means with the same sensitivity as he does.I showed him photographs of Níjar and told him about my experience there. We set the game roughly in the 1920s so that we could use the perra gorda, a coin with a strongly popular, traditional character. We decided to create a cover inspired by the traditional posters for local patron saint festivals and, as usual with Jorge, the rest of the work came about very naturally until it took the shape of the product it is today. We're very proud of the result. He has captured the light of Andalusia.We hope you enjoy Níjar as much as we have enjoyed developing it. Designing a game this compact and, at the same time, this strategically deep has been a challenge. Don't be fooled by its size: Níjar isn't your typical family game, and we think it will be a very pleasant surprise for lovers of strategy games.In the picture, some of the steps taken during the design of the cover

• 
  Designing Everything: From Stone Age to Space Age

  by Anaesthetic on September 5, 2026

  by Kristian Amundsen Østby Kristian’s Origin StoryOne time, when I was 11 years old, my father came home from a business trip in Canada. He had bought a gift for me. I was a little disappointed when I saw the beige, dull-looking cover. But despite its dull look, it was indeed a computer game. And in Norway in the nineties, you appreciated any computer game you could get! So, I booted it up, and while the digital 8-bit theme music sounded, white letters appeared on the screen, spelling out Sid Meier’s Civilization. The game started, and I quickly got to move around a piece that I thought looked like a pair of scissors (I would later learn it was a settler wagon). The cover hadn’t lied: This *was* dull.Still, this being 1991, I as an eleven-year-old nerd did actually have time to read the manual over the next days. And I gave the game another try. And over the next weeks and months, I gradually learnt the important lesson to never judge a game by its beige cover.When I later started designing board games, civilization games had become a holy grail to me.Kenneth’s Origin StorySince I discovered the joy and magic of board games, I have had a spark inside, a dream of making a board game with the ultimate theme: building a civilization. Back in 2007 I did my first take on it. A card game with three ages and a lot of cards. On my way to SPIEL in Essen, on a ferry between Norway and Germany, I met a board game designer, Kristian. To make a long story short, the game itself was not very good. But from that failed design came something much more valuable: a friendship built on respect, affection, and endless creativity.For me, the motivation to make Timespan came from a lecture in Venice. It was about how the Italian city had once been a center of world trade. It was about how trade throughout history has driven development and technological progress, and about the impact of individuals who influenced their contemporary era. Right there and then, I knew I wanted to make a game about that. And above all, a game about historical figures and how they shaped both their own time and world history for generations.Kristian & Kenneth: Time to Megazord!The best part of a civilization game is often the first turns, where things are tight and every move matters: the first movements of your scissor-like piece, or when you increase your production with that one extra crucial piece of food. However, building an economic engine is fun, but as you get more and more resources, this resource inflation sometimes makes you care less. Similarly, building and customizing your actions is fun, but sometimes specialization forces you into a specific strategy that you end up following the whole game. And for a civilization game to feel epic, the game must develop and change. Is it even possible for players to get an “epic feel” without the game lasting six hours?Ok, let’s try to design a civilization game.We have previously designed two games together: Automania and Bad Company. We share the idea that games should be fun, streamlined, efficient and playful. And we don’t want to waste the players’ time. We played with the idea of making a game that spanned the entire human history, from the stone age to the space age.One of our first game design dilemmas occurred quite early. How could we compress the entire history of humans into a 90-minute board game experience? If all players were to have meaningful, epic experiences in such a game, a lot of the players’ decisions had to be carried out simultaneously, and we had to reduce direct interaction. We decided on a two-phase structure: In the action phases, players act simultaneously, building their civilization and performing actions without waiting for turn. Then, we would focus most of the player interaction in a separate exploration phase. With simultaneous play, we managed to cut the playing time from 360 minutes in the early tests to 90.Another dilemma in our search for a epic gaming experience was the focus on an aggressive vs peaceful experience.In civilization games we *love* building our economy, developing our culture, exploring new technologies and sciences. Having your economy and buildings torn down is not as satisfying. We decided we would design a civilization game that celebrated the peaceful, constructive and positive sides of humanity: The culture, the science, the economy. No warfare this time - there are enough games covering that.Building a peaceful, harmonious civilization became the goal, and in the mentioned exploration phase – the phase with most of the interaction – players would act in order of their peace level.We also wanted the player interaction to be mostly friendly. In Timespan, players build wonders with powerful effects that can really impact the game, and you may benefit from other players’ wonders by visiting them with your camel caravan. When your wonders are visited by other players, you score points, so you wish to build them early to attract more visitors. You will of course find the classic wonders: the Pyramids, the Great Library etc, but there are also Stonehenge, Templo Mayor, the Oracle of Delphi, and even Area 51 (finally a civilization game that Erich von Däniken might have approved?).The resource system was streamlined from one of Kristian’s previous prototypes (a variant of this was also used in Saltfjord). This system helps with the potential problem of resource inflation. Timespan has several levels of resources, and each resource can be upgraded to one on the next level. As the game advances through three ages, we made sure cards from newer ages would require resources of higher levels. The early resources don’t become worthless, but you’ll often want to upgrade them for use in later ages.The most important breakthrough in the development of this game was the realization of how we could simulate time while also adding interesting dilemmas to the gameplay.Each player plays cards into their own “timeline”, consisting of four spaces: When you play a card, you place it to the left, pushing other cards to the right, eventually moving cards out of your timeline, into your graveyard. The four cards visible in your timeline can be activated with your workers. As the game progresses, the actions available to you will therefore change.This means that players cannot simply do the same actions over and over, and your strategies will change. In one period your civilization may specialize in exploration and the movement of your ship, in a later period your civilization may switch to focusing on science.We also wanted the cards in themselves not to be static. When you play a character into your timeline, we wanted it to still feel “alive”. So, we came up with the luxury tiles. Luxury tiles are mainly acquired through exploration and represent rare or exotic resources. Most of the cards in Timespan request a certain luxury tile. If you place the given luxury tile onto the card, you gain a bonus whenever you activate the card with a worker. Each luxury tile has a different bonus, meaning you are effectively customizing your own worker placement spaces. For example, Nefertiti wants pottery. You can simply activate her card for some nice effects, but if you first deliver pottery to her, she will also provide science.If you build up a strong card effect with luxuries, why would you ever want to pass time and move that card into your timeline? This was solved by giving all luxuries a passive income effect whenever they are moved into your graveyard. This creates a dilemma: Do you want to keep your strong worker-placement effect, or move it into your graveyard to build your economic engine with passive income? For us, this was the final breakthrough in the design, and the responses from the play testers were great: We now had a very strong game that provided lots of variation and interesting dilemmas in a short playing time.Side note: One of the more exotic luxuries can only be acquired in outer space. Its name, "Umulium", is an obscure reference to Norwegian pop-culture from the 1980s. What if?Developing board games is largely about asking creative questions. Sometimes the ideas don’t work, sometimes they become new, fun features in the game.Players begin Timespan with a few cards representing the stone age. Then the game goes through three ages: antiquity, renaissance, and modern. But what if you could draw cards from the future? Would that be fun? Of course it would.Most often, you are gaining cards from the current age, but every now and then it is possible to have a “breakthrough” that lets you draw a card from the next age. This allows you to change history: What if the printing press was available in the antiquity? What if Einstein had been born during the renaissance? The game lasts for three ages, but since you sometimes get to draw cards from the next age, we also needed some cards of age four. Designing a game built on history can sometimes feel a little restrictive, so we really appreciated the freedom of coming up with next-gen technologies for the age four deck. We could draw inspiration from interesting thematical concepts, or we could come up with specific effects and then find thematical concepts that worked well with those. We do for example have the obvious “Interplanetary travel”, the more esoteric “Human cloning”, but also the “Dream recorder”, which was a new mechanism relating to your workers when they are in your sleeping area. The game system felt like a playground where we could really be creative with the cards’ effects.A game is never truly finished until it has been refined, polished, and tested, again and again.In October 2025, at SPIEL in Essen, we met with Richard Ham (Rahdo), and we told him about our new project. We showed him the prototype, and his reaction was enthusiastic: He loves conveyor belt mechanisms, and the timeline seemed like such a fun conveyor belt. He was right. We hadn’t thought of the timeline as a conveyor belt. But of course, it was. And of course, we should add more “conveyor belt effects” to the game, for example cards that become stronger as they move through your timeline. We also added the book luxury, which activates the action box *below* the activated card, meaning the effect of a card can drastically change depending on when you activate it.The name of the game was also not yet determined. We discussed “Timeframe”, but it didn’t really hit. “Timeline” was already taken. And we finally landed on “Timespan”. This name wasn’t taken. Or was it? There are some well-known games with titles ending in “-span”. So maybe we should ask, just to be sure? Arnaud Charpentier (of Matagot) put us in contact with Jamey Stegmaier, and we explained the situation. He kindly replied that he had no issues with us using this name, as the games in question are obviously very different.An epic game deserves an epic look. We searched the internet for talented illustrators, and about six months before we finalized the game, we were lucky enough that the extremely talented Nilanjan Malakar agreed to make the box and card illustrations. For a game as big as this, we needed to get the illustrator started working before we were done with the game design. Nilanjan began illustrating, every character, wonder, invention, and construction, in great detail. In such detail, in fact, that we started getting worried:Could he possibly manage to get all the illustrations ready in time? (Nope) And would people believe this was AI? (Yep) ..more about this later. Luckily, we also got another great artist onboard, Gjermund Bohne, who we have been working with before, both on Automania and Bad Company, and also more recently on Revive and Recall. He is excellent and flexible, and he would do all the additional art for the game, the iconography, the luxury tiles, and all the graphical design and layout. We worked with the two artists in parallel: Gjermund preparing new cards as soon as Nilanjan completed another illustration. As we were nearing deadline, we had increased the number of cards in the age four deck and were lacking a few illustrations. But this was fine, as this was the deck of next-gen technologies that allowed us to be creative. The “Gravity inverter”, the “Black hole generator” and the “Invisible Yacht” were born out of this. We also added some references to previous games with “Robot factory” (Sparks) and “Modern Boardgames” (Automania).With regards to the quality of the illustrations, this was so much better than what we had dared to hope for. But this level of detail also made some question whether the illustrations were AI, and the first thread on the game’s BGG forum also asked about this. But, no, Nilanjan has shared his process on art forums and Facebook along the way, and if you zoom in on his illustrations, you will see that they are simply beautiful and very high quality. Also, he has hidden easter eggs in many of the illustrations, which I hope you will enjoy discovering.In total, we had to come up with about 160 history cards, spanning these four ages. We have four main categories of cards: persons, inventions, constructions and special.In a historical game, most of the featured characters will have lived a long time ago. One exception to this was the primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall, which is probably most famous for her work with chimpanzees. She unfortunately passed away in 2025, but as she was an impressive scientist and human figure, we wanted to include her in the game. We contacted the Jane Goodall Institute, asking for permission to feature her in Timespan. We showed them the image Nilanjan has made, which is inspired by a photograph of Dr Goodall carrying a chimpanzee. Their reply was that they did not want us to use that image. It was too late for our artist Nilanjan to make a new illustration, so we either had to use this image or drop Jane Goodall from the game entirely. While we had just seen the illustration as a beautiful image of the connection between Goodall and the chimpanzee, the Goodall Institute was worried: because humans should never treat chimpanzees like this in the wild. This particular image, however, was of Goodall treating an orphan sanctuary chimpanzee. We therefore asked if we could still use the image if we included a disclaimer, explaining this, and they were kind enough to agree. So, this is the reason why this card has additional text.As we write in the game’s rules: Throughout much of history, pursuing the arts or sciences was a luxury not affordable or available to everyone. People who were economically or politically oppressed – such as cultural minorities, women in general, and those oppressed by colonization – simply had fewer opportunities to make their mark in these areas and are therefore underrepresented in large parts of recorded history. We have tried to include a wide range of historical people in our game, but we also do not try to pretend that this oppression never happened. Being from Norway, a small, Northern European country, we are fully aware that our game is built from a Western perspective.Human history is full of atrocities and serious issues. Creating a “fun game” within this framework is not always an easy balance. There were so many historical figures we wanted to include out of respect, but we of course also needed to pay attention to the gameplay. Rosa Parks is one such example. All Norwegians learn about the American civil rights movement in school, and Rosa Parks was one of many great figures from that time whose fights and suffering deserve our deepest respect. Her character serves as inspiration to opposition against oppression all over the world, and we hope that including her in our game is seen as an expression of our respect, and not as a banalization of her impact and importance.It has been hard to balance our many aims here: We wanted diversity, both in gender and ethnicity, but we also needed to have a balanced number of the different types of cards in each age, and also the effects of the various cards, to make sure we have a balanced production of science, culture and resources. On top of this, given our perspective, it is easy and intuitive to come up with fitting effects for Einstein and Newton. It is not as obvious how to find a fitting effect for Chien-Shiung Wu, honoring her extensive work on particle physics. Despite these many potential issues, we hope that we have managed to make a respectful and enjoyable game that can be played by anyone. And we sincerely apologize to everyone for the Power Rangers reference in the earlier heading. That was absolutely unnecessary and uncalled for. We are deeply ashamed. Best wishes from Norway,Kenneth and KristianFurther reading: At one point during the design process we were contacted by the Norwegian national broadcaster as they wanted to write an article about game design and our work on Timespan and other games. You can read the article here.

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  A Delicious Interlude: The Minnesota State Fair - Game On! Bakes

  by LindyBurger on September 3, 2026

  by Beth Heile The Minnesota State Fair is underway right now, and as always, it is a delightful spectacle of agriculture, crafts, and food. For those reading this who are unfamiliar with US state fairs, nearly every state in the US holds a state fair once a year, and Minnesota's is the second largest in the country. State fairs each have their own specialties, but all feature various contests and competitions like butter sculptures (yes, really), largest fruit and veg, various awards for livestock, and contests for crafts like needlepoint, garment making, and quilts. But the one piece every state fair has in common is FOOD: both food trucks to satisfy attendees and contests for all manner of baked goods. Minnesota State Fair holds 106 unique food-related competitions, including a cake decorating contest. This year the theme was "Game On!", featuring all board game designs. Many submissions focused on traditional mainstream classics like Monopoly, The Game of Life, and Scrabble, but there were definitely some modern strategy games in the mix as well.Shout out to Greg Sorenson who took these photos and kindly gave permission to repost here on BGG. So please enjoy this photo journey of some of the cakes from the Game On! competition at the MN State Fair!Group PicturesThe Operation cake in the middle of this photo won third place and the Scrabble cake on the left won second place.The Agricola cake in the center bottom won first place! Check out the bottom of this article for an up close picture.Individual Pictures by GameHungry Hungry HipposFun fact: The hippos names are Happy Hippo (pink), Henry Hippo (orange), Homer Hippo (green), and Harry Hippo (yellow)Hi Ho Cherry-OFun fact: The first version was called "Let's Pick Cherries" and was designer by elementary school teacher Lorraine Landfried from Door County, Wisconsin to help her students learn math skillsThe Game of LifeFun Fact: The Game of Life was Milton Bradley's first game and used a spinner (called a teetotum) to avoid dice and thus any connections to gamblingMonopolyIf you are wondering why there are different characters on the tops of these cakes instead of Mr. Monopoly (a.k.a. Milburn Pennybags), they are the mascots of the MN State FairClueFun fact: Clue was designed by Anthony Pratt while he was holed up in his home in his Birmingham, UK during WWII air raids. The original name of Cluedo was a combination of "clue" and "ludo" which is Latin for "I play"Candy LandFun fact: Eleanor Abbott invented Candy Land in 1948 while recovering from polio.Don't Break the IceFun fact: Don't Break the Ice was a Schaper game, invented in MinnesotaJengaFun fact: Jenga was designed by Leslie Scott from Tanzania and the name is Swahili for “build”OperationFun fact - the man you are operating on is called Cavity Sam.ScrabbleFun fact: The letter point values each Scrabble tile are based on how often those letters appeared on the front page of The New York TimesTicket to RideWavelengthWingspanCatanBohnanzaAnd winner of the Game On! contest was this stunning Agricola cake (photo credit: cake designer and blue ribbon winner @daftspunk5x5)BONUS! Crop ArtDon't worry - art made from corn and other food products are a thing too! While the theme wasn't board games for this competition, two exhibits went in that direction all the same (again thanks to Greg Sorenson for the photos!).

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  The Founders ate Worms as they took the Viking Route

  by boardgamersteph on September 2, 2026

  by Steph Hodge [imageid=9083318 medium rep]▪️ GEM Games is releasing DECKO this fall. From designer Haakon Gaarder )Villagers), this is a new poker-style game for 2-5 players that plays in 20-60 minutes!From BGG:To win in this surreal deckbuilding game, players buy supernatural poker cards, burn cards to thin their decks and bend the rules using a plethora of jokers.The game is structured like a traditional poker game; players bet chips on their poker hands by raising or calling the bet, or fold to get a free new card. Players also get to permanently remove one card from their deck per hand by doing the burn action. After each hand is played all players that didn't win or fold get to buy new special playing cards and jokers, increasing their chances of winning in later rounds.As the game progresses, players will become increasingly powerful and asymmetric in their abilities. The player who has the most poker chips after twelve rounds wins the game.▪️ Ares Games released Viking Route last week. This follows the hit Mini Rogue. From designers Guido Albini (The Faceless), Martino Chiacchiera, Luca Maragno. This is a new cooperative game that uses magnets as a compass to move the ship. This plays 1-4 players in about 60-120 minutes.From the newsletter:Viking Route is played on a beautiful 3D Viking ship and a scenario board, where the Drakkar is represented by a compass. Multiple magnets (the Ravens and Wind) are manipulated by the players to steer the course of their ship.The game can be played as a 4-Scenario Campaign, plus the final epic battle against Loki, or in Ragnarök mode, a stand-alone special scenario suitable for a single gaming session. Each scenario has its own specific setting and game board, a powerful enemy, and unique victory and defeat conditions. From one to four, the scenarios present increasing complexity and guide the group of players through the story of the game.▪️ Worms: The Board Game has a new 30th Anniversary edition that is just releasing this week from Mantic Games. From designers Tamsin Caesar and Matt Gilbert. This game is based on the videogame series by Team17; it plays 2-6 players in about 45 minutes. From the newsletter:Worms: The Board Game brings all-out Worm warfare to the tabletop. You and your friends command heavily armed Worms across a destructible landscape, collecting crates, dodging hazards, and unleashing an arsenal of outrageous weapons in a fight to be the last team standing!Capturing the hilarious highs and catastrophic misfires of the classic videogame series, Worms: The Board Game contains everything you need for fast-paced battles where even the best-laid plans can (frequently) be blown sky-high. The 30th Anniversary Edition expands upon the award-winning original with: -24 unique 3D Worm miniatures -Additional weapons and utilities -Support for up to 6 players -Expanded landscape tiles for larger battlefields -New 3D plastic fire markers▪️ Founders from This Way! is just releasing this fall with availablity at Spiel. From designers Bragou and Sams: (I C E). This is a hidden role game for 2-5 players that plays in 35-60 minutesFrom BGG:In the midst of a windswept, snowy landscape, a group of explorers discover a gigantic cave with a massive structure that radiates out from it. Around this Hearth, the Master Founders lay the foundation for what will become The City, home to the powerful Guilds of I C E!Following the directives of the first Founders' Council on the Design of the City, as well as the Requests of the first Guilds, you will design and create this famous City from scratch!Founders is a strategic and innovative game of tile placement where each player is in a hidden alliance with 2 other players they don't know. Each player has two design objectives. You must arrange your tiles to achieve objectives, help you hidden allies, but avoiding giving too much information to your opponents. There is a cooperative scoring system, but only 1 player can win.

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  Graphic Design Diary: World Order

  by KaterinaX on September 1, 2026

  by Katerina Xerovasila World Order, much like Hegemony, is not what you'd call a simple game. It's a simulation of how the real world actually works, translated into a tabletop game. A complex system of interconnected parts that all need to work together to give players the educational but actually fun experience the designers had in mind. Graphic design follows the same rule. The visuals need to be coherent, logical, immersive, intuitive, and somewhere in there, nice to look at too. That's an overwhelming thought to have at the start of a project. I wouldn’t recommend it but I had it anyway.It wasn't the first time either. Hegemony taught me that you can't hold an entire complex system in your head at once and still get anything done. So this time I took it one piece at a time.Setting the DirectionBefore graphic design even started, the game designers already knew what they wanted thematically and (to a degree) mechanically. Everything else got decided along the way, starting with setting the overall visual direction. World Order simulates international relations and geopolitics, the players are actual countries, the board is an actual map of the world. So the direction was obvious: realism, in both illustration and graphics. No fantasy environment. No WWII history game vibes. It happens now, and the theme doesn't leave much room for playful or comic style imagery either.That left us with a short list of tools and a long list of things we weren’t allowed to touch. The real challenge was making it look good, with academic weight, without looking like it fell out of a university textbook on international relations. "Serious but not boring" is a narrower lane than it sounds.Cover Art & LogoOnce we had the thematic direction, cover art came next, and it took more passes than I'd like to admit before it felt right. The logo was the opposite kind of problem. For both Hegemony and World Order we ended up landing on less is more. In both Hegemony and World Order it is the words and taglines that do all the heavy-lifting. The MapThen came the big one. The biggest piece of table presence in the whole game. THE MAP, always in capitals in my head.It's the clearest thematic image the game has, and it also has to physically hold everything: all the regions, the scoring system, the country card marketplace, the turn order track, the scoring track, the round track, army markers that actually have to fit inside their own regions. All that without really obstructing the actual map, so the players can get a feel of how a country’s geographical position plays in the big picture. No pressure.Each region needed its own clear color, one that wouldn't get confused with its neighbors and wouldn't clash with any player's flag colors. Sounds simple until you actually try to assign four superpowers a color each. China had to be red, because, well, its flag. That took red off the table for the USA, so the USA got blue, the other color on its own flag. Which meant the EU, whose flag is mostly blue, couldn't have blue either, so it got yellow. Then Russia showed up with a flag that's red, white, and blue, all of it already spoken for, leaving white as the only option standing. Four superpowers, one game of musical chairs.Once the players were sorted we still had seven regions left needing distinct, appropriate colors that didn't clash with any of that. The Americas got a deep orange, MENA got green, and so on down the line. Country card colors matched their regions too, so once a card appears on the marketplace on the board, you can tell at a glance where it belongs.We also had to decide between a light board and a dark board, the shape and size of the board (table real estate is something we take seriously). None of these is a small decision; change one and you get a whole new table feel of the game. Player BoardsPlayer boards come right after the game board in importance. In World Order each one reflects a Superpower’s internal organization and so needed to hold a lot of information arranged logically and clearly. They're also dual layered, which sounds fine until you're the one accounting for every factory instruction that comes with dual layering. Seeing the more primitive ones again… well it brings up a lot of feelings! CardsNext, the cards. Some illustrated, some not, but the challenge on all of them is the same: fit every piece of text and icon somewhere the player can find it instantly, and still make it look good. Gameplay details that would seem insignificant are actually very important. For example when a player holds the cards in their hand like a fan, are all the important details and icons (value, ability etc.) visible at once? That’s where the game designer’s experience comes in handy! We went through a lot of versions here. Several looked genuinely nice but were also nowhere near the academic tone we were aiming for. Looking good and being correct turned out to be two different jobs.Ability CardsCountry CardsIconographyAt some point in every project we hit the same fork: what becomes an icon, and what gets spelled out. Icons are basically tiny logos. They have to be clear both in meaning and appearance, even at the smallest possible scale, or they haven't done their one job. Some graduate into markers and tokens, like the tanks, which get a special place on the board and become part of the actual action instead of just sitting there!CoinsOne of the trickiest components to get right was the coins. Our first attempts leaned into a more vintage aesthetic, the kind of "old money" look that's a natural instinct for coin design. It looked good in isolation, but it clashed with everything else we were building: World Order is a modern simulation, and the coins needed to feel like they belonged in the same world as the rest of the components.What we actually wanted was something much more literal: coins clean and precise enough that you could almost mistake them for real currency, like crisp architectural depictions, no ornamentation getting in the way of legibility. But getting that level of realism in flat vector art has real limits, because coins have depth, light, relief. So I taught myself Blender, a program I had almost no experience with, specifically to get the embossed, dimensional look I couldn't achieve in Illustrator and of course produce the actual files that the factory could use for production. I was fully expecting a steep learning curve, but it turned out to be far more approachable than I feared. Quite soon, I had a workflow that worked.The nicest confirmation came after the game was out: a backer commented that the coins looked so realistic they could almost pass for real currency, which was exactly the goal from day one.The Part Nobody SeesThe visual design process, all of the above, is roughly 20% of the game's total production timeline. Most of the big decisions land early. We generally know what we like when we see it, and very little changes drastically after that. What does happen, over and over, is tweaking and correcting after every playtest, for the next one.We also produce prototypes early, first in house, then at the factory, which is the real test of how everything looks once it's actually printed rather than on a screen. Those prototypes go to expos and reviewers, so getting them right matters well beyond our own approval.The most serious stretch of the whole job is file prep, for the factory and for localization both. Everything has to be spotless, because mistakes at this stage don't stay small. Then there's the single most stressful moment in the entire process: giving the final go ahead to the factory for mass production. No more revisions. No more "let's just tweak this one thing." It's happening now.ConceptsAnd just when you thought you were done, well, you weren't. There was a whole book left to produce. World Order Concepts, the theoretical backbone of the entire game, in both softcover and hardcover. Not a rulebook, not a component, a real book, the kind you'd expect to find a bibliography in (which you will). Our academics team put a huge amount of work into it, because it's the part that actually proves the point behind both of our games: that something can be properly educational and still be fun to sit down and play. The board and the cards teach you by playing. Concepts is there for the people who finish a game and want to know how and why any of it actually works that way in real life.The best moment comes much later. People get the game in their hands, and they love it, or they hate it, and either way it becomes something they actually talk about. Forum threads, reviews, arguments about whether a rule makes sense or a color is confusing. You made a thing and now it exists outside of you, which is a strange feeling the first few times it happens.And then there are the expos. We go present and sell the game ourselves, face to face, at a table, watching people pick up a card or look at the board for the first time with no idea what to expect. You get instant, unfiltered reactions there in a way a review never gives you. Someone squints at an icon and you watch, in real time, whether it works or not. It's the most exposed part of the whole job, and also the part that makes the other 95% feel like it was worth doing.