Today’s roundup includes the very big (the biggest?) to the very small (which “micro” is micro-er?). As usual, most of these are for games I haven’t gotten to play myself, but this time around there are several that are expansions or sequels to games I have played, so I have at least a bit of personal experience with them.

New to crowdfunding? Check out our crowdfunding primer.

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Role-Playing Game & Unstoppable from Renegade Games

I’ve been reading through the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and writing about them in my Stack Overflow column—Book 8 is coming out in a couple weeks and I’m excited to see where the story goes next. In case you’re not already familiar with it, it features a guy (Carl) and his cat (Princess Donut) who end up stuck in a multilevel dungeon built by aliens taking over Earth, as part of an intergalactic reality show. The stories include lots of details about stats, spells, inventories, and so on, which the crawlers access through menus as if it were a videogame—which also happens to make it great material for an RPG.

This Backerkit campaign includes two separate games: one is the RPG (which includes rulebooks and custom dice and a bunch of miniatures), and the other is a DCC-themed version of Unstoppable, a card-crafting game by John D. Clair. Although much of the attention—and the bulk of the stretch goals—seems to be on the RPG side of things, I’m more of a card game person myself. I’ve played the original Unstoppable game, and I’m excited to see the changes in the Dungeon Crawler Carl version.

Unstoppable uses some oddly-shaped cards with cut-outs, and as you play you will add upgrade cards to the sleeves that will fill in the cut-outs, giving you improved abilities when you play the cards. However, every card is double-sided and the back is a threat that you’ll have to fight … and upgrades also make the threat a bit more challenging. It’s a very cool system, designed for solo or 2-player cooperative play. The DCC Unstoppable will include the first three dungeon floors, with some expansions that add the fourth floor and additional characters. Watch for my review of the original Unstoppable soon!

Mega Empires: The Far East from Ares Games

Okay, I don’t know a whole lot about this one, but since I promised “very big” I figured I better include this game that claims to be “the biggest board game in the world.” It’s a civilization-building game, and although these two Far East titles (North and South) are standalone games, you can also combine them with other Mega Empires sets (sold separately) to play with up to 30 people! You’re gonna need a bigger table for sure. (How well do these games handle representation of the various cultures across the world, and what’s their take on colonizing? That’s something I’d probably look into a little more closely if I were going to back the campaign myself.)

Arcs: Beyond the Reach from Buried Giant Studios

Arcs is a 4X game with an unusual trick-taking(ish) mechanic at its core. The card you play to the trick determines what actions you can take as you move your spaceships throughout the galaxy, build facilities on various planets, or wage war on other players. There’s a campaign mode in the first expansion that plays over 3 sessions and has multiple branching paths that lead to different outcomes. Beyond the Reach includes three expansions to choose from: one that expands the base game, and then two that add to the campaign.

Arcs was originally published by Leder Games, and this is the first offering from Buried Giant Studios, a new studio formed this year with some of the folks from Leder Games to focus on some of their bigger titles like Oath and Arcs. I’ve gotten to play Arcs a few times but have yet to tackle the campaign, but it’s on my bucket list!

Earth Express and Behind the Lens from Inside Up Games

Earth was one of our 2023 Game of the Year finalists—it’s a tableau-building game about plants and landscapes, and it’s great for people who like looking for great card combos. Yesterday, for Earth Day, Inside Up Games launched a campaign for two standalone Earth-related games. Earth Express is a smaller, faster version of Earth—the same theme about building out an environment, but in about 20 minutes. Behind the Lens is about taking photos of nature, and uses a sort of sliding-tile puzzle as the system for setting up your camera to get those incredible shots. I’ve received prototypes of the two games, so I’ll have more in-depth reviews of those in the coming weeks!

Reactor Rescue from Labbox Education

I’m not familiar with Labbox Education, but I came across some ads for Reactor Rescue that looked intriguing. It’s a strategy game about racing to repair your spaceships, and the gimmick is that you actually build real, working circuits as part of the game. I love this concept of learning some basic electronics through fun!

Unearth 10th Anniversary Edition from Brotherwise Games

Unearth, a tile-laying game about unearthing ruins from an ancient civilization, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a new edition that includes updated graphics and gameplay, plus some new expansions. There’s a regular edition and a deluxe edition (with wooden components), but both include all the same gameplay. I wrote about it back in 2017, but the original has been out of print for several years, so here’s another opportunity to experience it.

Dice Throne Digital from Dice Throne

Dice Throne isn’t quite 10 years old yet, but it’s getting there—and over the years it’s had several expansions, including a whole set of Marvel characters. This campaign is for a cross-platform digital version that will include a rogue-lite campaign in addition to the ability to play against other players. There will be 8 characters at launch, but there are plenty more in the Dice Throne library that will be added later on. The game will eventually be free to play but you’ll pay to unlock more heroes; backers of the Kickstarter will get early access to the game, plus better bundle prices for the heroes.

Gal4Xeon from Eurydice Games

If you like roll-and-write games, here’s a 4X game with a difficult-to-type title! The campaign is an inexpensive print-and-play, so you’ll get the files both in color and in a low-ink black-and-white version depending on how fancy you want to get. Play solo or multiplayer, with each player using the same dice values to expand their influence across the galaxy. And if you missed Eurydice Games’ previous roll-and-write games, you can get the whole bundle of five titles for £17 (about $23USD).

Arribada & Seagrass from Bitewing Games

Here are two adorable games—one about nesting sea turtles, the other about exploring reefs—that have optional travel cases so you can play on the go. Bitewing Games has made a number of titles with these travel cases and they look fantastic (though I actually haven’t played any of them myself).

Monster Decoy from PhantomLab

Monster Decoy is a little 2-player tile game about walling off regions to capture monsters, using little 3×3 tile grids. It reminds me a little of Go since you’re trying to surround regions of the other player’s color, but instead of single stones you’re placing tiles that include both black and white regions. I hadn’t heard of PhantomLab before, but the graphics for Monster Decoy caught my eye, and then I saw that there are a bunch of other cool-looking games listed as add-ons for the campaign. I’m planning to take a closer look at all of those soon.

Micro Hero: Ulysses and Micro Hero: Achilles from Grammes Edition

Here we are at the “micro” end of things! The Micro Hero series started with Hercules, which funded on Kickstarter last year in January and delivered by summer. It’s a solo card game about facing the twelve tasks using a kind of deck-building system with a bit of a puzzle in how you play out your cards each turn. The artwork is very silly, and puts a spin on the classic myths. This current campaign is for two more sets featuring Achilles and Ulysses, with very different mechanics.

One unique feature about Grammes Edition is that their campaigns have a “pay what you want” system. You actually can just back the project for €1, though they have some suggested levels—the games will eventually retail for €12. I’m backing these myself because I liked the concept (and found Micro Hero: Hercules a tricky challenge!), though the one caveat is that I didn’t like the card quality of Hercules—the linen finish on the cards for some reason was very grippy so the cards don’t slide apart from each other, making the card handling difficult. The narrow size of the cards means that my regular card sleeves are too wide, so finding sleeves that fit the cards and still fit the game into the tuckbox was a Herculean task in itself. Still, you can’t beat the price!

Micro Games: Spring 2026 from Button Shy Games

Oh, there’s that word “micro” again! This time it’s for four small games from Button Shy. If you’re familiar with Button Shy, you may notice something unusual in the image above: boxes! For various reasons, Button Shy is finally putting their micro games into small boxes instead of just the vinyl wallets, though if you still want a wallet they’re available as an add-on in this Kickstarter.

This set of games includes Astro ROVE, the latest in this line of solo puzzly exploration games; The Rise of a Jarl, a solo game about building a Viking civilization; Everything Machine, a word-association game; and Shaper, a guessing game where you create visual clues by assembling various shapes printed on the cards. While I’m a little sad that the wallets are sort of phasing out, I understand the reasons for the boxes (and I’m glad it’s still possible to get wallets for these titles, at least).

Catch fish and lay eggs to be the best of this Pack of Penguins!

What Is Pack of Penguins?

Pack of Penguins is a game for 2 to 5 players, ages 8 and up, and takes about 10 minutes to play. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $20 for a copy of the game. If your kid can compare numbers (between 1 and 50), then they can learn this game.

Pack of Penguins was designed by Bin Lee and published by Imagine Bin, with illustrations by Kendal Gates.

New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.

Pack of Penguins Components

Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality.

Here’s what comes in the box:

• 5 Nest cards
• 5 Penguin standees
• 15 Ice Floe cards
• 50 Penguin cards
• 25 Fish tokens
• 45 Egg tokens

Nothing too complicated here: some cards and some tokens and standees. The illustrations on the standees are cute, showing five different types of penguins (which are also identified on the back of the rulebook). The penguins also appear in the corner of the nests to make it easier to tell who’s who, in addition to the colored backgrounds of the nest cards.

The penguin cards are very straightforward: each one has a number from 1 to 50, printed in two orientations to make it easy for anyone to read upside-down, and also indexed in all four corners. It would be cute to have some illustrations on these, but they serve their purpose just fine.

The ice floe cards have five boxes, each showing some combination of fish and eggs, as well as a little notation indicating the direction of the number line from 1 to 50. The cards have a cute little image of penguins on the ice at the bottom; the rewards line and the number indicator are a little unpolished, but easy to read.

The whole game comes in a small box, so it’s compact and easy to take anywhere.

How to Play Pack of Penguins

The Goal

The goal is to have the most eggs at the end of the game.

Setup

Make a supply of the eggs and fish.

Shuffle the ice floe cards and make a stack of 7 cards, putting the rest in the box. Reveal the first ice floe card.

Shuffle the penguin cards and deal 8 to each player.

Give each player a nest card and matching penguin standee.

Choose a starting player at random. (My suggestion: the player who most recently laid an egg or ate a fish.)

(When playing with fewer than 5 players, there will be some stacks of penguin cards for the automated players as well.)

Gameplay

The game is played over the course of 7 rounds, one for each ice floe.

In turn order, each player plays a penguin card from their hand into a number line next to the ice floe card, arranging them so that the cards are in increasing order (matching the ice floe card), and placing their penguin on their card.

(With fewer than 5 players, the dummy players will play cards to the line first so that there’s always a total of 5 penguin cards played to the line.)

Once five penguin cards have been played, check the ice floe card and give everyone fish and/or eggs according to their location in the number line. The player at the location with the red star (which also has the best reward) will go first in the next round.

Discard the penguin cards and the ice floe card, return all the penguins, and then reveal the next ice floe card.

Game End

The game ends after 7 rounds. (Players will have one penguin card left over, which is just discarded.)

The player(s) with the fewest fish must discard 2 eggs each.

The player with the most eggs wins, with ties going to the player with the most fish.

2-Player Rules

In a 2-player game, each player gets 2 penguins and 12 penguin cards, and you only use 2 ice floes. Players will alternate playing penguin cards until each player has played one for each of their penguins, keeping their rewards separate, and final score is the total between your two penguins.

Why You Should Play Pack of Penguins

Pack of Penguins is a quick little game that reminds me a little bit of Go Nuts for Donuts: there’s a line of rewards and everyone is trying to get the one they want. In this instance, however, instead of choosing simultaneously (and occasionally smashing the donuts), the penguins are jockeying for position, squeezing into the line and hoping to end up in the best position to collect fish and eggs.

Of course, the best position changes from round to round, as does the relative value of what’s considered “best.” On one ice floe, the highest reward might be 3 eggs and require the lowest penguin card; on another, the highest reward may be 1 egg and 1 fish, and needs the 4th highest card. Unless you have the 1 or the 50, there’s never a guarantee that the card you play will get you into a particular place in the line, so going last gives you a big advantage. 

Even then, you’re limited by the cards in your hand. You’re dealt all of the cards at the start of the game, and you don’t draw any more. That means you can strategize a little bit about when to use highest cards or lowest cards, or whether to spend cards that are very close to each other sooner so that you have more flexibility later in the game.

The two different rewards—eggs and fish—are a clever mechanic. Fish aren’t worth points in themselves, so they’re not as valuable as eggs. However, losing 2 eggs at the end could end up costing you the game (as it did for the green player in the game shown in the photo above), so you really want to track who has the fewest fish and try to stay ahead of them.

All in all, it’s a cute game, not especially deep but I’ve had fun playing with my kids and even with my adult gamers as a way to kick off a game night or while we’re waiting for everyone to arrive. If you love penguins and a light bit of “take that,” waddle on over and take a look!

For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Pack of Penguins Kickstarter page!

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Disclosure: GeekDad received a prototype of this game for review purposes.

Ground of Aces is a PC video game developed and published by Blindflug Studios AG. It is currently available on Steam in Early Access for $29.99. The game had a successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2023. It released in early access in June of 2025 and since that time has had several upgrades and improvements. When you start the game, you are given a plot of land along with a barracks, a few personnel, supplies, and orders to build an airfield. You will start off clearing an area for your first runway and gathering resources to build the runway as well as a spot for your first airplane. As you select trees to cut down, rocks to break, water to collect, and structures to build, your personnel will automatically move to complete the task. As the day comes to an end, your personnel will need some down time. You need to make sure they have chairs to sit in and other recreations. Then each person needs a cot where they can sleep. While you start off with some rations, you will need to find food sources in the area around you and harvest them. Build a kitchen to prepare better meals for your workers. 

As you progress through the game, you will need to construct buildings to store your supplies and workshops to turn logs into lumber and create other resources from raw materials. Once you have your first airplane, a biplane fighter, you will receive missions on which to sent it. As you expand your base and build longer runways, you will unlock access to more powerful fighters and eventually bombers. As you have more planes, you can receive more difficult missions which provide not only higher risks, but greater rewards. As your airfield becomes a larger threat, the enemy will take notice and attack. Therefore you will need to build anti-aircraft defenses and then put your people to work repairing the base after these attacks. 

Since I am a military history major who specialized in WWII and a current high school history teacher, I was very interested in playing this game, especially since I have studied the Battle of Britain quite a bit. Since there was so much to do in the game, I worried it might be tough to learn to play. However, the campaign is written to teach you the game as you go. The objectives really guide you through the process. For example, your first objectives are to build an airstrip and parking spot, order an airplane, and build some beds for your personnel. Then after you complete those, you will need to harvest 5 trees, build a saw station, craft 5 sets of planks, and build a radio station. By only giving a few objectives at a time, it helps new players really learn all there is in the game. 

Blindflug has a roadmap of almost 60 features they want to add to the game. Currently they have implemented about half of them. I have really enjoyed playing Ground of Aces. While the main focus is on building an airbase, it also allows you to build up your squadron of planes, train your pilots and crews, and then send them off on missions. Though you do not actively control the planes, your decisions help influence the results of the missions. So far the game has a lot to offer and I am excited for all the other features they continue to work on. Even though it is still in early access, the main part of the game is in place and you can play through it, learning the game in the campaign. Then you can take on new airfields and build them up. If you enjoy base building simulations and interested in WWII, then I recommend you give Ground of Aces a try. 

Here is the launch trailer:

In the 12 years and roughly two console generations since the North American 3DS debut of Tomodachi Life, much has changed across the gaming landscape. For example, the advent of the “cozy game” genre—popularized in no small part by the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the height of the COVID pandemic—has opened up even more of the marketplace to the notion of relaxing and largely non-violent gameplay.

This, coupled with the recent arrivals of both a much-needed content update for New Horizons and the spectacularly charming, narratively driven Pokémon Pokopia, has really set the stage for the return of surrealist city-building sequel Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. Arriving this week on the Nintendo Switch family of systems (MSRP $59.99), Living the Dream takes everything weird and wonderful about the handheld original and super-sizes it, offering untold hours of enjoyment with only a couple of minor shortcomings.

In addition to a nicely revamped Mii creation system (which I lovingly detailed in last month’s preview coverage), Living the Dream‘s other obvious immediate upgrade is your Miis’ homes. Despite a real-world economic downturn, the inhabitants of your new Tomodachi Life island have moved on from apartment living to begin their virtual lives in brightly colored private bungalows that coordinate with their starting outfits and are determined by their overall personalities (like Ambitious : Achiever or Reserved : Perfectionist).

You’ll arrange these houses around the central Wishing Fountain on an initially meager atoll. Powered by the Warm Fuzzies acquired from your Miis, this Wishing Fountain is a singularly important feature, but it’s not your island’s only landmark.

Various unlockable amenities such as the MNN news station, Tomoria restaurant, Fresh Kingdom food mart, and Where & Wear clothing will (eventually) span from shore to shore. These locales provide backgrounds for your inhabitants’ silly interactions, as well as ways to acquire the clothing, food, and accessories they desire.

And their desires, as always, are paramount.

In time, you’ll be able to customize everything, from Miis’ individual homes to the island’s shoreline, paths, trees, and flowers—with additional options for things like clothing and food of your own creation.

Fueled by those Warm Fuzzies and the steady trickle of cash you acquire from your citizens, growth and advancement are rewarded with… well, more growth and advancement. Better items, new facilities, and simply more content overall are the carrots that keep the story of your island community moving ever forward. As the island grows in size—I believe mine reached its maximum square footage at around half capacity, or 35 Miis— it increases its quality of life and its very culture.

Miis regularly ask you, their creator, probing questions about your own likes, hopes, and dreams, and your answers become a part of island lingo, little conversation starters that your Miis use to communicate. My favorite movie? Suspiria. A treasured pastime? Drinkin’. My preferred villain? Magneto. Each of these little nuggets, for good or ill, has become a part of my Living the Dream experience.

Unfortunately, though, it seems like these words are just that: words.

For example, when pressed about a famous person I’d like to meet, I typed Bea Arthur. Shortly thereafter, ol’ Dorothy Zbornak was the talk of the town. However, when I moved Bea herself to the island—it was as easy as choosing “Add a Mii” from the in-game menu and giving her all the humor and sass of the original—no one ever really made the connection between this hot topic and our newest citizen.

The menu, I might add, is a perfect little piece of UI. Press X to bring it up, and it slides in from the right side of your screen. Here you have easy access to your settings and save function, Mii creation, your resident list, and even more exhaustive resources like your item catalog and island info. The latter provides all your residents’ personalities and lingo, as well as the seemingly nebulous “additional details.”

This was where I spent an exorbitant amount of time monitoring my care record (basically, the happiness and accomplishments of my Miis), my land/object use, and some cool demographic data. My island’s average age, it seems, is 44.4 years old. Also, my island vibe is “survivalist island,” which is… never really explained.

Land use and lingo aside, Living the Dream really is all about the Miis. Sometimes they are content to make their own decisions and live their own tiny, digital lives, but other times they crave divine intervention. Mapped to the Y button is a Mii quick menu. Press it to open a scrollable list of your occupants, complete with various indicators to let you know of any currently in-progress drama.

Some might be dreaming (indicated by the Mii dressed in PJs and a nightcap). You can select them to view the dream, which usually unlocks food or other items. They may also be satisfied, angry, or out of sorts—situations you can choose to address or just let them be—but often they’ll actively need your attention.

Indicated by flashing icons or colored thought bubbles, these occurrences are the bread and butter of the Tomodachi Life experience, where all that mad magic really happens. Maybe they’re having intrusive thoughts they need you to dispel, or perhaps they just feel a bit peckish. It could be that they want new clothes or to live in a new environment. Sometimes they’ll want to play a game of object identification with you, which provides a shot at unlocking additional treasure items.

Along the way, Miis can discover their favorite foods (complete with over-the-top cutscenes), play with the pets and treasures you, their benevolent god, provide them, and can even be rewarded with specialty goods and personality quirks as they level up, all serving to make them more properly fleshed-out characters.

Still, food, clothing, shelter, and your undivided attention won’t always satisfy your quirky islanders. They seek interpersonal connections with their fellow Miis.

Just like in real life, some folks hit it off, and some don’t. Sometimes a strong friendship can develop into romantic feelings, and even marriage, and other times there can be a rare and volatile instant infatuation.

None of this guarantees that the other party is interested, though, and whether it’s moving in as platonic roommates, pursuing a more romantic endeavor, or tying the knot, love is a two-way street. As your island’s de facto creator, you do have a little pull. You can place two Miis close together to prime interaction via a meet-up and actively encourage their interest in each other. But not even this is a surefire way to play ultimate matchmaker.

That isn’t a bug but a feature.

In fact, it’s Tomodachi Life‘s secret weapon. You can try your best to mold a character into what you want them to be, only to discover that they have different plans.

Living the Dream provides a wonderful system for creating in-game analogues of your friends, family, and favorite celebrities, complete with personality preferences, flexible forms of gender expression, and a some-all-none approach to romantic attraction. You can tailor these things to your liking, fine-tune them with personality quirks such as the way they move, stand, or speak, and put them close to those you want them to mingle with, but you can’t make them love (or, for that matter, like) each other. Hell, you can’t make them like fried chicken! Such is life, and such is Tomodachi Life.

Whether you discovered the series yourself at launch, later in the 3DS lifespan, or simply came across it well after the fact when your favorite streamer played it, you’ll find all the very best that it has to offer here in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream—and much, much more!

There are so many things going on here in Living the Dream, so much canvas on which to paint, that it’s hard to find anything to complain about. (Not that this will stop me.)

The current online scuttlebutt seems to be focused on the game’s maximum number of Miis. It’s 70, down from the 3DS iteration’s 100. I understand the concern, but for me, that’s proven to be more than enough characters to keep me occupied.

My only real gripe concerns the lack of two quality-of-life features present in the original. The first is touchscreen support, which was very much integrated into the bulk of the 3DS gameplay, but here on the Switch is rather hit or miss.

Yeah, I can use it during Mii creation and some of the minigames, but it’s surprisingly absent from big swaths of the rest of the title, like navigating the map or the important Island Builder mode. Also, while the previous release had a QR-code system for easily sharing and importing Miis, Living the Dream does not. I understand that this specific feature relies heavily on an in-game camera, which the Switch lacks, but I’d love to see some kind of code-based system or online sharing platform integrated at a later date.

That all being said, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is another enchanting life-sim experience that has already become my new go-to title. (Apologies to all those Pokopia creatures still patiently waiting on their new homes.)

Young or old, returning fan or newly interested party, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is among the very easiest of recommendations. My only advice is to approach the experience at your own pace, regularly choose the option that looks like the most fun, and always, always embrace the weirdness.

Review materials provided by Nintendo of America. This post contains affiliate links. On my island, Ella Purnell is best friends with Chappell Roan, and I feel like that’s a world we’d all like to live in.

The American Tabletop Awards for 2026 have been announced! The awards are in four categories: Early Gamers, Casual Games, Strategy Games, and Complex Games. I’m on the panel of judges, along with several other folks in the tabletop industry, and although we don’t all get to play games with each other since we’re spread out all over the place, we do have a lot of conversations throughout the year about what we’ve been playing, and then we spend a couple of months working through nominations and voting (through some magical process that I’m glad I’m not in charge of!).

Here are this year’s Winners, Recommended titles, and Nominated titles. I’ve included links to the ones that we’ve reviewed here on GeekDad.

Early Gamers: Magical Athlete

You may recognize this one—I gave it our GeekDad Approved seal when I reviewed it back in November, and it’s been a pretty big hit across the industry. It feels like discovering the magic of roll-and-move when you were a kid—you know, before you started getting cynical about random chance and landing on “move back two spaces.” The introduction of wacky, game-breaking powers for each racer is what elevates this one from ho-hum to humdinger.

The ATTA Recommended titles were Cascadia Junior and Duck and Cover. The ATTA Nominated titles were Splendor Kids and The Sandcastles of Burgundy.

Casual Games: Hot Streak

Here’s another one you’ve seen here on GeekDad, and this one is also one of our own Game of the Year finalists, so we’ll find out soon how it fares with our own judging panel! Four offbeat mascots race down the field, but who will win—or even whether any of them will make it across the finish line before being knocked down or running the wrong way—is anyone’s guess. Place your bet on total chaos and lots of laughter—Hot Streak has plenty of both.

The ATTA Recommended titles were FlipToons and A Place for All My Books. The ATTA Nominated titles were Fellowship of the Ring – Trick-Taking Game and 7 Wonders Dice.

Strategy Games: The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship

The Lord of the Rings is an evergreen theme, this time by the master of cooperative games Matt Leacock. Even though the overarching story remains the same, the game will feel different depending on which characters you play and which objectives you need to fulfill. The ultimate goal, of course: destroy the One Ring before Frodo loses hope. (Cue Sam Gamgee’s inspiring speech here!)

The ATTA Recommended titles were Moon Colony Bloodbath and Knitting Circle. The ATTA Nominated titles were Critter Kitchen and Kinfire Council.

Complex Games: Molly House

Molly House is inspired by the history of the queer community in 1720s London; the mollies tried to find joy and hold festivities even as the Society for the Reformation of Manners worked to stamp out “deviant” behaviors. You may be tempted to turn informant for the Society in order to save yourself … but that could also backfire. Molly House takes a weighty subject and makes a game that is both informative and engaging.

The ATTA Recommended titles were Galactic Cruise and Above and Below: Haunted. The ATTA Nominated titles were Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders and Covenant.

For more about the American Tabletop Awards, visit the official website.

Compete to reach Dracula’s Castle and be the first to defeat the Count to win! Or, play without the Dracula’s Castle overlay and play as Dracula instead, using the enigmatic “Fanged Toad” as the antagonist. This expansion also introduces Ongoing Event cards which bring unique challenges to the table. Includes 3 Character cards, 1 Dracula reference card, 30 Spell and Adventure cards, 1 board overlay, 4 figures, and rule book. It is designed for 2-6 players, ages 12+and requires Talisman: 5th edition which is sold separately. 

I have enjoyed playing Talisman: 5th edition which is the latest version of the classic board game. There have been two other expansions, Talisman Alliances: Fate Beckons, and Talisman Nemesis: Call of the Hunt. Now Talisman Sagas: Crown of Blood adds a whole new story to the series. I am really looking forward to playing this new expansion when it releases on June 15th, 2026. The suggested retail price will be $19.99. 

A few years ago, Days of Wonder sent me an early copy of HEAT: Pedal to the Metal. While racing games were not one of my top themes for board games, after reading the rules and playing it for the first time, I was impressed. The more I played it, the more I liked it. As I have played this game with others, they also enjoy it. In fact, HEAT: Pedal to the Metal was GeekDad’s Game of the Year for 2023! Since it release, there have been two expansions: Heavy Rain and Tunnel Vision, each of which added two new race courses as well as new features. Now a third expansion is out: HEAT: Rocky Roads which adds even more to an already great game. 

What Is HEAT: Rocky Roads?

HEAT: Rocky Roads is an expansion for HEAT: Pedal to the Metal tabletop game for 1-8 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 60minutes to play. This expansion adds not only two new race courses, South Africa and Deutschland, but also some new road conditions and other features. It’s currently available from your local game store as well as online retailers such as Amazon with a recommended price of $38 for a copy of the game. HEAT: Rocky Roads was designed by Asger Harding Granerud and Daniel Skjold Pedersen, published by Days of Wonder, with illustrations by Vincent Dutrait.

HEAT: Rocky Roads Components

Here is what you get in the box:

• 1 double-sided game board with 2 tracks
• 2 track cards
• 1 race car and matching gear pawn
• 1 player mat
• 12 basic cards
• 15 heat cards
• 5 stress cards
• 15 upgrade cards
• 7 sponsorship cards
• 4 event cards
• 1 scorepad
• 1 rules booklet

The two-sided game board features a different track on each side. The South Africa track features gravel, a new type of challenge for drivers. At the end of the turn, all drivers whose car is on a gravel space must pay one heat from your engine. If they have no heat available, there is no affect. Since this track has two speed 2 corners and one speed 3 corner, you want to avoid losing heat unnecessarily. This is a two lap course so there is not a lot of room for errors. 

The Deutschland track is in Germany and races here are also two laps. There are three long straightaways where you can really pour on the speed. They are 11, 12, and 20 spaces long respectively. However, there are two speed 4 corners only six spaces apart as well as another new feature: chicanes. These are two corners are speed 2 and only one space apart! That means if you blow past them at a speed higher than 2, you have to pay two heat for each speed above 2. What makes this even more challenging is that the chicanes are located in the middle of the 11 and 12 straightaways. When playing against the AI Legends, they can be aggressive going through the chicanes and if they start within three spaces of the first curve of the chicanes, they can drive through both curves in a single round.

While the base game comes with six cars for six players, HEAT: Rocky Roads adds another car. This white car also comes with a matching white gearshift pawn as well a a player mat for the white driver. Now you can play with seven players. If you have at least one of the other expansions, you can now play with the maximum of eight players. 

Since you are adding the new white car, the expansion also includes the basic cards for the white driver as well as some more stress and heat cards to allow for races with more than six players. 

HEAT: Rocky Roads comes with 15 upgrade cards and 7 sponsor cards which all add sliding skirts to the cars. Many of these have two different speeds which you can choose as you play them. All of these have the extra slipstream symbol. This allows you slipstream an extra time if they end in another slipstream position. If you have two cards with the extra slipstream, you can actually slipstream a third time as well. Since slipstreaming does not count towards your final speed when checking for corners, these extra slipstreams are great for getting past corners that are close together as well as chicanes. 

There are also two race cards, one for each track, for when you are randomly selecting which tracks to race. In addition, there are four event cards for the 1966 season which include races not only in South Africa and Germany, but also France and Italy. 

Finally, the expansion includes an additional scorepad you can use for the 1966 season as well as other races. The rulebook contains all the information on the new features in HEAT: Rocky Roads.

Why You Should Play HEAT: Rocky Roads

I am a huge fan of HEAT: Pedal to the Metal and was excited to try HEAT: Rocky Roads. I already owned both of the other two expansions and they also included both chicanes as well as aggressive legends. Gravel is a new challenge that really adds to the game and requires players to focus on managing their heat. While it may not seem like much to pay a heat, if you are a driver that pushes their car to the max this can affect your strategy. For example, you have to think ahead to which spaces are in front of you as well as considering if using slipstream will be worth it if you end up on gravel. When playing with lots of cars, those corners can get tight and not leave very many spaces without gravel. Plus by taking those clear spots, you can force your opponents into the gravel. 

The chicanes on the Germany track also require some careful strategies. Since they come in the middle of a long straightaway where drivers will want to get as much speed as possible, you have to downshift from fourth gear down to second before blowing through those 2-speed corners that are only one space apart. If you can end your turn with your car right next to the first corner of the chicane, You could play 2 speed worth of cards to get through with no heat, or pay two or four heat if you pass by them at speed 3 or 4 respectively. The aggressive legends can blow right through the chicanes and challenge you to do the same if you want to stay in the race with them. 

The fact that the expansion adds another car and another player really adds to the game. Before any of the expansions, six was the maximum number of players. However, each expansion adds a new car so you can play with up to eight players now. Having 7 or 8 cars on the track at one time is a lot of fun. I have really enjoyed playing with 8 players. However, if I don’t have eight players, I almost always add the AI legends to drive the other cars. Even when I play solo against the legends, I like at least 4-5 legends on the track with me. The more cars on the track, not only is it more challenging, but there are more opportunities to slipstream. With the new upgrades that allow you to slipstream a second time, you need more cars on the track to take advantage of that. 

Finally, the addition of two new tracks offers more chances to replay the game with different experiences and challenges. The new race seasons includes not only the South Africa and German tracks, but also brings in two of the original tracks which are fun to revisit. Every time I have played HEAT: Pedal to the Metal, I have enjoyed the experience. Whether I play solo, with a small number of players or a full eight for a race, I have fun whether I win or lose while pushing my car to its limit and hoping it can take the heat. If you have a copy of the original game, then I highly recommend you add Heat: Rocky Roads to your collection. 

For more information, visit the HEAT: Rocky Roads page!

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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.

Three witches vie for control of the fates in this trick-taking game of shifting allegiances.

What Is 3 Witches?

3 Witches is a trick-taking game for 3 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 20 minutes to play. It retails for $9 and is available in stores and directly from the publisher. There are some interesting twists to the game so some familiarity with trick-taking games is helpful, but not absolutely required.

3 Witches was designed by Corey Young and published by Allplay, with illustrations by Sai Beppu.

3 Witches Components

Here’s what comes in the box:

• 18 Ingredient cards
• 12 Fate tokens
• 3 Player Aid cards
• Crystal Ball card

Normally, I don’t include the game box itself in my components photo, but I wanted to highlight what a tiny little game this is. Allplay has a lot of games that come in a small square box, but more recently they’ve also introduced a line of tiny box games, and 3 Witches is one of them. As you can see from the photo, the box itself is only slightly longer than the cards themselves, and it’s a little thicker than a tuckbox for a standard poker deck—easy to fit in your pocket.

The ingredient cards represent a variety of animal parts: eye of newt, claw of owl, and so on, plus an Elixir. The values are tied to the ingredients—eyes are 2, tongues are 4—and the animals are the suits (dragon, dog, bat, etc.). One interesting thing to note about the deck is that not every suit has the same set of cards, or even the same number of cards.

The player aid cards have a handy little chart showing the various values of the ingredient cards so you can tell at a glance which cards exist. The other side has an explanation of how ingredients combine—but we’ll get to that in a minute.

The fate tokens are simple cardboard tokens (a skull wearing a crown), and the crystal ball card is double-sided, with a 3 on one side and a 4 on the other.

How to Play 3 Witches

You can download a copy of the rules sheet here. 3 Witches is a trick-taking game; for each “trick,” each players will play cards and then based on the values of the cards played, somebody wins the trick. However, 3 Witches has a few tricks up its sleeves and tricks are not resolved in the typical way. 

The Goal

The goal of the game is to be the first player to earn 5 fate tokens.

Setup

Each round, shuffle the 18 ingredient cards and deal each player 6 cards. The player who was dealt the Elixir must announce it, and the player to their left becomes the first player.

Gameplay

First, in turn order, players will bid on how many tricks they plan to win. You must bid either 3 or 4 tricks, or pass. If somebody has already bid 3, you may outbid them, but as soon as a player bids 4, the bidding phase ends. Whoever won the bid takes the crystal ball card, turned to the side matching their bid, and is now the Lead Witch for this round. The other two players become the Lesser Witches; each Lesser Witch must discard a card from their hand face-down.

(There are some additional rules for what happens if everyone passes—cards are passed between players and bidding starts up again, but I won’t get into all of the details here.)

After the teams have been decided, the round will involve 5 tricks, and each team will play 2 cards to the trick. The Lead Witch plays two cards, and the Lesser Witches each play 1 card, with the highest combined value winning the trick—but there are some special effects in how values combine.

The Lead Witch always starts the trick by playing two cards, one face-up and one face-down; the face-up card is the lead suit. The next player in clockwise order must play the same suit face-up if possible; otherwise they may play any card or pass. The last player must also follow suit, or else they must play any card. Finally, if the second player passed, they must now play a card.

Once the four cards have been played, the Lead Witch reveals their face-down card, and each team calculates their total value:

• If both cards have the same value, add them together
• If both cards have the same suit, add them together
• Otherwise, only count the higher of the two values

The higher value wins, with ties going to the Lead Witch.

The Elixir doubles the value of the other card. In the photo above, the Lesser Witches have a total of 12 (the 6 of bats doubled by the Elixir) and the lead witch has 8 (3 and 5 of bats are added together), so the Lesser Witches win.

After the trick, the winning team chooses one of the two cards the Lead Witch played to return to the Lead Witch’s hand. (The exception is that the Lead Witch cannot choose the Elixir to return to their own hand if they won.)

After 5 tricks, if the Lead Witch won exactly the number of tricks matching their bid, they win the round and get 2 fate tokens. Otherwise, the Lesser Witches win the round and each get 1 fate token.

Game End

The game ends when a player reaches 5 fate tokens and wins. If two players get their 5th token simultaneously, they share victory.

Why You Should Play 3 Witches

There aren’t generally a lot of games that are for exactly three players. Two players? Sure, particularly when it comes to abstract strategy games or head-to-head combat games. Solo? A growing category, with a spike driven by early pandemic days when a lot of people were stuck at home by themselves. And, of course, “2–4 players” is probably one of the most common player count that I see in my collection. But for 3 Witches, three is indeed a magic number.

It’s also unique in the way that those three players interact. I’ve played trick-taking games where everyone is cooperating, or everyone is competing, or where players are on teams competing against each other. There are even trick-taking games where everyone is working together but there may be a hidden traitor trying to foil their plans. 3 Witches is the only one I’ve played so far that has a 2-vs-1 setup, and it makes for an unusual experience that will throw off some of your usual trick-taking tactics.

For each trick, each team ideally wants their two cards to match either rank or suit, because then the total value is the sum of the two cards. The Lead Witch, of course, gets to choose both of their cards themselves, so they’re only limited by what they’ve been dealt. The Lesser Witches have to read each other a bit—if you don’t have the lead suit, do you pass so you can see what your partner plays? If your partner passes, can you predict what value to play so they might have a chance to match you?

There’s another wrinkle: the eyes. If the Lead Witch’s face-up card is an eye (value 2), then the Lesser Witches must play their cards face-down, which limits their ability to communicate even further. In the example shown above, the Lead Witch ends up with a total value of 6 (summing the same suit) but the Lesser Witches have a total of 5 (the higher of two cards, since they don’t match). The downside is that if you lead with an eye, that’s a low card and there’s an upper limit to your total … and the Lesser Witches could easily figure that out.

With so few cards in the deck, that little chart showing all the available cards is really important. You can learn a lot of information about what other players have by observing who follows suit or passes. Not only that, but the Lesser Witches have a small piece of information if they win a trick and choose which card the Lead Witch gets to take back.

The most difficult part of the game to grasp may be the initial bidding. How do you look at your cards and decide how many tricks you could win? More specifically, you’re trying to decide if you could win exactly three or four tricks—no more, no less. If you become lead witch, the important thing to remember is that you’ll get one card back after each trick; if you’re not lead witch, you’ll have to discard a card from your hand before the round begins. If somebody bids 3 tricks, how strongly do you feel you could beat them at those tricks and then some?

Familiarity with the deck is important, but until then you’ll spend a lot of time consulting those player aid cards. With so few cards in each suit, there’s a lot of information to be gleaned by watching who follows suit, who passes, even which card the Lead Witch plays face-up. The Lesser Witches can often figure out what the Lead Witch’s maximum total value could be, but then figuring out how to beat it is another problem. Or, alternatively, how not to beat it, since the Lead Witch fails if they win all 5 tricks.

The one thing that I’m not totally satisfied with is the scoring. The fact that the teams aren’t set for the whole game and vary from round to round means that you’re still trying to get the most points for yourself, but at times you need to work with somebody to make that happen. But it also leads to some weird situations—for instance, if you’re paired up with a Lesser Witch who has 4 fate tokens already (and you have fewer), then perhaps you might actually work against your “teammate” to prevent the game from ending. There have been situations where my two opponents are both in position to win—if that’s the case, then being a Lesser Witch also makes me a kingmaker. The only way out is to become Lead Witch and win, but as soon as somebody bids 4 tricks then that’s no longer an option for me. Since you’re just playing to 5 points, this isn’t an uncommon situation, so it doesn’t always make for a satisfying ending.

That said, most of the folks I’ve played with have really enjoyed the gameplay and how different it feels. I think it’s hard to understate how weird this game is compared to other trick-taking games I’ve played. As I said above, you don’t have to be experienced in trick-taking games to play 3 Witches; it helps you get a grasp on figuring out who has what cards, but it is of almost no use in helping you strategize how to bid. I’ve really enjoyed the mind games involved in figuring out what to play, whether I’m the Lead Witch or a Lesser Witch.

If you like trick-taking games and you’re looking for something a little off the beaten path, 3 Witches is worth a try! Visit the Allplay website for more info.

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Sirius Dice is a Brooklyn, New York-based tabletop gaming accessory company that has been around since 2019. Their goal is “to create with intention: designing pieces that add character to the table, connect players through shared experiences, and celebrate the joy of gaming.”

The company recently sent me a few samples of the many dice sets and accessories that are available on their website and in gaming stores. Here’s a look at what I got:

Daggerheart

For those of you not familiar with the title, Daggerheart is a new tabletop RPG from Critical Role that was released last Fall. Sirius Dice has since released two dice sets for the game. As opposed to a standard set of RPG dice that consist of 7 dice, a set for Daggerheart has 9 dice. That’s because you have two additional, differently-colored d12s for your Duality Dice, a mechanism unique to the Daggerheart system.

Daggerheart Duality Dice Set – Fate of the Mortal Realms

The Daggerheart Duality Dice Set – Fate of the Mortal Realms retails for $19.99, and is available from the Sirius Dice webstore. The dice are a translucent blend of green and blue. The Duality Dice are clear, with a splash of light green inside the Hope die, and a splash of dark blue inside the Fear die.

Daggerheart Duality Dice Set: Fate of the Mortal Realms – Sharp Edged Edition

The sharp edged edition of the Daggerheart dice take things up a notch. In addition to the sharp edges of the dice, this set comes in a box with a magnetic lid. A foam insert cradles each of the dice. And while the color scheme is the same, this dice set is significantly larger. With all of these factors, the set bumps up to $34.99 at the Sirius Dice webstore.

I found that with the larger dice, the color variation was more pronounced, which I enjoyed. As far as rolling the two different sets of dice, though, you won’t really find much difference.

Netflix’ Stranger Things

Sirius has a several different products for Stranger Things. 

Stranger Things: Mini Dice Cup – Demodog

There are 4 different Mini Dice Cups available from Sirius Dice: The Demogorgon, The Demodog, Vecna, and the Hellfire Club. Each one retails for $19.99, and comes with a set of miniature dice unique to each dice cup design. You can find all four designs on the Stranger Things Sirius Dice page.

The Demodog has a little Easter Egg around the back of the cup, too: Dart, the “tadpole” that Dustin discovers and raises.

Here’s a look at the mini dice set alongside a standard-sized d20, to give you an idea of scale:

Stranger Things: Treasure Packs

The Stranger Things Treasure Packs each contain the following:

• Oversized d20 Die 
• Metal Ability Coin 
• Premium Embroidered Dice Bag

The Treasure Packs are blind bag purchases. There are a total of 23 possible d20 designs, 15 unique coins, and 7 distinctive dice bags to collect. Treasure Packs costs $12.99, and are available here.

Sirius Dice sent along 3 of the Treasure Packs; here’s what I received:

Dungeons & Dragons Undermountain Treasure Packs: Waterdeep Collection

Like the Stranger Things Treasure Packs, the Dungeons & Dragons Undermountain Treasure Packs: Waterdeep Collection are all blind bag purchases. However, these packs are priced at $19.99, and for a very good reason: each one contains a full set of 7 RPG dice, instead of just a single d20.

There are a few more things going on with these D&D Treasure Packs, as well:

A Complete, Exclusive 7-Dice Set

• Collect all 63 brand-new dice sets
• Features dazzling and thematic designs inspired by the dangers of Undermountain
• Organized into 6 tiers of rarity: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, Legendary, and Artifact

A Gleaming Metal Coin

• Discover one of 17 new coin designs, plus the coveted 24k Gold Leaf Coin
• Perfect for roleplay, collection, or display in your adventurer’s hoard

An Embroidered Dice Bag

• Collect all 11 unique bags, each crafted with quality stitching and immersive Waterdeep designs

You can actually search the rarity of all the different D&D Treasure Pack dice, coins, and bags at this website.

As with the Stranger Things Treasure Packs, Sirius Dice sent along 3 blind bags to open. Two of my sets were Common rarity, and one was Rare. Sadly, no 24k Gold Leaf Coin for me! Here are the Common sets:

Instead of a canvas bag, the rare set included a velvet bag with the D&D logo. Additionally, the dice set was mushroom-themed. A mushroom replaced the highest result on each die, and each multi-colored translucent die also had a mushroom visible inside of it.

Sirius Dice – Final Thoughts

With everything I received, there’s a lot to unpack here! Uniformly, the quality of the dice and accessories from Sirius Dice are quite high. There are a few items that stand out, quality-wise, and unsurprisingly these are the sharp edged Daggerheart dice, and the rare Waterdeep Treasure Pack. 

The larger dice sharp edged Daggerheart dice are quite lovely, with not only very sharp edges, but sharp, crisp numbers and symbols on the dice. The larger size of the more expensive set also allows for more gradual color gradation. The standard Daggerheart Duality Dice set is quite attractive as well, and for most players might be a better choice due to the lower price point. Honestly, both Daggerheart dice sets make me want to start playing the TTRPG (of course I’ve also heard that the game’s quite good!)

As I play Dungeons & Dragons and also enjoyed all the seasons of Stranger Things, I quite liked the Treasure Packs I received. There’s a well-documented dopamine rush you get from opening up blind bags and finding what’s inside, made even more exciting when you find something that you really like and/or is of a higher rarity.

While I appreciated all of the great Stranger Things references, like the Hellfire Club dice bag, and a “Scoops Ahoy” d20, as a tabletop RPG player I found the D&D Treasure Packs to be more generally useful. After all, with those you’re getting a complete dice set. But, as the sets are all random, your mileage may vary depending on the specific dice you’ll find when you open a Treasure Pack.

My least favorite item was the Stranger Things Demodog Mini Dice Cup. I’m not generally a fan of miniature dice, as they’re easy to lose and not as much fun to roll as larger dice. Also, if I’m being honest, had I been choosing one myself out of the 4 Mini Dice Cup designs, the Demodog would have been my last choice. But this is my personal reaction to the product- the overall quality, as with everything else I sent, was quite high.

So there you have it: just a few of the many, many products that Sirius Dice offers. There’s also dozens of individual dice sets available, as well as other Treasure Packs and accessories. I’m certainly looking forward to getting some of these dice to the table, and gifting some others to my fellow players. And I already know that my girlfriend is eyeing some of the sets for herself…

For more information or to make a purchase, visit the Sirius Dice website!

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Disclosure: GeekDad received these dice for review purposes.

Here are several tabletop games currently seeking funding on Kickstarter and Gamefound that caught my attention! Today’s roundup includes a few projects that are sets of small games, giving you the option to dip your toe into the pool or just grab the whole collection at once.

New to crowdfunding? Check out our primer.

Walkable City from Fowers Games

Here’s one for the urban planner in all of us: a cooperative game about building out routes so the residents of your city have alternatives to driving. Up to four players will create bus routes, light rail tracks, bike lanes, and walking paths to connect residents to their various destinations. The game uses a press-your-luck system where you can attempt to build more quickly, but you might encounter resistance if you push too hard. I’ve got a prototype to try out but this one’s a brief campaign so I may not get the chance to write up a full review before it ends.

Here to Slay DUNGEONS from Unstable Games

Here to Slay DUNGEONS is a new cooperative game based on the Here to Slay card games. In the card games, you assemble a party to slay monsters (and mess with the other players), but this one is a full dungeon crawl with hex-based map tiles and plenty of bosses to fight. There are three sets, each with their own heroes and bosses, or you can get the box set that includes all three. (Note that if you want the cute vinyl figurines shown in the video instead of just wooden meeples, those are in the “Party Leader Box Set” or available as add-ons.)

Cavern Shuffle from Gravy Boat Games

Cavern Shuffle is a little solitaire game that is literally playing solitaire, but instead of a regular deck of cards, there’s a custom deck with heroes and traps and monsters that will need to be arranged in particular ways to level up. There are three decks—Maze of the Minotaur, Lair of the Lich, and Peril on the Planet—available individually or as a set. I love the concept, and the art caught my eye, so I’m backing the project to give them a try!

Hell of a Deal from Smirk & Dagger Games

Last year I wrote about the rebirth of trick-taking games and marveled at the way designers have been incorporating the mechanic in new forms, and wondered what might get remixed next. I suggested poker, maybe—and since then I’ve seen several games that incorporate poker into their mechanics as well. Hell of a Deal hews a little closer to its source: you’re playing poker against the devil, but there are plenty of ways to cheat. Of course, if you cheat too much and give into too much temptation, you lose your soul! This one looks pretty slick and I’m definitely interested in giving it a shot.

Slay the Spire: The Board Game – Downfall from Contention Games

Back in 2022 when the Kickstarter campaign launched for Slay the Spire: The Board Game, I didn’t back it, in part because I’d never heard of Contention Games. Videogame adaptations are sometimes a risky bet—some of them are fantastic, and others feel like just a way to cash in on the built-in audience, flash with no substance. Since then, I’ve gotten to play the board game version of this roguelike deck-builder, and it’s the real deal. It feels a lot like the videogame, but with a cooperative mode so you can play with your friends. Downfall is based on the community-made mod for the videogame, which allowed you to play as the boss monsters instead. This campaign brings that version to your tabletop (and lets you get the base game if you missed it the first time around)!

MegaGame Library from Level 99 Games

Waaaay back in 2012, when games were still fairly new to Kickstarter, Level 99 Games launched a project for a Minigame Library—four (and a half) games that came in small tuckboxes, all contained in a larger library box if you got the whole set. I still have mine!

Now Level 99 Games is back with a new set of five games—though each of these is a bit bigger than the original Minigames. Battle your friends (and soak in the ’80s vibes) in Deathstrikers: Overkillers of Epochalypse! Play a solo (or 2-player) western in High Noon at Showdown Saloon. Outbid the other bears to build up your food stash in Bear Market. Bake delicious treats in Muffin’s Kitchen. Fulfill dreams by drawing your solutions in Anito: Wish Granters. There’s also a pledge level that includes 4 previous titles (two of which are updated versions from the original Minigame Library).

Botany Floral Dragons from Dux Somnium Games

Okay, I’ll admit that I don’t know a whole lot about this one other than that I’ve seen ads for a previous game, Botany, that seems like it’s done pretty well. But my tween daughter absolutely loves anything with dragons on it and I just loved the plant-inspired dragons pictured in this game. Will it be something she’ll actually want to play? I guess we’ll see!

I think Marcus the Worm is trying to steal my girlfriend. I mean, I knew my partner was a big fan of his bizarre VRChat adventures when I invited him to move to the island, I just didn’t consider him to be a threat… y’know… romantically.

Wait, let me back up.

Last week, I was given an early crack at Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, the upcoming Switch release that also happens to be the sequel to one of my family’s favorite wacky life-sim titles. I was also given the go-ahead to provide a little preview coverage, so I dove right in.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is all about the Miis, so my first order of business was crafting an inhabitant for my island. Unlike the rudimentary character creator of the previous game (which was still very much rooted in the original Nintendo Wii style), this time around, the Mii generation is much more nuanced—rather in the Miitopia vein.

The branching interface starts with the user’s decision to “Get help” or start “From scratch.” “Get help” offers a streamlined approach that asks about age and face shape, skin tone, hair, and other related features, each presented with a simple, single-screen’s worth of options from which to choose.

“From scratch,” on the other hand, gives you a starting choice between one of two vaguely masculine vs vaguely feminine looks, and then drops you into the Mii Maker-proper. There are categories on a navbar to the left and options—lots of options—on the right. This includes the all-important “Add face paint” category, which can be used to paint in finer details to further customize a Mii’s features. While pencilling in some visible stitching on a friendly plushy was the example shown in the recent Nintendo Direct, I found this option to have all kinds of uses, from fleshing out a famed anime protagonist to adding irregular textures to a doughy otherworldly horror.   

That said, even if you go the simplified “Get help” route, you’re still given a chance via a “Needs work” button at the end of the process to move your character into the full Mii creation studio.

With a Mii designed, you’re asked to configure the height and body type using sliders before providing a name and some demographic information. Gender options include male, female, and nonbinary, and you can also choose some, all, or none of these as your Mii’s dating preference.

Enter a birthday and pick a voice, and you’re taken to the important final step: setting the personality.

Using a series of color-coded Likert scales, you can position a Mii between two (more or less) diametrically opposed ideals—Slow vs. Quick Movement, Honest vs. Polite Speech, and the like. These choices determine both a Mii’s personality and the starting color of their garb and island home. My Mii, for example, was dubbed a Considerate : Daydreamer, a profile associated with the color orange.

You, the player, are also an important part and, as your island’s benevolent caretaker, you’ll pick from a selection of photorealistic hands (with which you’ll occasionally poke and prod your tiny charges to cure their hiccups or ease their intrusive thoughts), and choose how to be addressed. I went with the simple but elegant “Homie.”

With names and roles firmly established, my Mii went down the familiar If You Give a Mouse a Cookie rabbit hole. First, he was hungry (so I purchased some grub from the newly opened Food Mart), then he was lonely (so I created a Mii to represent my girlfriend), and so on. Thus, I attended to his basic needs, levelling up little Zii in the process.

Assisting your characters in such a way, keeping them fed and occupied and otherwise fulfilled, nets you cash—which can be used to purchase food, clothing options, and other amenities—as well as Warm Fuzzies, which I dutifully collected in a glass bottle. This secondary currency can be used at the central Wishing Fountain to level up your island as a whole, making way for, as they say, bigger and better things.

In short order, my two children joined the growing population of Miis, as did JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure‘s Jolyne Cujoh (I used the face paint option to make her iconic space-bun hairstyle) and the aforementioned Marcus the Worm. Yes, I also crafted a bald, mealy-mouthed creature with large, top-set eyes. His personality turned out to be the purple-coded Ambitious : Maverick, which does at least seem lore-accurate.

The problem began to arise as my inhabitants became more comfortable, familiar, and independent. Your Miis may need you not only to supply food but also to help them break the ice with other islanders. You’ll provide them with some topics to discuss, a little helpful encouragement, and occasionally even pick them up and drop them next to someone to get the ball rolling. In time, they develop more fully formed personalities, aided by the relationships they foster and the advancements they earn through leveling up.

Obviously, you can try to shape things to your liking, but, alas, you are not an all-powerful deity. And if you’re not careful, you might even find your paramour spending more and more time with a certain deadpan sardine(?) while your Mii stares forlornly out into the ocean.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream arrives on the Nintendo Switch family of systems on April 16. This gives you several weeks to deliberately plan out which Miis you will and will not add to your island. I suggest you spend that time wisely. (By which I mean download the brand-new demo!)

Preview materials provided by Nintendo of America. This post contains affiliate links. I’m going to go remove South Carolina.

Our 10 Favorite Games of 2025

Our finalists for Game of the Year (in alphabetical order) are Alibis, Emerald Skulls, Galactic Cruise, Hot Streak, Ito, Kinfire Council, Light Speed: Arena, Lightning Train, Please Don’t Burn My Village and Spooktacular. Each description below includes a link to our original review.

Alibis

This cooperative word-association game feels a little bit like some of the other titles that have come before it—Codenames, So Clover!—but then adds a twist that has quickly made it one of our favorite games in the genre. Everyone gets to come up with a clue at the same time, and you’re building a word puzzle collectively that everyone gets to solve. The fantastic supervillain artwork is just the icing on the cake.

Read the full review.

Emerald Skulls

Roll them bones! Emerald Skulls is a press-your-luck dice game, but what makes it a stand-up-and-cheer game is the fact that you can bet on other players on their turns. Do you chicken out if it means somebody else will profit? Place your bets!

Read the full review.

Galactic Cruise

Arguably the heaviest game in our top ten (both in gameplay and physical heft), Galactic Cruise isn’t weighed down by overly complex rules. This highly thematic Euro game is deep in strategy, but very accessible with great components and a wonderfully integrated theme of galactic tourism. 

Read the full review.

Hot Streak

What happens when four off-brand mascots attempt to run a race across the field? Pure chaos: they run into each other, get turned around, and sometimes leave the field entirely. But if you can predict their actions, you can cash out on your bets. 

Read the full review.

Ito

This tiny box party game is great for sparking conversations about which superpower is the best or what everyone considers scary. The trick is figuring out where each clue fits on a scale from 1 to 100, and the real trick is that it’s less about rating things objectively but more about figuring out everyone’s intentions.

Read the full review.

Kinfire Council

In the other Kinfire games you play as the Seekers, the dungeon-crawling heroes sent out on missions. Here, you play as the city council, in charge of managing a city with too many competing needs (and a bit of a cultist problem), and the Seekers are just one of the workers that you have at your disposal. Government bureaucracy has never been so compelling!

Read the full review.

Light Speed: Arena

This remake of James Ernest’s fast-paced space laser battle is one of the best examples we’ve seen of an app-assisted game: the gameplay is still fully analog, and the app handles the tedious scoring (and also allows for some much more complex options).

Read the full review.

Lightning Train

The latest game from previous Game of the Year winner and mutli-nominee Paul Dennen lives up to his reputation. Combining the age-old game of building train lines with an interesting new bag building mechanic, this game is sure to please railfans and strategy gamers alike.

Read the full review.

Please Don’t Burn My Village

Bribe the dragon to protect your village. But be careful–the dragon only wants the latest shiny thing, so your valuable bribe today might be worthless tomorrow. Set collection and market manipulation combine in this fast, easy-to-learn game that nonetheless surprises with multiple layers of strategy. 

Read the full review.

Spooktacular

In most horror games you’re trying to run away from or defeat the monster…but in Spooktacular you are the monster! You’ll play as one of 20 different B-movie monsters, vying against your components to gobble up the most humans. This tongue-in-cheek game is quick and easy to learn, and with each monster having different abilities, there’s a ton of replayability. 

Read the full review.

How We Pick Our Finalists

The GeekDad Game of the Year is an award given annually to the game we have enjoyed the most in the previous year. Qualification is dependent on a number of factors: first (and probably the biggest filter), the game must have been reviewed on our site. Additionally, we must have recognized the quality of the game in the review and noted the game as a “GeekDad Approved” game, worthy of our big, shiny metal thumbs-up.

Second, the game must be accessible to most families—a bit of a nebulous identification to be sure, but roughly a game should be one that most families would be likely to play on a weekend afternoon. This would typically rule out very heavy strategy games and very light fare. That’s not to say we’re not heavily enamored with some of those games, we just have to be more selective as we narrow games down. We usually do include at least one heavier game for the strategy fans, and it’s fun to have a lighter party game, but that’s generally what we’re looking for.

Third, we also keep an eye on content, and games that have themes, language, or art that we deem inappropriate aren’t going to make the cut. The family game category, as you traditionally think about it, is a good place to start, but it’s not absolute. We recognize that families might consist of adult children or older teenagers, as well as very young children. As a result, our sweet spot covers a very large area. That said, we’re more likely to go with PG content than something that would be R-rated.

Fourth, in the past, a game we select as a finalist must have come out in the prior year and be currently available in wide release in the US. There are some really great games that you just can’t get your hands on, and we’d rather give you a list you can use, not just one that gives you FOMO.

It’s worth noting that occasionally we put a GeekDad Approved seal on a game we enjoyed even though it wasn’t published in the 12-month window—these do not have the year designation on them and are not eligible for Game of the Year.

Fifth and finally, we love games that have fresh takes on old mechanics, offer great components, or otherwise have a special something that will get everyone to the table. As we narrow down our list of GeekDad Approved games to just 10 finalists, we try to include a mix of genres, game weight, game length, and themes, though it’s always hard to fit everything!

Our Timeline

As noted earlier, any game that was widely released in the US in the prior calendar year was eligible, although we give ourselves a little time at the beginning of the year to wrap up reviews.

Since the beginning of this year, we’ve been wrapping up reviews of a few more GeekDad Approved games from last year, and discussing which ones might make it into the top 10. In early-to-mid April, we’ll be meeting up to play through our ten finalists and decide on a winner, which we’ll announce shortly after.

Our Approved Games for 2026

Here are all of our Approved games for the year:

Alibis
Emerald Skulls
Flip 7
Fliptoons
Galactic Cruise
Hot Streak
Ito
Kinfire Council
Light Speed: Arena
Lightning Train
Magical Athlete
Memoir ’44 Refresh
Metal Gear Solid
Mezen
Please Don’t Burn My Village
Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection
Spooktacular
Vantage

The Fine Print

We realize that we can’t get to every game that is released each year. For that, we apologize. There are only a handful of us and we have day jobs. But we are trying hard to review as many games as we can.

To be completely transparent, when we identify a game as GeekDad Approved, the publisher is notified and we provide a logo noting the approved designation that they are free to use without any obligation. However, for any game that we select as a finalist or as the winner of our Game of the Year, we request a small fee for the use of that logo and designation; again, there is no obligation to participate, nor do we consider the likelihood of a publisher paying when we narrow down our list.

We ask for this fee since we believe the award provides a benefit to the publishers who decide to use it, but also to offset administrative costs of running a big website and travel costs involved with a number of us getting together to play the finalists games and make a decision on the overall winner. We’re bloggers. Financially, it’s a losing proposition—in a big way. We’re just trying to offset that a little.

Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews.

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Back in 2023, I proudly proclaimed Super Mario Bros. Wonder to be “a new high-water mark for the 2D Super Mario Bros. line.” That’s a sentiment I still stand behind, but I’ll admit I hadn’t spent much time in the Flower Kingdom since I migrated from my OLED Switch model to my Nintendo Switch 2.

That changed a couple of weeks back when I was sent an early download code for Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park. Not only does this new iteration look fantastic on the Switch 2, but it combines all that’s great about the original (badges and standees and world-bending Wonder Effects) with some sweet new exclusive content.

As the title implies, much of this centers squarely around the newly discovered Bellabel Park. Inhabited by various members of the Toad Brigade (including some Poplin recruits) and the occasional chatty flower, Bellabel is a new hub that hosts various multiplayer offerings as well as ties in the new story elements.

At Camp Central, you’ll gather intel from the Brigade to help you on your mission to reclaim the Seven Bellabel Flowers stolen by those rascally Koopalings. Locate Brigade Tents scattered across the expansive Flower Kingdom map to find and defeat the Koopa Kids in their weirdly warped boss levels. (Or, y’know, you can just ask the helpful Poplin guide back at camp, and he’ll point you directly toward your next objective.)

These Koopaling showdown courses aren’t overly long, but they can be challenging, showcasing even more surreal enemy transformations. Thankfully, you, too, have a few new weapons in your arsenal. Super Mario Galaxy‘s Rosalina is now available as a playable character, complete with Co-Star Luma as her multiplayer Assist Character. There’s also the Super Flower Pot power-up, which can transform Mario and his allies into Flower characters that toss rising flower projectiles and can flutter jump for a more controlled descent.

While not chasing down Koopalings, you can spend your time in Bellabel Park conversing with the Curious Poplin as he decrypts ancient stone slabs, read dispatches from the front on the Brigade Board, and take on specialty challenge courses at Toad Brigade Training Camp.

These challenges—like collecting all the coins before time expires or clearing an entire course while staying invincible—reward the player with droplets of Bellabel Water that can be used to unlock decorative flowers to customize the Park and patches to add to your Toad Brigade backpack. With 74 training courses, there are plenty of fun, challenging ways to raise your rank in the illustrious Toad Brigade.

Cosmetic goodies and bragging rights aside, the coolest new component has got to be the Dual Badges. These combine two badge effects (like Parachute Cap + Boosting Spin Jump or Coin Reward + Coin Magnet) into one, providing double the buffs in a single equippable badge. Not only do these help when facing those pesky Koopalings, but they also provide new ways to approach the game’s myriad of worlds and courses, further supplementing the already astounding amount of gameplay offered in Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

While it’s easy enough to share the fun of Camp Central with your friends and family—the Toad Brigade Training Camp courses support up to four players on a single system, which helps to temper some of the frustration found in the more difficult courses—Bellabel’s Attraction Central is a dedicated multiplayer zone.

To the left, the Local Multiplayer Plaza hosts ten versus and seven co-op attractions, available for up to four players on a single system. To the right, the Game Room Plaza houses six different attractions for up to eight players using local wireless or a dozen online. From feeding baby Yoshis to Propeller Flower racing, there are lots of ways to channel that Mario Party-style madness in the world of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. And thanks to the magic of the Switch 2’s GameShare feature, your loved ones can get in on the action even if they don’t own the game.

While not an official part of the Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park release, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also touch on the arrival of Wonder‘s Talking Flower to the real-world Nintendo lineup.

This cheerful little guy runs on two AA batteries and boasts an impressive number of language options. Using the hidden Menu Panel inside the flower pot, just choose your preferred language and set your wake-up and bedtime; he’ll talk throughout the day, announcing the hour, commenting on the weather, and making the occasional silly quip.

The easy-to-find Talk Button can be pressed whenever you like to make the flower speak. You can also long-press it (for about two seconds) to enter mute mode and, while muted, long-press again to enter BGM mode, where your Talking Flower plays a selection of background tracks.

For the most part, the Talking Flower has been a pleasant enough little fellow to have around the house. Except for on those rare occasions where I forget about him and then hear a cheerful but totally unexpected voice chime in from across my home. (Is it an intruder? A vengeful spirit, perhaps? No, it’s merely a harmless plastic flower welcoming the afternoon!) 

Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park is available on Thursday, March 26, with an MSRP of $79.99, while those who already own Super Mario Bros. Wonder can pick up the Switch 2 Upgrade Pack for $19.99. The Talking Flower is out now and priced at $34.99 (batteries not included).

Like Wonder before it, Bellabel Park is an easy recommendation to gamers of all stripes and skill levels. The Talking Flower, on the other hand, is mostly recommended for those with robust long-term memories and folks who don’t startle easily.

It’s also worth noting that both arrive just in time to help fans celebrate the April 1 opening of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Because you can’t get to Hot Girl Summer without first spending a little time in Mario Spring!

Review materials provided by Nintendo of America. This post contains affiliate links. The Talking Flower looks like an amiibo, but it ain’t.

Back in September, I reviewed the DnD Condition Rings from The Wasted Wizard. This handy Dungeons & Dragons accessory provides dozens of terraced rings upon which you can place a 28mm miniature. The rings each show a condition that a character might be afflicted with. Even better, the rings are stackable, so that you can easily see if a character has multiple conditions. Recently, The Wasted Wizard sent me out their latest product, the Numbered DnD Status Rings. 

What Are the Numbered DnD Status Rings?

Much like the Condition Rings, the Numbered DnD Status Rings are stackable plastic rings that allow you to place a miniature with a 25mm base or smaller. This is the most common base size for TTRPG miniatures. Though listed as an expansion on the box, these can be used completely independently of the Condition Rings. The Numbered DnD Status Rings retail for $23.99, and can be purchased from The Wasted Wizard webstore, or from Amazon.

The box contains:

• 44 rings in 4 colors
• Felt pad stickers
• 1 DnD character sheet

As with the Condition Rings, you can stick felt rings onto the bottom of the Numbered DnD Rings to help prevent slippage on the game table.

And still as with the Condition Rings, adding the foam stickers to the bottoms of each of the rings can be a tedious process. I recommend sitting down in front of the television to make completing the task more enjoyable.

Using the Numbered DnD Status Rings

As opposed to the Condition Rings, which are pretty specific for Dungeons & Dragons, the Numbered DnD Status Rings can be used for most any tabletop roleplaying game. Additionally, they can be used in 3 distinct ways.

The way most Dungeon Masters will likely use the rings is to keep track of groups of enemies of the same type. There are 4 sets of rings numbered 0-10, so you can just place a numbered ring under each of the foes and then both players and the Dungeon Master will know which one of the (likely) identical miniatures is which.

You could alternately use the rings to track initiative, if you’re so inclined. Simply hand out the rings in order of who rolled the highest initiative, and then you can keep track of whose turn is coming up by looking down at the table.

Finally, if you wanted to represent large groups of foes or allies, you can stack the rings to indicate a larger number. And, as there are 4 different colors of rings, you could combine some or all of these methods on the tabletop.

Numbered DnD Status Rings – Final Thoughts

The Numbered DnD Status Rings, much like the Condition Rings, are a very useful tool for the Dungeon Master. Far too often when running a game, I’ve had a pile of similar or identical miniatures, with no good way to tell them apart on the table. Rather than players having to say, “I shoot at the skeleton archer with the bow that leans to the right,” they can now simply say, “I shoot at skeleton archer number five.” Anyone who has played tabletop roleplaying games in person is sure to appreciate how the Numbered DnD Status Rings clear up any confusion on the game table.

If you already have the Condition Rings from The Wasted Wizard, you’ll definitely want to pick up the Numbered DnD Status Rings. They’re tremendously useful, and also stack perfectly with the Condition Rings. But as I said before, even though they’re technically an expansion, the numbered rings can easily be used by themselves as well. They’re a great tool to help make your TTRPG sessions run smoother.

For more information or to purchase the Numbered DnD Status Rings, head over to The Wasted Wizard website.

The Wasted Wizard provided this product for evaluation, but had no input into this review. As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn a small commission on qualified purchases.

Serve up delicious dishes at the food cart festival!

What Is Chicken Fried Dice?

Chicken Fried Dice is a roll-and-write game for 1 to 5 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 30–45 minutes to play. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $49 for a copy of the game, or $89 for the all-in edition that includes fancier dice, a custom playmat, a wooden dice coop, and a mini-expansion with more customers..

Chicken Fried Dice was designed by Ashwin Kamath and Rob Newton and published by Urban Professional Games, with illustrations by Meimo Siwapon.

New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.

Chicken Fried Dice Components

Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality.

Here’s what comes in the game:

• 5 Food Truck boards
• 5 Bonus Boards
• 20 Food Station tiles (4 per player)
• 5 Coop Wall segments
• 25 Ingredient dice (5 each of 5 colors, plus 3 Head Chef dice)
• 15 Starter Customer cards
• 81 Customer cards
• Scoreboard tile
• 5 Dry-Erase markers
• 5 Compost tiles (for solo game)

The artwork in this game is really delightful, particularly the wide variety of animal customers. The photo above is just a very small selection but you can see everything from snails to birds to a certain breakdancing koala. (There are a few other references hidden throughout, and I’m guessing probably more than I missed.)

The cards and food truck boards use little icons to denote the different dice colors—a lemon for yellow, broccoli for green, and so on. The icons are a little small (particularly in the food stations on the food truck) but can help distinguish those spaces. The dice themselves are only distinguished by color, though, so I’m not sure if this is a complete solution for color blind players.

The food truck boards are dual-layered so that they’re able to hold the food station tiles, which are used to upgrade the four sections of the food truck. The bonus boards fit underneath the food trucks and have cutouts for the wheels so everything fits flush together. The backs of the food trucks are used for the solo game—each truck has its own special rules—but it’s a shame that these fun chefs and distinct food trucks aren’t visible in the regular game.

The bonus boards are also double-sided: one side is the menu side (recommended for learning games), and the other is the picnic side offering a new way to use the flavor bonuses.

The truck boards, bonus boards, scoreboard, and customer cards are all glossy so that you can write directly on them with the dry-erase markers. One fun touch is that the backs of the customer cards look like order tickets—and they actually have different order numbers on them!

Since most of the dice are all rolled into a shared pool, the dice coop is a nice way to provide a dice tray without too much expense: it’s five pieces of cardboard that slot together to make a pentagonal enclosure. The walls are angled outward, giving it a bit of a bowl shape. You can’t pick it up, but you shouldn’t have to because players are only allowed to take one die at a time from it anyway. (In some of my photos I had the tray assembled with the illustration on the outside so it looks blank—I believe it might be printed double-sided in the finished game.)

How to Play Chicken Fried Dice

You can download a draft of the rulebook here.

The Goal

The goal of the game is to score the most points by serving customers, upgrading your food truck, and earning tips!

Setup

Assemble the coop and place it where everyone can reach it. Make a pool of dice: one of each color per player, plus the three head chef dice. Shuffle the customer decks and place them nearby.

Give each player a food truck and bonus board, a dry-erase marker, and the 4 food station tiles matching their truck color. Also deal three starting customers to each player, which are placed face-up. Everyone should name their food truck.

The player who cooked for a group most recently becomes first player and takes the head chef dice.

Gameplay

The game takes 5 rounds. Each round has three phases: Prep, Chuck and Pluck, and Cleanup.

Prep: The head chef rolls the three head chef dice and decides the order they will go into the prep station in the upper left corner of their food truck. Everyone else writes them in the same order. (Everyone will get at least one turn as head chef, and depending on player count there may be rounds where everyone can choose for themselves.)

Chuck and Pluck: This phase is the meat (or the tofu?) of the game. First, everyone takes 5 ingredient dice and chucks them into the coop simultaneously. Then, everyone simultaneously gets to pluck dice from the coop to use to create dishes for their customers. There is no turn order—everyone just plays at their own pace.

A few rules:

• You may only take one die at a time, and you must use it before you take another die.
• You may only take 4 dice total per round (unless you use a special effect that gives you additional dice).
• No roughhousing!
• Don’t change the die’s value after plucking!
• Once you’ve set the die down in front of you, you can’t put it back.

When you pluck a die, set it near your food cart, and then you may use its value and color on one of your recipe cards. Each recipe card has a number of colored spaces to fill out—these are the ingredients needed to create that dish. The values of the dice must stay the same or increase as you go up the card, though you can fill out the spaces in any order. (For instance, for the wolf customer seen above, I could write the white 2 in the center space, then write the green 6 at the top and then complete it with the yellow 2 at the bottom.)

When you complete a card, you immediately get the bonus effect at the bottom of the card—either a free cross-off or a flavor bonus. The free cross-off can be used to write an “x” in a matching ingredient space on a customer—it does not count as a number but is considered to be in the correct sequence.

Another possible bonus effect is a flavor bonus—these are marked on your bonus board below your food truck. On the menu side of the bonus board, there are four flavor profiles—savory, sweet, sour, and spicy—and each one has its own track. You circle the bonuses from top to bottom, and then you can cross them out at any time to use them. These effects can let you fill in an ingredient space, grab another die from the coop, or earn extra tips. You’ll also score bonus points at the end of the game based on hitting spaces on the tracks.

On the picnic side of the bonus board, you fill in the flavor icons in the seats at various picnic tables, following the rules on each one for matching or non-matching icons. You’ll get bonus actions for filling in spaces, and bonus points at the end of the game for filling tables.

Your food truck has some food stations that can be used to manipulate dice as well. The prep station (where you wrote the three head chef values) has three dice that can be used during this round as the ingredients shown; at the starting level, you cannot modify these prep dice in any way. Just cross them out when you’ve used them on a customer card.

The chop station lets you take a die and cut it into two smaller values—it retains the same color, but now you have two separate values to use. The sauce station lets you change the color of a die, and the toss station lets you re-roll a die.

Once everyone is done grabbing dice (don’t forget to use your prep station numbers!), then the Cluck and Pluck phase is over.

Cleanup: First, erase all the marks on your food stations and reset them for the next round.

For each customer that you completed this round, count the number of highlighted review star segments on the cards, and mark them in the star segments on your bonus board. Each completed star will earn bonus points, and every other completed star will give you more customers. Then move completed customers to a scoring pile.

For each customer that was not completed, color in one highlighted star segment on the customer card—these will no longer earn you star segments when you serve them. If a customer did not have any left to color in, then that customer leaves in a huff. (Fortunately they don’t leave negative reviews!)

Finally, check your cards for tips: some ingredient spaces on the customer cards have a little tip icon and a number. If you filled in the space with the matching value, then you earn one tip. Mark off the tips on your tip chart—blue ribbons are for scoring, and the rectangle icons are for upgrading your food stations.

Each food station can be upgraded twice—you add the tile to your board for the first upgrade, and then flip it over to the “fire” side for the second upgrade. Upgrades are also worth points, shown on the blue ribbons on the tile. Upgrading the prep station will add the ability to chop, sauce, and toss your prep dice; the second upgrade makes two of the dice wild colors. Upgrading the chop, sauce, and toss stations lets you do those actions more times per round.

Attract new customers: draw 3 new customers from the deck, plus one for each bonus star that you’ve completed that shows a customer card icon. You may discard any number and draw back up once per round, and you must keep at least 3 new customers. (But, just like a real food cart, you reserve the right to refuse service to anyone and eventually they’ll just go away.)

Pass the head chef clockwise to the next player.

Game End

The game ends after the end of five rounds.

You score points for:

• The highest blue ribbon you reached on the tip track
• Blue ribbons on your food station upgrades
• Points earned on your bonus board
• Points for the highest completed review star

Highest score wins, with ties going to the player who served the most customers.

Solo Variant

There is a solo variant where you choose one other food truck to be your competitor, which means there are five different automated chefs to play against. You get to be head chef every round, but the order that you use for the prep dice will affect what dice your rival tries to take from the coop, how many bonus points they earn for the round, and what unique rule is triggered for that round.

Why You Should Play Chicken Fried Dice

“Are you expecting me to believe a chicken fried these dice?”

Yes, absolutely. Just look closely at that cover illustration!

Aside from having a punny title, Chicken Fried Dice is a great blend of sweet and spicy. It’s adorable and cute, and it has a bite. It requires a nice balance between playing fast and careful planning, as you try to serve all your customers from a rapidly dwindling supply of ingredients. There are lots of ways that roll-and-write games use dice: in some instances, everyone can use the values rolled and they aren’t consumed; in others, players take turns drafting dice so they are consumed but in an orderly fashion. Chicken Fried Dice throws in some real-time shenanigans, which means you need to think ahead about what color-and-value combinations you’re looking for and prioritize plucking those dice first!

(As with any real-time game, one of the potential difficulties is making sure that everyone is actually playing correctly, so it’s a good idea to check in with all the players after each round to make sure everyone is only taking 4 dice per round, that they’re filling out their customer cards correctly, and so on.)

If you love combos, there’s plenty of that to be found. Serve this customer, which lets you check off an ingredient on this customer, which completes them, giving me a flavor bonus that gets me another die that I can use on this third customer. You have terrible luck with dice? In this game you can chop, sauce, and toss them to manipulate values and colors. (My favorite by far is chopping—making my ingredients go a long way!)

You’ll have to make choices about how to spend your dice. Do you try to match all the right numbers for tips (so you can upgrade stations more quickly) or do you make it easier to fill in the customer cards? Depending on which values you write on the cards, you can make the remaining spaces a lot more restrictive. Serving customers quickly can be worth a lot of points—and good reviews will bring in even more customers—but making sure each dish is perfect earns you tips, and those upgraded stations make it easier to get all your customers served.

I’ve really enjoyed playing the prototype of Chicken Fried Dice and I’m excited that it’s finally launching. I saw designer Ashwin Kamath running demos of this last year at some local cons, so I know it’s spent a long time in the prep stage—but now it’s time to get cooking!

For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Chicken Fried Dice Kickstarter page!

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Disclosure: GeekDad was loaned a prototype of this game for review purposes.

Deep underground, monsters are roaming in an abandoned mineshaft. Unfortunately, it is lonely and quite boring down there. What better thing is there to do but build a ghost train to given their existence meaning once again. It is up to you to lay down track to include as many monsters as possible along your routes in Ghosts Galore. 

What Is Ghosts Galore?

Ghosts Galore is a tile laying game with drafting for 2-5 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 20 minutes to play. Players claim tiles and then place them to create their own paths of track to connect monsters in combinations to ear the most points.  It’s currently available from your local game store or from online retailers such as Amazon for around $29.99 for a copy of the game.

Ghosts Galore was designed by Michael Luu and published by asmodee and Lookout Games, with illustrations by Nele Diel.

Ghosts Galore Components

Here is what you get in the box:

• 5 two-sided player boards
• 5 overview cards
• 78 track tiles
• 1 lamp token (start marker)
• 5 minecarts
• 1 scoring pad

Each player will take one of the player boards and pick a side. The board consists of nine spaces in a 3×3 grid with 12 tunnels along the edge. Each side of the board has the three types of tunnels in different locations. The spaces are used to place the tiles.

The overview cards have two sides. On one side the number of each type of monster is listed as well as the numbers of each type of track tiles. The opposite side explains how each of the nine types of monsters as well as scoring for gems and connecting tunnels. Each monster scores in a different way and requires different strategies to get better scores. 

There are 78 track tiles divided into four different types. These include 31 straight sections of track, 31 curved sections of track, 8 sections with two curves each, and 8 sections where the perpendicular tracks cross over one another. Players place the tiles they draft onto any open space of their player board and can rotate them in any direction. Along with the track, each tile has one or more monsters and/or gems. These monsters are used for scoring at the end of the game. 

The lamp token indicates the first player at the start of each round. Each player has their own minecart which they use to claim their tile during the open draft at the start of each round. 

The scoring pad is used to calculate the scores for each type of monster in each player’s gameboard and to determine the winner. There are spaces for each monster, gem, and tunnel. 

How to Play Ghosts Galore

The Goal

The goal of the game is to create the highest scoring ghost train in your abandoned mineshaft.

Setup

Start off by having each player take a random player board and place it with either side face up in front of them. Then each player takes an overview card and a minecart and places these next to their player board. Turn over all of the track tiles so the back side is up and shuffle them around. Each player selects one tile randomly and places it face down next to their player board. While they can look at it at any time, it stays hidden from the other players. 

Now create eight stacks of tiles, each with a number of tiles equal to the number of players plus four. For example, in a two-player game, each stack would have six tiles while a five-player game would have 9 tile stacks. Return any leftover tiles to the gamebox. Finally, determine a starting player and give them the lamp token. You are now ready to play Ghosts Galore. 

Gameplay

Ghosts Galore is played over eight rounds. During each round players will claim a trick tile from the current stack and then place it on their player board. After eight rounds, players must then place their hidden tile on their final open space to complete their board in preparation for scoring. Let’s take a look at each of the two parts of a round. 

Claiming Track

Track is claimed through a drafting mechanism. Beginning with the first player, select a stack and then turn over the top tile. The active player can choose to claim that tile by placing their minecart on it. Or they can pass. The next player can then either claim a face-up tile that has not been claimed or they can turn over the next tile from the stack. Once they reveal a new tile, they can either claim that tile or pass. They cannot go back and select any of the other face up tiles. Continue going around the table until all but one player has claimed a tile. Then reveal the remaining tiles and the last player must claim one of the non-claimed tiles. 

Placing Track

After all players have claimed a tile, players take their tile and must place it on their player board. When placing a tile, they may rotate it freely. It does not have to be placed touching an existing tile. Dead ends are allowed–you don’t need to have continuous track, but you should avoid this for scoring. Finally, you may not move or cover a tile that has already been placed on a previous turn. Once you have placed a tile, it cannot be moved after that round. Now return the four remaining tiles to the game box and pass the lamp to the next player to the left and continue the next round. 

Game End

At the end of the eight round, when all players have placed their eighth tile, the players then take their hidden tile, reveal it, and place it in the final open space on their gameboard to complete their railway. Now calculate each players score using the rulebook and the scoring pad. Each monster scores differently. Players also get points for diamonds and connecting tunnels. Let’s take a look at the 13 scoring categories. 

• Dragons: Count the number of dragons a player has and then square that number. For example, 1 dragon is worth 1 pooint, 2 draons 4 points, and 8 dragons 64 points. If a player does not have any dragons, then get -5 points. 
• Ghosts: On paths with at least 3 ghosts along them, those ghosts score 6 points each. All other ghosts are 3 points. 
• Golems: Count up the golems that are not orthogonally adjacent to another golem. Then consult the table in the rule book for the points that depend on the number of such golems. 
• Satyrs: Each satyr scores a number of points equal to the number of different types of monsters along its path, including the satyr. 
• Skeletons: Each skeleton is worth the number of diamond symbols (disregard their printed value) on your board. 
• Slimes: Slimes are each worth the number of curves you have on your tiles. Double curve tiles count as two curves. 
• Bats: Bats score 5 points each only if they are orthogonally adjacent to another bat. Isolated bats are worth no points. 
• Werewolves: Each werewolf is worth 4 points. If you have the most werewolves on your board, you score an additional 10 points. 
• Wisps: Count the number of wisps you have on your board. If you have 0-3 wisps, they are worth 3 points each. For 4-6 wisps, the are each worth 4 points and 7 or more wisps are 5 points each. 
• Diamonds: Add up the printed values of all diamonds on your tiles. 
• Bone Doors: If there is an uninterrupted path from one bone door to another bone door, score 2 points for each tiles along that path. 
• Tooth Doors: If there is an uninterrupted path from one tooth door to another tooth door, score 2 points for each tiles along that path.
• Other Paths: All other paths from one door to another score 1 point per tile along that path. 

The winner is the player with the highest score. In case of a tie, the player with the fewest dead ends is the winner and if still a tie, players enjoy a shared victory. Here is an example of scoring a board.

This player has 1 dragon for 1 point, only 1 ghost for 3 points, 5 golems that are not adjacent for 40 points, 1 satyr with four different monsters on its path for 4 points, 1 skeleton for 4 points, 2 slimes with 5 curves for 10 points, no bats for 0 points, 2 werewolves for 8 points, 4 wisps for 16 points, 5 points for diamonds, 6 points for 3 tiles connecting bone doors, 8 points for connecting teeth doors, and 4 points for connecting other doors. This comes to a total of 109 points. 

Why You Should Play Ghosts Galore

I have been looking for some quick, fun games to play with my tabletop game club at the high school where I teach. When I learned of Ghosts Galore, I thought it might be a good tile placement game to introduce them to that type of game. Since we have about 30 minutes during our intervention/enrichment period, I was pleasantly surprised that I could teach and have the students play the game in that amount of time. Once they learned the game, they could play and score it in about 20 minutes. The first time I tried it, we had four players who enjoyed the game. I forgot the game at home the next time we met and they were disappointed because the wanted to play it again. So I made sure to bring it for the following time and we had 5 players, two who were new. They all really enjoyed it and said they want to play it again. 

While some high school students liked the game, I also am impressed with Ghosts Galore. First, it is very quick to setup, especially with all the players helping create the stacks of tiles. It is also very easy to teach. I really like the open drafting when players claim their tiles. You have to decide whether you want a tile already visible, to reveal a tile, and then to decide if you want the revealed tile or wait for something better which might come later. If you are the last player, all of the rest of the tiles are revealed. However, they may not be as good as what was already claimed by other players. This gives the game a bit of a push your luck to see if you can get something better later. 

I also enjoy the strategy in the game. As you begin to collect tiles and place them, it is important to keep in mind the scoring so you can claim tiles and place them so as to maximize your score. It seems players all want to get at least one dragon so they don’t lose points. I have also seen players focus on golems or werewolves as a strategy or skeletons combined with diamonds. Since players don’t immediately take their tiles after claiming them, but instead wait until all players have claimed a tile, you can see what your opponents are going after as well. Players also have to be flexible. You may start on one strategy and have to change if you can’t get the monsters you need. 

Ghosts Galore looks great. The art is cute and colorful with each monster having different colors. I am impressed that the scoring sheets are also in full color rather than just black and white. The tiles are of a decent thickness so they are study but not so thick that stacks get too high. I did notice that the overview cards had a couple errors. For example, the side with the numbers of different tiles shows single curves twice and no straight sections. On the other side, the scoring for dragons is different from the rule book. As long as you refer to the rule book for scoring, these errors are not much of a problem and will probably be fixed in future printings of the game. 

I am impressed with Ghosts Galore. l like the simplicity of the game as well as the strategy of determining how to create a high scoring system of tracks when you have to do it one tile at a time. The hidden tile may help provide an initial strategy, but you may have to change it depending on the tiles you are able to claim. I appreciate how quickly the game can play as well. The box is small and can easily be taken on trips or out camping since you don’t need a large area to play, especially if only playing with 2-3 players. Since it is easy to teach, you can get new players right into the game and they can learn as they play. The game has cute and colorful artwork that makes it attractive to new and experienced gamers. Finally, I have always had fun whenever I have played it and so have the other players. If any of these reasons appeal to you, I recommend adding Ghosts Galore to your game collection. It will hit the table frequently either on its own or as a warm up for an extended game night. 

For more information, visit the Ghosts Galore page!

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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.

MAR10 Day has come again, and along with Nintendo’s celebratory sales (like Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury and Super Mario Odyssey for $39.99, and Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV reduced to $59.99), sweepstakes, and other fun promotions, this year’s event includes three new additions to the Nintendo Classics library available to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. The first, GBA standout Mario vs. Donkey Kong, you’re likely already familiar with, but the other two selections represent a dubious corner of Nintendo history that the company has only recently sought to explore: Mario Clash and Mario’s Tennis for the oft-maligned Virtual Boy.

The Story So Far

The Virtual Boy, an innovative 32-bit tabletop headset that employed the parallax effect for stereoscopic 3D gameplay, launched in 1995. The project was largely helmed by visionary designer Gunpei Yokoi, the inventor of the original Game & Watch and the iconic Nintendo Game Boy. Still, it was released to an overwhelmingly disappointing reception and remains Nintendo’s lowest-selling standalone system to date.

Common knowledge holds that Yokoi, dogged by this failure, shamefully retired from Nintendo shortly before his untimely passing in 1997, but, as is so often the case, this is a misconception. Specifically, it fails to take into consideration his lengthy 31-year tenure at Nintendo, his work on 1996’s highly successful Game Boy Pocket iteration, and his collaboration on the Bandai WonderSwan, which was posthumously released in 1999.

Still, the Virtual Boy remains a true Nintendo anomaly, that weird cousin who’s seldom included in the family photo. In retrospect, though, the Virtual Boy was merely too ambitious a product for its own good and an idea decades ahead of its time.

Now, with the help of a specialty accessory, old fans and curious newcomers alike can experience its odd but endearing gameplay on the Nintendo Switch family of systems. 

A Brand New Boy

The Virtual Boy for Nintendo Switch 2/Nintendo Switch is an altogether different beast from its predecessor. To begin your journey to the angry red planet, simply download the Virtual Boy – Nintendo Classics from the Nintendo eShop. Opening the app, you’ll notice a warning… well, two warnings.

This is because Virtual Boy – Nintendo Classics displays two parallel images on your console to recreate the stereoscopic 3D effect. Given the double display and the limited resolution of each image, it’s not exactly playable in this state. Instead, you need either the $99.99 Virtual Boy for Nintendo Switch 2/Nintendo Switch accessory or its $24.99 Labo-style cardboard little brother—both available from the Nintendo Store.

While the Virtual Boy for Nintendo Switch 2/Nintendo Switch arrives disassembled, it’s a quick and easy build. Just attach the main headset unit to the stand via the integrated clasp, and you’re good to go. (If you’re planning to play on an original or OLED Nintendo Switch, make sure you replace the Switch 2 bracket with the one marked “Nintendo Switch” before attaching the accessory to the stand.)

As the owner of an OG Virtual Boy, I believe this device does a great job of evoking the original in its overall look and feel. Gone, of course, is the old corded controller—we’ll be using Joy-Cons now—and even though the old focus knob and slider located on top don’t move, they still add a nice little nostalgic touch. The foam blinders/headrest piece seems nicely solid, and the two-legged stand is a dead-ringer for that of the actual Virtual Boy.

To insert your Switch 2 system, remove the Joy-Con 2 controllers and gently open the headset at the seam, which is cleverly hidden. The rubberized Nintendo logos on either temple are your guide, so place your thumb on one and lift. Slide in your Switch 2, close the lid, and grab your Joy-Con 2s as we proceed into the high-tech virtual gameplay of yesteryear.

An Admirable Offering

Aside from that initial doublevision and an additional “exiting VR mode” prompt, the Virtual Boy – Nintendo Classics interface looks and behaves like the numerous other classic libraries. Make your pick from the initial offering of seven titles, and you’re immediately transported into a red-and-black gameworld of your choosing.

The Virtual Boy catalog is notoriously scant, so the included titles represent some of the best the system has to offer. First and foremost, Virtual Boy Wario Land is a solid sidescroller with some added depth (pun intended) and arguably the tip-top of the heap.

Golf and Galactic Pinball are personal favorites, primarily because of my affinity for these kinds of titles… despite my lack of any real connection to their real-world inspirations. Both are simple, straightforward affairs that greatly benefit from the inclusion of the Suspend Point system (accessed, as ever, by pressing ZL+ZR)

3D Tetris changes the perspective on the world’s favorite puzzle game, asking you to look at things from the top down as you complete those lines. Lots of different block types help to flesh things out, though, if you, like me, struggle with spatial relations, this one can be taxing.

Red Alarm and Teleroboxer both rate near the bottom for me. The former is a wireframe rail shooter that, while crude, employs the 3D depth to great effect, while the latter is a classic Punch-Out riff with genuinely competent visuals, but it’s also the one game that seemed to fatigue my eyes the fastest. Neither is bad, mind you, just not my cup of tea.

The seventh included title is Insmouse no Yakata (The Mansion of Innsmouth), a Japanese-only release inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Despite not being localized, navigating its monster-filled mazes while a tight time clock counts down does a fine enough job of surpassing any language or cultural barriers. This is actually the game I’ve gone back to the most due to my love of all things horror, and owing to it being the only inclusion I’ve never been able to play before.

Gameplay on the Virtual Boy was famously uncomfortable during long sessions, with the intense red imagery alone also proving grating for some users. Personally, while I never had any issues with my original system, this Switch 2 upgrade does seem more comfy overall, with upcoming features, like the ability to change the display color, further helping to make the experience more enjoyable for a wider array of gamers.

More Fun to Come

While newcomers Mario Clash and Mario’s Tennis are, sadly, not exactly Wario Land-caliber releases, both represent a kind of arcade-y fun currently missing from the Virtual Boy lineup. I also really appreciate Nintendo using MAR10 Day as an excuse to share these forgotten titles with a whole new generation who have likely never even heard of them.

These also don’t represent the only additions Nintendo has planned for the Virtual Boy – Nintendo Classics, though, truth be told, even nine Virtual Boy games being made available on a modern system is far more than I’d ever have guessed!

From shell-slinging in Mario Clash to monster-fighting in Insmouse no Yakata, I am, admittedly, a sucker for all this red-tinged retro madness. Whether or not you and yours will enjoy the fun enough to warrant the $100 (or even $25) investment depends a lot on your individual interests, but like a lot of old-school fans and long-time collectors, I’m just glad to see the Virtual Boy return from beyond the veil.

In fact, I think I might go get in a couple more 3D tennis matches before work.

So, happy MAR10 Day to all those who celebrate, and may the red beam of the Virtual Boy light your way to a better tomorrow.

Review materials provided by Nintendo of America. This post contains affiliate links. And a joyous MAR10 Day to you and yours!

As members of the Din’Lux council, you must work together to address the city’s needs—but sometimes personal ambitions pull you in other directions.

In “Reaping the Rewards,” I take a look at the finished product from a crowdfunding campaign. Kinfire Council was originally funded through Kickstarter in April 2024 and was delivered to backers in the fall of 2025. This review is based on my Kickstarter Tabletop Alert, updated to reflect the finished game.

What Is Kinfire Council?

Kinfire Council is a worker placement game for 2 to 6 players, ages 14 and up, and takes about 90 to 120 minutes to play. It retails for $74.99 and is available in stores and directly from Incredible Dream Studios. (The Winds of Change expansion is also available for $34.99, and there’s a $49.99 upgrade kit that includes wooden tokens, neoprene mats, and an illustrated lore book.) I think it’s possible to play this with younger kids if they’ve played worker placement games before, as long as they have the patience for a longer game. (My 11-year-old played it with us but had to quit early because it was her bedtime.)

Kinfire Council was designed by Kevin Wilson and published by Incredible Dream Studios, with art direction by Katarzyna Bekus.

Kinfire Council Components

Here’s what comes in the box:

• Status board
• 3 Dual-layer city boards
• 18 Cultist chits
• 2 Cult Leader chits
• Cult of Altan bag
• Threat board
• 5 Lighthouse Site sheets
• 6 Worker sheets
• 6 Councilor sheets
• 35 Threat cards
• 35 Research cards
• 40 Decree cards
• Lighthouse Tracker board
• Lighthouse Progress token
• Speaker’s Medallion (start player marker)
• 14 Threat tiles
• Hidden Threat tile
• 12 Sentry tokens
• Cult Score marker
• Cult 50/100 Score marker
• 6 Seeker standees (1 per player)
• 54 Influence tokens (9 per player)
• 30 Worker chits (5 per player)
• 6 50/100 Score markers (1 per player)
• City Coffers bowl
• 25 Food tokens
• 25 Common tokens (stone)
• 25 Rare tokens (crystal)
• 25 Magic tokens
• 50 Coin tokens
• 20 Trouble tokens

The illustrations in the game are in the same style as those in the other Kinfire games, and I really like this diverse take on fantasy characters—there are humans, elves, dwarves, and revenants. The worker tokens have individual character portraits on them, and many of the characters appeared in Kinfire Chronicles so if you’ve played that you may recognize some of them.

The Councilor sheets remind me of bookmarks—they’re the same height as the worker sheets, and depict the six Councilors of Din’Lux. The front of the sheet has the game-pertinent info with the Councilor’s ability, and the back has a portrait, a biography, and a little of that character’s play style.

The six player colors each have their own icon as well—you can distinguish the influence tokens (which have a lantern on the front side) by flipping them to the back side if needed. The workers themselves are identified by their portraits and standees, pictured on the worker mats; that may not be quite as easy to distinguish from a distance but I like that every player’s components are visually distinct.

The Seekers are workers with some special abilities, and also happen to be the six characters featured in Kinfire Chronicles and the Kinfire Delve series. In those games, they’re the protagonists, but here they are just one of your Councilor’s workers. The standees are the same type as in Kinfire Chronicles, but with a different portrait, so if you own both games, you can also mix and match them. I also like the fact that the standees have a front and back portrait … except Feyn for some reason. I don’t know if this is a misprint—I actually only noticed this when I stood them all together to take these photos!

The city of Din’Lux is built on a hill, and the game uses the storage trays to literally raise up the city boards so that there are three levels. It makes for a nice visual, but it’s also important because the higher levels have taxes when you send workers there, so it makes it easy to see at a glance what level any given location is on. The city boards are also dual-layered boards: the numbered spaces are sunken so that the worker and cultist chits can slot in nicely, and each location is also a double-sided tile that fits into its space. The tiles are left in the board when you store it, too.

The only problem with this setup is that it means you can’t use the handy storage tray as a resource tray while you play the game—you’ll have to pile up all the tokens somewhere on the table (or else, I suppose, keep picking up Tier 2 of the city and try not to knock over any Seekers that might be standing there). This particular tray is also a little weird—the six wells for the resource tokens work fine, but there are four larger wells that are just sized a little oddly for the rest of the components, meaning that you have to make some odd combinations of different components to make everything fit.

There are so many locations and abilities and actions you can perform, so the game uses a lot of iconography throughout. The one thing I don’t quite understand is why there are two versions of each icon, one in color and one in black and white. This has sometimes led to some confusion for new players, especially when they see one version of the icon in one place but don’t recognize the other version in another location.

How to Play Kinfire Council

You can download the rulebook here.

The Goal

The goal of the game is to score the most victory points by the end of 5 rounds. However, if the Cult of Altan has the highest score at the end, the Cult Conspirator, the player who has the most influence with the cult, will win instead.

Setup

Set up the status board and city boards, with all the location tiles turned to the basic side. Shuffle the research cards and the decree cards and place them in the indicated spaces on the status board, as well as the skill tiles. In the City Needs section, place 1 food in each of the top three spaces of the track. Place the various resource tokens nearby.

Set up the threats: shuffle the threat deck and place it and the threat tokens near the threat board. Draw the top 3 cards of the threat deck and set them face-down as a Hidden Threats stack without looking at them. Place the cultist tokens in the bag.

Shuffle the 5 lighthouse sites and place them in a stack next to the lighthouse track, and turn the top site face-up.

Randomly pair the worker sheets with the councilors. Choose a starting player and give them the medallion, and in turn order each player selects one of the sets. Give each player the matching Seeker and worker tokens—the number of workers each player has is based on player count. Everyone starts with 3 coins and 4 influence tokens on their sheet—the remaining influence tokens are set aside in a supply.

The cult starts with 0 points, the first player starts with 1 point, the second player starts with 2 points, and so on.

Gameplay

The game takes place over five rounds and each round has three phases: Sun’s Rise, Day’s Light, and Night’s Fall. Sun’s Rise is when you draw decrees to vote on, and the cultists show up. Day’s Light is the bulk of the game, when players take turns placing their workers. Night’s Fall is when you check the status of the lighthouse and the city’s needs.

Sun’s Rise: Draw 2 decree cards and place them face-up near the board. Players will be able to vote on these throughout the day—the decree with the most votes will pass.

Then, draw 3 cultists from the bag and add them to the hideout, and then resolve all the cultists in the hideout (including any that may have been placed there during the previous round) in numerical order. Cult leaders are unnumbered red tokens and are resolved last. Each cultist will go to its numbered spot and block that location, and will also affect the threat board.

On the threat board, there are three spaces marked 1–6, 7–12, and 13–18. If the spot corresponding to the cultist has no threat card, draw a threat card and place it there. If it already has a spot, add a trouble token to the card. If there are enough threat tokens to meet the number in the top corner, then the threat is triggered: follow the effects and then discard the threat card.

To resolve a cult leader, first add a threat card or trouble token to all three slots on the threat board. Then, put the cult leader token in the spot at the bottom of the board. If both leaders have been drawn, then the cultist bag resets: return all cultist tokens from the discard area on the board as well as any cultists that players have arrested back to the bag, along with the cult leader tokens.

Day’s Light: Players take turns placing their workers and Seeker on the various spaces to take actions. Your Seeker is a special worker that can go outside of the city (to the threat board and the lighthouse site), but can also be placed inside the city like the other workers. In general, you may not go to a location that is occupied, whether by another worker, Seeker, or a cultist.

Choose a worker from your board and place it into an empty space; if you go to one of the higher tiers in the city, you’ll need to pay taxes to the coffers, in the little bowl. Then, you may either use the effect of that location, or arrest an adjacent cultist (taking the token and placing it into your personal supply). Some locations have multiple effects—if so, you only get one of them.

Locations may give you resources, let you make various trades, or draw research cards, which are one-time-use cards. Some locations let you vote: you may place an influence token from your board onto one of the available decrees.

There are also locations that will train the worker you sent there—there are 6 different skills that will let you avoid paying taxes, place workers even in occupied spaces, and so on. Some spaces will give you cult influence—you place your influence tokens in the cult space on the board, and the player with the most influence there is the Conspirator.

At the bottom of the board there are a few locations that have a rectangular space next to them—these are not numbered and any number of workers can go there. One of them, City Planning, lets you upgrade locations, flipping them to the more powerful side and giving you points. Place one of your influence tokens on the upgraded location—you are now the patron of that location, and when other players use the location, you gain the patron bonus. (For instance, in the photo above, the orange player will gain a research card any time another player uses this location.)

Outside of the city, you can thwart threats by sending your Seeker to a location on the threat board and paying the required resources shown at the bottom. You immediately score the points shown on the card, and take the card itself—some places will let you trade threat cards for other benefits.

After placing a worker, you may optionally run an errand, like paying for one of the city needs or sending a supply shipment to the lighthouse. To meet a city need, you place an influence token next to one of the needs, and then pay the required resources to the supply. You’ll score points for meeting city needs at the end of the day.

To help build the lighthouse, choose one of the options shown on the site, which lets you build 1, 2, or 3 tiers at different costs. Spend the resources shown, place an influence token next to the tier that you paid, and then move the lighthouse tracker up that many spaces. The more of the lighthouse is built, the more points each floor built is worth, and the fewer points the cult will receive.

Night’s Fall: Resolve the city needs. For each row on the track, if there is an influence token next to the need, then it has been met and that player gains 2 points. For each city need that has not been met, draw a cultist from the bag and place it into the hideout area—it will be resolved during the next day. Then, return influence tokens to players.

Resolve the docket: the decree with more votes passes. If there is a tie, the first player (with the medallion) chooses which decree passes. There are a few different types of decrees that do different things when passed. Laws stay in play for the rest of the game and are placed nearby. Orders take effect and are discarded. Elections are awarded to the sponsor—the player with the most votes on the card—and give that player a special bonus. Crisis cards will trigger if they are not passed, usually with some sort of bad consequence. Influence tokens used as votes are returned to players.

Then, every cultist still in the city will trigger again, adding threat cards or trouble tokens to the threat board.

If there are any damage tokens on the lighthouse, move the tracker down one space for each damage. If the tracker is ever moved below the bottom of the track, add one threat card to the hidden threats stack.

Score for the lighthouse: the number left of the current level of the lighthouse is the point value for each floor that you’ve built this round. The cultists score the number to the right of the current level. Then, return all of those influence tokens, draw the next site card, and reset the lighthouse tracker to the bottom.

Everyone retrieves all of their workers and Seeker, and the medallion is passed to the next player.

Lastly, the city coffers are emptied (due to government waste) and returned to the supply.

Game End

The game ends after the fifth day. Cards that grant points at the end of the game are resolved now.

Then, reveal the hidden threat cards—the cult gains all of the points shown on those cards.

The player with the most points wins. If the cult has the most points, then the player with the most cult influence wins (but if nobody has cult influence, then the cult wins and all players lose).

Ties are broken in this order:

• The cult wins ties.
• Most patron influence from upgraded locations.
• Most unspent resources.

Kinfire Council is GeekDad Approved!

Why You Should Play Kinfire Council

Imagine this scenario: a strange phenomenon sweeps across the globe, wiping out countless people, devastating cities, and leaving a completely changed world. People struggle to survive; a solution is devised that seems to hold back the darkness and provide at least a little safety, though it isn’t foolproof. The government promises to provide this safety measure for more communities—though it’s a slow process, hampered by high costs, a shortage of workers, and bureaucracy. Oh, and there’s also a cult who decides that all of this protection goes against divine will, that the true path is to embrace the darkness.

Such is the setting of the completely fictional world of Atios —totally unlike our own, right? Okay, I don’t know that the Starless Nights were intended to be a metaphor for COVID, but this game feels like it could embody any number of metaphors. Unlike Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall, where you play as the intrepid heroes venturing out into the darkness and fighting mutated beasts and the aforementioned cultists, in Kinfire Council you play as the bureaucrats. It’s less about battlefield tactics and more about taxes and errands and addressing the various demands of the city. As the Councilors of Din’Lux, you are all (mostly) agreed that the lighthouses need to be built and the cultists should be stopped, but you also have your own agendas. You want the credit for ushering in this new era for Din’Lux, and if that leads to a little infighting on the council, well …

Back in November 2024, I wrote about the campaign game Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall: it alternates between phases where you explore the city of Din’Lux (and some other towns) and skirmishes where you play tactical battles against various enemies. I played through the entire campaign with two other friends, and we all had a really great experience—we liked the way that your character’s backstory is gradually revealed, and the way that the fights and encounters are woven into the larger narrative. There’s an interesting mechanism the game uses to “remember” decisions that your group has made over the course of the game because sometimes they have consequences down the road. And then we played through the whole campaign again with the same friends plus a new member of the party, so we could try out the other characters and take different paths from the first time we played.

Since then, Incredible Dream Studios has released a few more titles set in the same world of Atios: Kinfire Delve, a compact cooperative dungeon crawl that is mostly just a deck of cards and some dice. Each box pits two of the six Seekers from Kinfire Chronicles against increasingly challenging bosses, and if you have multiple copies you can mix and match them or combine them to play with more players.

Some parts of Kinfire Council will feel very familiar to anyone who has played a worker placement game: you have a limited number of workers and each one can only do one thing per round, and spaces are limited. You’ll often be trying to guess where other players are planning to go, because maybe you want to get there first. And, of course, most of the placements are in service of some combination of gathering needed resources or spending those resources to accomplish some task (and get points, of course).

But there are lots of little tweaks that set Kinfire Council apart, too. The Councilors themselves have special abilities: Hierophant Selen is not above dipping into the coffers; Guildmaster Leera can send any of her workers outside the city; Talos can spend research cards as a wild resource. You start with one special worker—your Seeker—who can go outside of the city to a few special locations. Moreover, each Seeker has a special ability—the guard can enter a space with a cultist and arrest them and use the location; the scholar can take research cards in place of another resource. So right from the start, there’s a bit of asymmetry, and you have to figure out how to make the most of the random pairings of Councilor and Seeker.

On top of that, you’ll be able to train your standard workers as well. Each of the six abilities that the Seekers have are traits that can be learned (at a price!) by going to certain locations. It can feel costly, sending a worker to a location just to train, because there are only 5 rounds. However, it can really pay off when you need to use a location that somebody else has taken, or you’re short some coin to pay your taxes, or you really want to get a jump on arresting some cultists.

The cultists themselves are also an interesting feature with multiple effects: they show up at random and take up spaces on the board—so annoying!—but they also contribute to the threat cards, which have various effects from damaging the lighthouse to increasing the city needs. They can even damage a city location, which becomes unusable until somebody takes an action to repair it. On the one hand, you want a few cultists around because you can arrest them and then turn them in for various rewards. On the other, if you don’t manage to clear them all out of the city before nightfall, then they get closer to triggering those threats.

Then there’s the decrees. There are generally just two to choose from, though there are effects that can add more. Thematically it’s a little funny that you’re not voting yes/no on each decree independently, but rather the decrees are competing with each other and only one can win each day. (Look, there’s only so much legislation we can deal with each day, okay?) Elections provide benefits to the person who stuck the most votes on it, but crises can have some seriously bad effects if you don’t pass them. Sometimes that can present a real dilemma between city needs and personal wants. I mean, sure, this decree means that the city will need a bit more money every day, but isn’t it worth it so that I get more research cards so that I can be of even more help to the city? What’s more, getting votes usually requires you to go to specific locations—which means you’re spending an action to vote rather than, say, fighting off that wyvern that’s threatening the city.

In some sense, it feels a bit like a cooperative game, where there is an overarching goal (build those lighthouses!) and lots of little fires to put out (arrest cultists! meet the city needs!). And you really don’t want the city to fall apart, so there is some amount of collaboration that happens—we often discussed whether somebody was planning to deal with a particular threat, because you don’t want people wasting their actions collecting the same things, and then having other city needs go unmet. But the individual scoring means that you don’t always do what’s best for the entire group, and it really did feel a bit like being on a city council with a bunch of other overly ambitious people. Maybe you have good intentions for the city, but today you really just wanted to do some more research and you didn’t get around to voting at all.

The Conspirator role is another interesting wrinkle. Certain locations let you gain cult influence, and whoever has the most influence with the cult is the Conspirator and will win if the cultists score the most. It’s a dangerous game, though: in most cases, you can retrieve your influence tokens from spaces on the board when needed, like giving up a patron bonus because you need the token to vote. Cult influence is never returned to you, though, and your total supply of tokens is limited, so gaining influence in the cult has an opportunity cost. If you get into a competition with other players to be Conspirator, then you better be pretty certain that the cult is going to win! So far in the games I’ve played the cult generally hasn’t been scoring as much, so we haven’t used the Conspirator mechanic as much—it would probably take some more deliberate (and obvious) sabotage. It does look like the Winds of Change expansion beefs up the cultists, though, so I’m looking forward to seeing how that affects the game.

I’m really enjoying the Atios universe as a whole. I like the concept of multiple different games set in the same world, with each one adding a bit more to the story. The games also have some fun overlap: the character cards from Delve can be used in Chronicles as an alternate portrait, and the Seeker standees in Council can also be swapped with those from Chronicles in case you want to change up their outfits. While playing Kinfire Council, we recognized a lot of the locations and characters that we’d encountered in Chronicles, and we even saw some threat cards based on things from the Delve series.

Ultimately this is a game that makes good use of its setting to tell a story—while playing it, I often felt those tensions between what I wanted for myself and what I knew was probably best for the city. There were times when nobody got around to building the day’s lighthouse—maybe the cultists were particularly active and we had to deal with some threats, or maybe we were too busy training our workers for the next day. It’s the sort of game that causes a good sort of discomfort because it helps you see the way that bureaucracy makes it easy to pass the buck and make an issue somebody else’s responsibility. It’s eye-opening, and yet it’s also a fun game to play, to puzzle out your next move.

Kinfire Council has an impressive table presence, a compelling story, and engaging gampelay. I’m happy to give it our GeekDad Approved seal! If you enjoy worker placement games, or you’ve always wanted to see what it was like to be a city councilor, this is a nice entry point into the world of Atios.

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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.

There are several really cool projects currently raising funds through Kickstarter and Gamefound, and this time there are a few that I have at least a little more personal experience with. Let’s take a look!

New to crowdfunding? Check out our crowdfunding primer.

Dr. Finn’s Book of Two-Player Strategy and Word Games from Dr. Finn’s Games

Steve Finn is a prolific designer of small-box games like Herbaceous and Mining Colony, and I’ve written up several of his titles, some self-published and some through various designers. This campaign is for a book of eight different pencil-and-paper games (with multiple setup versions of each)—all you need is a friend and something to write with! Be sure to pay attention to how the rewards work: you’ll get PDF versions, plus an alert to get the physical book at a discount if you want a hard copy.

Coyote & Crow: Legends & Icons from Coyote & Crow Games

Coyote & Crow is a roleplaying game set in an alternate timeline where the Americas were never colonized, made by a team of Native writers and artists. Legends & Icons is a new sourcebook filled with more characters, spirits, and creatures to incorporate into your games. I don’t play RPGs myself but I’m a fan of what designer Kenna Alexander is doing, both in terms of showcasing Indigenous voices in games and also for her support for Minnesota. The campaign has under a week left and is close to hitting the target for a donation through Stand with Minnesota.

Defenders of the Wild 2nd Edition from Outlandish Games

Defenders of the Wild is a cooperative game about animal factions trying to save their forest from technology that’s gotten out of hand. The machines are building factories and poisoning the land with pollution in their attempts to self-replicate. I’ve got a copy of the first edition (and regretfully hadn’t gotten it reviewed yet), but this new edition is billed as having 30% fewer rules than the original as well as having some tweaks to improve the gameplay.  Owners of the first edition can get an upgrade kit. There’s also a Critter Moon expansion that adds even more leaders for each faction, plus the new moon tokens that give you a powerful ability when you’ve built your camps.

Defenders of the Wild is a beautiful game, and it’s a challenging one! Players have to manage their action cards wisely because you only draw more cards when you’ve built a camp, but there are often a lot of fires to put out before you can concentrate on that. Each of the factions has multiple leaders to choose from, which will change the mix of cards in your deck and allow for different play styles. I’ve been really impressed with this one, and I’ve already backed for the upgrade kit and the expansion myself just to make sure I don’t miss this later.

Perch: Birds of Play from Inside Up Games

Birds of Play is an expansion for Perch, a bird-themed area control game that funded back in 2023. I did get a finished copy of this one but, alas, haven’t actually had the chance to play it yet! You’ll fly birds around to various locations and make little stacks of them, and each location has different rules for scoring. Birds of Play is a set of 3 mini-expansions that you can mix and match. Bird feeders will give an immediate 3 points, but since this affects turn order for future rounds, maybe you risk sending an opponent to the bird feeder in the hopes of going earlier next round. The sun and moon rotate around the playing area, changing the rewards for the tiles depending on whether it’s day or night. And the ponds will lure birds with the breadcrumbs tossed there, and also introduce two new creature allies to add to the mix.

Re;MATCH from Brother Ming Games

Re;MATCH is a two-player fighting game inspired by the classic arcade games and it has a fun gimmick: a marble machine that reminds me of Potion Explosion. To power your moves, you’ll have to pull matching marbles from the machine, but each player can only draw from the two columns near them. (The center column is shared.) Win fans to your side to boost your attacks of that color, and break your opponent’s control buttons to win. Brother Ming Games previously Kickstarted a card-based fighting game called Re;ACT, and my review copy just arrived this week. I’m looking forward to giving that a shot soon but I’m also really excited to try Re;MATCH in the future!

The Old King’s Crown from Eerie Idol Games

The Old King’s Crown is a game that got a lot of buzz last year when it was delivered (after a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2023). I had mentioned it in a roundup post and then backed it myself. The fact that it was designed and illustrated by one person just seems unfair when you see both how gorgeous the art is and how intense the gameplay is. At its heart it is a lane-battler: players will play cards to three different regions, with the highest card winning and gaining a reward. But there’s so much more going on: in addition to card effects that let you mess with the battle in unpredictable ways, there are kingdom cards that give you addition abilities, asymmetric factions, and a prediction phase where you announce which region you’re gunning for … but is it just a bluff?

This current campaign is for a reprint in case you missed it the first time around, along with the new Songs of Home expansion that adds two new factions, more kingdom cards, and the City Over the Sea, which adds a whole new location to interact with. On top of that, there was also a surprise announcement just before the campaign launched for Annulet, a standalone game (also designed and illustrated by the overachieving Pablo Clark) that’s set in the world of The Old King’s Crown. I kind of wish this were its own separate campaign because I can already tell I’d love to get both, but this is really starting to add up!

Illiterati: Red Herrings & White Roses from Gap Closer Games

This one’s launching next week, but you can bookmark it now. Illiterati is a cooperative word-making survival game: as a team, you’ll be challenged to form words from the available letter tiles that meet particular requirements … and there’s a time limit! Meanwhile, the Illiterati will show up to wreak havoc on your words. Red Herrings & White Roses is a new expansion that adds two new genres—mysteries and romance novels—with some new bosses to battle and new heroes (like Stone Cold Jane Austen). I’ve played the base game but hadn’t gotten to a review yet; this reminds me that I need to get it back to the table some more!

Ever since the halcyon days of the Nintendo 3DS, a purely theoretical Pokémon version of beloved life sim Animal Crossing has been one of my family’s go-to topics on long car rides and during vacation downtime. What if your next-door neighbor was an Eevee? What if you had to run errands for a down-on-his-luck Bulbasaur? What kind of house would you design for a Clefairy?

Fast-forward a decade plus, and our far-fetched mental exercise has become reality. Sort of. This week, Pokémon Pokopia releases exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2, and not only is it a weirder and more wonderful franchise spin-off than my kids and I could ever conceive, but it’s also an early contender for my game of the year.

Pokopia begins with a memory; a lone Ditto fondly recalls his trainer and, like Ditto do, morphs into their likeness.

Ok, so maybe it’s not an exact copy. Your Ditto/trainer player character still wears the Pokémon’s vacant expression, and his flailing arms and shuffling gait are practically comical. However, it’s close enough to temporarily fool the next Pokémon you meet, a studious character called Professor Tangrowth.

The good professor goes on to tell you that it has been an age since he’s laid eyes on another Pokémon or a human being, thus setting up the game’s enduring mystery. It falls to your brave Ditto to restore this broken land, to tend its parched earth and mend its many shattered byways. In doing so, you’ll attract your fellow Pokémon and, hopefully, their human counterparts will eventually return as well.

Luckily for you, Ditto’s impersonation is close enough to the real thing to fool the few lingering facets of human technology, including the computer at the razed Pokémon Center and your trusty Pokédex.

This particular device also includes a specialty feature called the Habitat Dex, meaning that, in addition to a Pokémon’s name and description, you have information regarding the kind of habitat needed to attract them back to this barren waste. Combining grass, trees, flowers, specialty items, and even furniture in specific ways can summon a variety of Pocket Monsters to aid you in your grand task.

Using these tools (and with a little friendly advice from Professor Tangrowth), you begin by restoring some simple Pokémon habitats. Each Pokémon acquired has specific likes and dislikes that you can leverage to make them happier in their new home, but each also has one or more Specialties that can help you further develop your fledgling community.

Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle, for example, have the Specialty moves Grow (to hasten plant growth), Burn (to start campfires), and Water (to hydrate dry earth), respectively. Bringing these allies along as Followers allows you to hasten expansion, and some Pokémon can teach Ditto moves of his own, like the plant-summoning Leafage and the hydrating Water Gun. In true Pokémon fashion, such moves require PP, which Ditto can easily replenish by eating food.

This further opens up the title’s expansive crafting system, as Ditto cuts, smashes, and tills his way through various terrain, collecting more materials along the way. These can be combined using learned Recipes to create all manner of items, allowing you to assemble a wider variety of Pokémon habitats and even begin repairing the various neglected homes and crumbling infrastructure.

Progression is handled largely through the tried-and-true mission system, which Pokopia refers to as Requests. These can be as straightforward as crafting or collecting a certain item for a needy Pokémon, but the more complex Important Requests tend to require large, multistep processes, like rebuilding that flattened Pokémon Center with the help of a specific cadre of Pocket Monster construction specialists.

Even in its ruined state, the Pokémon Center’s PC can be employed to complete challenges and purchase goods with the points awarded. It also helps you keep an eye on your Environmental Level, a sort of catch-all equation that takes into consideration the Comfort Levels of all Pokémon in the area. Feeding them berries when they’re hungry, giving them desired items to spruce up their habitats/moving them into new homes, or just letting them chill out and relax can keep your monster pals comfortable and bolster that important Environment Level.

All this progression, you’ll discover, helps make you a more effective “trainer,” which can be used to unlock additional environments. Though you start off in the Withered Wasteland, you’ll eventually access different biomes like the cavernous Rocky Ridges and the muck-covered Bleak Beach. Each offers new varieties of Pokémon, materials (and related Recipes), and Requests that can help you improve the Environmental Level both at home and abroad.

If a Recipe in an area demands some exotic item you’ve yet to encounter, it’s quite possibly only available (or initially available) elsewhere. But worry not, fellow traveler. By establishing a home—planting a Ditto flag atop a restored or newly constructed domicile—in each various environment, you can use the Pokédex’s Return Home feature to quick travel from one disparate locale to another.

This enhances one of the game’s most fun and challenging elements: space and resource management. Since Ditto can only carry a finite number of items in his trusty backpack (which is, in actuality, just an outward representation of his big ol’ mouth), you’ll often need to unburden yourself in the storage boxes you construct next to each of your crafting tables. The trick is remembering what item, resource, or collectible you stored at what location.

If, by this point, you’re shaking your head and intoning, “That doesn’t sound very much like Animal Crossing,” you’re absolutely correct. Pokémon Pokopia was actually developed by Koei Tecmo’s Omega Force team, who previously worked on another outstanding life-sim/adventure mash-up, Dragon Quest Builders 2. This explains how Pokopia so effortlessly blends an exciting and engaging story with the play-at-your-own-pace charm of a community-builder.

Case in point: I was both surprised and delighted by the discovery of Palette Town, a sort of blank slate environment where you can build solo or with up to three friends using multiplayer, creating a space that’s uniquely your own (one unburdened by the need for continual story development) right there in the core gaming experience. Making this built-in feature rather than some half-baked secondary mode really highlights the kind of care and attention you’ll find on display throughout Pokémon Pokopia.

Do I have some minor quibbles? Sure, I mean complex construction in a 3D game space is never without its shortcomings. In fact, I may have used some of my very bestest swears while trying to align and affix specialty roof tiles to my Withered Wasteland chateau. Furthermore, the recurring sequence of move to a new place –> build some stuff and make friends –> complete Important Request –> big reveal surely won’t be to everyone’s taste.

Still, I was able to overcome my short-term construction issues (it turns out camera placement is everything… also, there’s mouse mode support), and I just so happen to be the target market for quirky games that mix constant discovery, social-sim glad-handing, and one of the modern world’s most popular IPs. Whether I was actively building or idly exploring, uncovering sparkly Pokémon Traces that revealed new habitats or stumbling across scattered records and relics from the long-absent human inhabitants, I was not merely engaged but absorbed. Ergo: game of the year.

I could certainly go on for another few thousand words about why I love Pokopia. I could wax poetic about its delicate musical score, I could praise the simple logic of its purpose-built farming and cooking mechanics, hell, I could even regale you with my numerous surreal experiences with the game’s cast of custom Pokémon characters (Chef Dente is an absolute delight, while DJ Rotom is a borderline neighborhood menace).

The issue here is that this would take even more time, which I could otherwise devote to actually playing Pokopia.

Pokémon Pokopia is a perfect example of one of those desert island video games, the kind of experience with near-limitless playability (not to mention replayability, for the same brand of maniac who resets their Animal Crossing: New Horizons island). With dozens of hours of gameplay in the bag, it feels as though I’m only just beginning to realize the sheer scope of all that is available… and that I’ve barely scratched the surface of what is truly possible.

So instead, I will humbly suggest that you proceed to the nearest gate, scan your Pokédex, and join me in the fantastical world of Pokémon Pokopia. I’ll be the Ditto wearing Buddy Holly glasses and obsessively collecting twine.

Review materials provided by Nintendo of America. This post contains affiliate links. No Pokémon were harmed in the writing of this review. I mean, except for my Ditto almost drowning, like, 14 times.