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.

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

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!

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 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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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!

Manage your airline to become Portland’s favorite!

What Is PDX?

PDX is a worker-placement game for 1 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 15 minutes per player. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $64 for a copy of the retail edition, or $84 for the deluxe edition. (There’s also a $93 “first class” pledge tier that adds some postcards and enamel pins but otherwise the same game contents as the deluxe edition.) The 15-minute estimate may be a little optimistic at least for new players; the game’s rules are actually not too complex so I think an experienced 10-year-old could handle it, but the broader strategy could still get a little tricky.

PDX was designed by Sean Wittmeyer and published by Waterworks Games, with illustrations by Skinny Ships (the design studio of Jennifer DeRosa and Richard Perez).

New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.

PDX Components

Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. The copy I got had the deluxe wooden components; the retail edition has cardboard tokens instead of wooden tokens and meeples. The plastic tray pictured with the resource tokens is a prototype and may not be exactly the same in the finished version.

Here’s what comes in the box:

• Terminal board
• 4 Concourse boards
• 4 Worker meeples (1 per player)
• 8 Suitcase meeples (2 per player)
• 116 Service tokens (13 each in 8 types, plus 12 wild)
• 28 Activity tokens (7 each in 4 types)
• 12 Gate Upgrade tiles
• 4 Extra Gate tiles
• 72 Destination tiles (34 short haul, 18 medium haul, 20 long haul)
• 36 Amenity Office tiles
• 12 Planes (4 each small, medium, large)
• 14 Ad Campaign cards
• 4 Player Aid cards
• Solo Player Aid card
• 2 Solo dice
• Start Player token (not pictured)
• Scoresheet

The game will also include two mini-expansions: 16 Company Share cards and 10 Specialist tiles.

The artwork for PDX depicts Portland’s newly renovated airport in an infographic style that I find really charming. Skinny Ships are based in Portland and actually worked on a publication for the Port of Portland about the new terminal, so they’re the perfect design studio for this game. A couple of the box edges include the iconic Portland airport carpet pattern, and you can also spot Bigfoot making his way through the terminal. 

The worker meeples look like the ground service crew, with vests and ear protection. These and the suitcases are wooden meeples both in the retail edition and the deluxe edition.

All of the resource tokens and airplanes are cardboard tokens in the retail edition, but wooden in the deluxe edition.

The player board is made to look like a concourse with three gates at the bottom, with notches for the destination ticket tiles. The wavy roof isn’t just a reflection of the actual airport—it also holds the office tiles across the top (both on the player board and the main terminal board). There are little signs throughout that are labeled in English, French, German, and Spanish, along with small reminders about things like turn order or starting setup.

The only complaint I have about the components is that some of the text is very tiny. It’s usually extra, like the non-English portions of the signs, but the player aid cards are mini cards so the text is quite small, and the setup reminder text on the main terminal board can also be a little hard to read—though since it repeats what is in the rulebook, it’s not absolutely crucial for gameplay.

How to Play PDX

You can download a copy of the rulebook here.

The Goal

The goal of the game is to score the most points by scheduling flights, running ad campaigns, and matching private office services.

Setup

On the main terminal board, stack the office tiles in 3 even stacks. Shuffle the destination tiles and make stacks of random tiles based on the number of players. Shuffle the ad campaign cards and deal one face-up to each space marked with the correct player count, and place the rest of the deck to the side. Take one of each size airplane per player, mix them up, and then place them on the runway in a line facing the right.

Set the supply of activity and service tokens nearby, as well as the gate upgrade tiles and the extra gate tiles.

Give each player a concourse board and the matching worker and 2 suitcases. For first time players, give each player 3 random destination tickets: one short, one medium, and one long (indicated by the 1, 2, or 3 dots), which are placed in their reserve spaces.

Choose a random starting player (maybe the person who most recently packed a suitcase?).

Gameplay

There are four phases to your turn, and there are also a number of actions you can do at any time (including during other players’ turns). I’ll explain the turn phases first.

1. Land Planes: If you have any planes currently in flight, they must move down one space to the next destination ticket. The destination tickets with a grey lower half give you a bonus action to take immediately; tickets with the striped lower half give you the matching activity token. In addition, you gain one of the service tokens pictured at the top of the ticket. If a plane has no destination to land on, it is returned to the main board, at the end of the line.

2. Reclaim Suitcases: If you have any suitcases placed on the main board, you may optionally retrieve them to take those actions.

3. Move Worker: You must move your worker from its current location. The main board includes the four primary actions, or you can place your worker on an office. On the main board, you can build (and place a suitcase), reserve a ticket, lease a plane, or launch an ad campaign.

Building offers a number of options: gate upgrades, extra gates, and amenity offices. You can upgrade your gates from small to medium or medium to large. An extra gate not only gives you an additional place for more routes, but also provides two more spaces for storing resources.

Offices can be built on your own concourse board (limit three) or on the main terminal board. If you place one on the main terminal board, you immediately gain a wild token. Your private offices may be worth bonus points at the end of the game. Offices also provide a space for workers: placing a worker on an office lets you collect the two tokens pictured, and also to place a suitcase. If somebody uses your office, you also get to place one of your suitcases.

The building action on the main board also lets you place a suitcase. Suitcases may be placed on any of the four main actions on the terminal board, to be retrieved for additional actions on a future turn. (Note that suitcases do not let you place more suitcases themselves.)

Reserving a destination lets you take any face-up destination tile and place it into your reserve; you have a limit of three tickets in the reserve and you may discard tickets if necessary to make room.

Leasing a plane lets you take the plane at the head of the runway on the main terminal.

Running an ad campaign costs two or three activity tokens to take the matching ad campaign card from the market. Place the card near your concourse and then draw a new card to replace it.

4. Schedule Flights: Finally, you may schedule flights. If you have a gate that doesn’t currently have any planes on or below it, you may place one of your matching planes onto the gate (even if it has no destination below it). Only one plane can be active at a time for each gate, and it must match the gate size.

At the end of your turn, you must discard resources that don’t fit into your storage, and you may store up to two planes in your hangar, returning any extras to the terminal board at the start of the runway.

Anytime Actions

At any time during the game, you may assign destinations, rearrange routes, and cancel flights.

Assign Destination: Pay the matching service tokens to move a destination from your reserve to a gate. Small gates may only accommodate short-haul destinations but can have up to 5 tickets below the gate. Medium gates can accommodate short- and medium-haul tickets and are limited to 4. Large gates can hold any size tickets, but are limited to 3.

Rearrange Routes: You can rearrange your assigned destination tickets however you like as long as there are no planes currently on or below them (and as long as they still fit in their respective gates). For instance, if you scheduled a flight at a gate that had no destinations, you could move one from another gate so that there will be a place for the plane to land when your next turn comes up.

Cancel Flights: You may spend one service or activity token to cancel a flight that’s in progress—just remove the plane and return it to the runway.

Game End

When three of the destination tile stacks are empty, the end game is triggered. Finish the round so all players have had the same number of turns.

Add up your score:

• Your total assigned destination tickets (tickets still in your reserve do not score)
• Your total ad campaign cards
• Private office bonuses: for each icon in your private offices, score a point for each icon on your assigned tickets that matches.

The highest score wins, with ties going to the player with the most destination tiles.

Game Variants

The solo mode has you play against “Tyler,” an automated player. The setup is for a 2-player game with a few modifications. Tyler’s actions are controlled by the two dice, taking destinations and assigning them automatically to his gates, and launching ad campaigns if he has matching icons on his destination tickets. Some dice faces will cycle a plane on the runway or build offices either on Tyler’s board or the terminal board. Your goal is to beat Tyler’s score.

The Company Shares mini-expansion included in the game gives players private objectives in the form of cards: each player gets 3 at the start of the game, and these will give you points for meeting specific conditions like having the matching icons on your destination tickets. However, each time you upgrade to a large gate, you have to discard one, so you’ll have to decide if it’s worth the trade-off for higher-scoring destinations.

The Specialist mini-expansion adds the specialist tiles. When you build, you may build one of these in your concourse instead, and each one gives you a bonus ability:

• Broker: When you lease a plane, you may take any plane from the runway instead of the first one.
• Contractor: Once per turn, when you use the build action, you get an extra build.
• Partnership: When assigning tickets, you get discounts based on icons in your private offices.
• Trader: You may trade any 2 service tokens for any 1 service token.
• Analyst: When you build an office, you may swap a specialist for another specialist, or swap tiles from your private office with offices on the main terminal board.

Why You Should Play PDX

I’ll confess: I’m a sucker for the Portland airport. It has a mini movie theater, a Powell’s bookstore, a decent food court, and the famous carpet pattern (loosely inspired by runways). I’ve even got a chair in my office that was originally from the airport, refurbished by a local furniture shop. The airport was under construction for a couple years (which was not as fun), but when it was opening up my family signed up for their “dress rehearsal” where thousands of people were assigned simulated traveler profiles and went through check-in and security to offer feedback, in exchange for a sneak peek at the new facility. So, when I heard that Waterworks Games was making a PDX airport game, I knew I had to give it a try.

I already mentioned that I love the way the game looks, but I’ll say it again. The infographic look, the little background details on the main board and the concourse, the ticket-shaped destination tiles, the runway for storing the plane supply—all of those little touches add up to a pleasing whole that captures the vibe of the Portland airport.

The gameplay is not too difficult: it’s a worker-placement game with only four main actions (the fifth, collecting resources from an office, is also very simple). There’s no blocking—you can go to any space regardless of whether there’s another player there, and the only restriction is that you can’t just stay in the same place and repeat an action on your next turn. The actions themselves are also pretty easy to understand: build a thing, take a ticket, get a plane, cash in your activity tokens for a card that’s worth points. So far, so good.

But there are some fun twists: the suitcases are essentially extra workers that will give you bonus actions, so you could take up to 3 actions in a single turn if you don’t retrieve them right away. However, the actions that let you place those suitcases tend to be those that you need earlier in the game: the build action lets you expand your gates and also build those offices that will give you end-game points; the office action gives you service tokens, but once you’ve got planes flying you’ll be able to collect those more quickly anyway. Figuring out where to stash your suitcases and when to retrieve them requires some strategy.

Another unique aspect to the game is the ability to rearrange routes on the fly. A lot of the game’s action happens when it’s not actually your turn. You gain tickets from the board during your turn but it doesn’t cost you anything until you decide to assign them to a gate—and even then you can still move them around from gate to gate as long as a plane hasn’t flown over them yet.

All destination tickets reward you with a service token, but you also get either an activity token or a bonus action. Since you can rearrange them just before you land your planes at the beginning of your turn, that gives you some opportunities to react to the current board state: lease a plane once the right one gets to the front of the line, or run an ad campaign now that the card you’ve been waiting for has just hit the market.

The one downside to the anytime actions is the same problem I’ve run into with other simultaneous-play games: when people are still learning the game, it can be harder to make sure everyone is playing correctly. If somebody is rearranging destinations that should already be locked, nobody else might notice if they’re focused on their own concourses the whole time. It can also be easy to forget about potential anytime actions; canceling a flight unlocks that route and allows for rearranging without having to wait for the plane to finish its course, but not everyone may realize that until somebody actually does it.

Because of the big stacks of offices and randomized selection of tickets, there’s no guarantee that everything is evenly distributed. In one game I played, there were almost no medium-haul flights, something that we didn’t know until near the end of the game. If any of us had upgraded two gates to large, that could have been a huge scoring opportunity, but we were all waiting for more medium tickets to be revealed. Similarly, there are some offices that have two of the same icon—if you manage to get one of those and a couple other offices with the same color, you could make that particular icon worth 4 points each … as long as those tickets actually show up in the market. There aren’t any guarantees, and it seems like there’s a bigger chance of disproportionate icons when you have fewer players and fewer tiles are used for the game.

I haven’t had a chance yet to play with the mini-expansions, but I always like personal objectives so I’m looking forward to trying the game with the Company Shares. It gives you a nudge in a particular direction, which can feel helpful for players learning a new game who aren’t sure where to start. The Specialists are also very cool, giving you some powerful abilities but at the cost of the bonus points you’d earn from your private offices.

Overall, I think PDX is a solid worker-placement game with a fun theme and a couple of twists that help set it apart. It’s not too heavy rules-wise, especially for players who already have some experience with worker-placement games. And if you’re a fan of the Portland airport, this is a connection you  won’t want to miss!

For more information or to make a pledge, visit the PDX Kickstarter page!

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

Greek Mythology is filled with gods, heroes, monsters, quests, and much more. Now you can create your own pantheon and realm out of a hand of cards in order to score the most points. The award winning card game Fantasy Realms has been given a new theme and some new mechanics to adapt the original to the stories of myths of ancient Greece in Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends.

What Is Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends?

Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends is a hand-building card game for 2-6 players, ages 12 and up, and takes about 20 minutes to play. The game consists of players drawing cards from a deck or discard pile in order to form the best combos and score the highest points. Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends was designed by Bruce Glassco and published by Wizkids, with illustrations by Darren Calvert. It’s currently available for preorder from WizKids as well as online retailers such as Amazon and has a suggested retail price of $19.99 for a copy of the game. 

Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends Components

Here is what you get in the box:

• 79 Cards
• 6 Reference Cards
• 1 Rulebook
• 1 Score Pad

There are 79 cards in the game. They are divided into six suits of 11-19 cards each. Each card has a unique name at the top, a suit listed along with a base value in the top left corner which can be from 0 to 25, tag icons along the left side, and bonus or penalty text that explain how the card interacts with other cards. 

The game also includes six reference cards that list the end game steps as well as a key to all of the icons for suites and tags. These are great for new players when learning the game. 

At the end of the game, the score pad is used to calculate each player’s score. There are spaces on each double-sided sheet for six players and their scores for their hand as well as the cards in their afterlife. 

How to Play Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends

The Goal

The goal of the game is to earn the most points with the combination of cards in your hand at the end of the game. 

Setup

Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends is extremely easy to setup and start playing. Shuffle the deck of 79 cards and deal seven cards to each player. Then take the remaining cards and place the deck in the center of the play area along with open space to place discarded cards next to it. Randomly choose a starting player and then begin play.

Gameplay

During a player’s turn, they can either draw a facedown card from the deck or select one of the faceup discarded cards. The first player must draw from the deck since there are no discards yet. After drawing a card, the player then discards one of the cards from their hand and places it faceup in the discard area or into their Afterlife. Be sure to spread out the discarded cards so that all players can see these cards. Players can discard any card, including the one they just drew. If a player discards into their Afterlife, they also must draw the top card from the deck and add it to the discard area. The player to the left then takes their turn and play continues in a clockwise direction with each player taking a card and discarding a card during their turn.

As players are drawing and discarding, they are trying to create combos to maximize their points. Therefore, it is important to understand how they bonus and penalty text works. There are five main terms used in these texts on the cards. ‘With’ refers to a bonus you get when this card is with a card of the designated type. The bonus is only applied once. On the other hand, ‘For Each’ would provide that bonus or penalty multiple times if there are more than one card of the type listed. ‘Clear’ can be a tough concept at first. If a card says it clears other cards, those cleared cards have their bonuses, tags, and penalties. Essentially it wipes out everything for those cards. ‘Blanked Unless With’ applies the blanking unless one of the named cards is also in your hand. Finally, ‘Clears’ can get rid of a penalty or part of a penalty on a card. That card still keeps its suit and base value. There are only a few cards that have Clear on them.  

Game End

The game ends as soon as there are 10 cards in the discard area. Players then calculate their scores using the score pad. On the score pad, players list the value of each of their 7 cards in their hand along with any bonuses or penalties. They then list the values for the cards in their afterlife. Add these totals together for cards in your hand and your afterlife and then subtract 10 points for each card in the afterlife.. The player with the highest total score is the winner. In case of a tie, the hand with the lowest total base value, including cards in the aferlife, is the winner. 

Let’s look at a couple examples of combinations of cards in players’ hands at the end of the game.

Theseus is worth 10, Artemis is worth 21 since there are two hostile monsters, the Golden Apples are worth 17 sine there is a quest, the Minotaur and Antaeus are worth 15 and 18 respectively, the Labyrinth is worth 13 because there is at least one hostile monster, and the Epic Quest is worth 30 since all of its bonus requirements are met. This hand is worth 124.

This hand has four cards that the player discarded to the afterlife. Then the monsters and the Pomegranate send the two heroes and Hermes to the afterlife at the end of the game. Let’s score this hand. The Sirens are worth 16, the Calydonian Boat is 24 and the Dryads are 14. Zeus is worth 20 because of two other gods and the monarch hero. Hades is worth 21 since there are six other cards in the afterlife. Hermes is 20 with 2 heroes and an location. Atalanta and Hippolyta are worth 12 and 10 respectively. Cerebus is worth 15 since there are two dead heroes and the Sacrificial Altar is worth 14 for the same reason. Finally, the Pomegranate is worth 6. Then you lose 70 points for 7 cards in the afterlife. So the final total for this hand is 82. While the player was able to score 11 cards instead of 7, the penalties cost the player more than the bonuses for sending heroes and a god to the afterlife. 

Why You Should Play Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends

Let me start off by saying I absolutely love the original Fantasy Realms. It is one of my favorite games. I first played in when it was originally released in 2017 and have been playing it ever since. A new version of the game was released in 2021 and it was one of the three finalist nominees for the 2021 Kennerspiel de Jahres, which recognizes the expert or connoisseur tabletop game of the year which are usually aimed at more experienced players. While the suggested age range is 12 years and up, some younger children might be able to play this. Scoring and understanding bonuses and penalties are what make this game difficult for younger children. WizKids released Marvel Remix and Star Trek: Missions in 2022. Both of these are card games based on the Fantasy Realms rules that use their own themes with some additions and changes to the rules to make them better fit the theme. I enjoyed both of these games as well as the Cursed Hoard expansion to the original Fantasy Realms. 

There are several reasons I like Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends. First, it is fast to setup and easy to teach to new players. Another reason to enjoy this game is because it is different every time. Everyone gets seven random cards at the start. Therefore, it is hard to have a pre-arranged strategy. Players have to see what they get and then change their strategy on the fly depending on what cards they draw and what cards other players discard. In many games, I will come up with a plan at the start only to change it when something better is revealed during play. There is also an element of push-your-luck as you might hold onto a high value card that is only valuable if you can find other cards that benefit it. As a result, when the number of cards discarded begins to approach 10, you have to decide whether to ditch those cards or push on. The interaction between cards is amazing. While some cards have a bonus with just one or two other cards, others can benefit, or penalize, several cards. You really have to pay attention to both names as well as suits. Finally, a game of Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends goes rather quickly. This makes it great for a quick game to start a game night, for playing during a lunch break. Since the box is not that big, you can also take it easily with you while travelling or camping, though I would suggest putting sleeves on the cards. Plus the artwork on the cards looks great. It has almost a cartoonish look. 

One of the new unique features of Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends is the addition of the afterlife. This is essentially a personal discard that can provide more cards for scoring at the end of the game. The downside is that each card in the afterlife subtracts 10 points from your final score. Therefore, players need to make sure that each card in their afterlife provides more than 10 points of bonus to make up for the penalty. While I still continue to enjoy the original Fantasy Realms, one of the downsides is all of the interactions between cards. This can make the game difficult for new players. Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends is a bit easier for new players. The cards have suits based on the type of card: items, locations, gods, heroes, quests, and monsters. There are symbols that show bonuses and penalties. I really like that below the symbols, there is a written explanation of the symbols that helps players know what to do while they learn the symbology. This combination is great for teaching the game. The toughest part for beginners is understanding what ‘clears’ means and I explain that it essentially erases certain values and information on that card.

Everyone with whom I have played Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends has enjoyed it. I highly recommend  Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends for fans of the original as well as those who enjoy a quick, thinking card game with a fun theme. 

For more information, visit the Fantasy Realms Greek Legends webpage!

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Secret agent bears gather intel—but don’t get fooled by the honeypots!

What Is Honeypot?

Honeypot is an “I cut, you choose” game for 1 to 6 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 15–30 minutes to play. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $19 for a copy of the game. Other pledge tiers include a $10 print-and-play version, or $35 for both Honeypot and Forage (see my other review for more!).

Honeypot was designed by Joseph Z. Chen and published by Flatout Games with AEG, with illustrations by Kwanchai Moriya and graphic design by Brigette Indelicato.

New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.

Honeypot Components

Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. However, as with most of Flatout Games prototypes, it is pretty close to what the final version will look like.

Here’s what comes in the box:

• 172 Honeypot cards
• 8 Round Bonus cards
• 18 Swiping tokens
• 6 Character Identity cards
• 6 Secret Cache folders
• Turn Rotation marker
• Beeees! token

The honeypot cards depict a variety of different items, with point values or effects, and some of them also include a red ruby in the top corner. Fans of games like Sushi Go may recognize the type of set collection involved in scoring, as many of the cards will score based on how many you’ve collected, but there are others that have special effects.

The round bonus cards have a different back, showing 5 honeypots, but the faces are all items that also appear in the regular honeypot cards—the main difference is that there are no negative cards.

The character identity cards and the accompanying secret cache folders are very cute. There are 6 different colors, and each one also has a unique illustration, from the techie green bear to the classy purple bear to the grizzled “I’m too old for this” blue bear. The secret cache folders are just that—little tiny folders—and the interiors are illustrated as well.

Kickstarter backers will also get the free “Sticky Fingers” mini-expansion that includes 32 more honeypot cards to mix into the deck, including some that depict three bear-themed works of art.

How to Play Honeypot

You can download a copy of the rulebook here.

The Goal

The goal of the game is to score the most points over 5 rounds.

Setup

Shuffle the honeypot cards to form a deck. Shuffle the round bonus cards and place 5 at random face-down near the honeypot deck, returning the rest to the box. Place the rest of the swiping tokens and the Beeees! token nearby.

Give each player an identity card and matching folder, as well as 2 swiping tokens. Choose a starting player and give them the turn rotation token with the clockwise side showing.

Gameplay

Each round, everyone simultaneously draws 6 honeypot cards from the deck. Then, players secretly arrange the six cards in any order, placing them in their folder. Pass the folder to your neighbor (clockwise or counterclockwise as shown by the turn rotation token)—do not look at the caches that you are passed!

Once everyone has stacked and passed their cache, caches are revealed in turn order.

To reveal a cache, you flip over the top two cards of the cache. You must decide whether you want to keep this pair, or discard the cards and look at the next two, and decide again. If you don’t keep the second pair, then you must keep the last pair.

Some cards are action cards—if you choose to keep one, you resolve it immediately and then discard it. These include a Blind Swap (discard a card and draw one from the deck), Dead Drop (draw 2 cards from the deck), and Decoder (gain 1 swiping token).

Once a player has chosen cards to keep, if there are still cards remaining in the cache, then it is passed to the next player in turn order who has swiping tokens. That player may discard a swiping token to reveal the next pair in the cache as if it were their turn. (If you swipe, then you must keep a pair of cards.) If there are still cards remaining, a third player may also swipe.

If a player with swiping tokens declines to swipe, then that cache is finished and nobody else can swipe. Also, the player who set up the cache may never swipe it back for themselves. Any remaining cards are discarded.

Once a cache is completed, then the next player in turn order reveals their cache, until all caches have been revealed.

At the end of the round, players add up negative points on all of their cards (but not the Beeees! token), and the player with the most negative points chooses one of the round bonus cards and reveals it, adding it to their collection (or using its action if applicable). Ties are broken by the player with the most Bad Intel cards; if there’s still a tie, randomly select a round bonus card and discard it from the game.

Pass the turn rotation token clockwise and flip it over. (Note that the rotation indicates the direction the caches are passed, but the token itself is always passed clockwise.)

Game End

The game ends after round five and players score their collection.

Here’s a quick rundown of the different types of cards:

• Good Intel: worth 1, 2, or 3 points; a set of one of each gives a bonus 3 points
• Bad Intel: worth -1, -2, or -3 points; a set of all three is discarded
• Codebooks: 7 points per pair
• Berries: worth points based on the set, but a set of 5 resets to 0 points
• Disguises: worth more points if you have different unique disguises
• Honey Dippers: score more points for having only 1
• Honeycombs: Worth 3 points, but when you take it you also get the Beees! token, which is worth -7 points
• Neighbor Scoring cards: worth points based on certain items that one of your neighbors has

In addition, rubies will award points to players who have the most of them: 6 points for most, 4 points for second place, and 2 points for third place. 

Finally, unused swiping tokens are worth 2 points each.

Players add up all of their points and the highest score wins, with ties going to the player with the most rubies.

Variant Rules

In a 2-player game, the swiping tokens work a little differently: a player may use a token on a cache they’ve revealed to take additional cards from it, because it never passes back to the player who set up the cache.

There’s a family mode that simplifies the game a little—ignore rubies and remove the neighbor scoring cards. Also, don’t use the swiping action—swiping tokens collected from actions are just worth 2 points. Play 6 rounds instead of 5.

The solo mode plays a little like a 2-player game, but the cache is made up of 8 cards instead of 6. You get to look at 2 cards, and then you shuffle all 8 together before you start revealing. The automated opponent takes the next two cards after you pass (or draws cards from the deck if you took the last two cards) as their turn, and always swipes if they’re able to. There are also some adjustments for difficulty level that change the number of cards the opponent takes or that you get to peek at.

There’s a list of achievements in the back of the rulebook that you can try to complete in the solo game.

Why You Should Play Honeypot

I’ve always enjoyed “I cut, you choose” games: there’s the challenge of divvying up a pile of goods so that nobody gets away with anything too good, and the challenge of choosing between options presented to you to figure out which one is actually best for you. Honeypot takes that concept but throws in a twist: often in an “I cut, you choose” game, the person who cuts will get whatever is left, so the decisions about how to make the split are based in part on what the cutters would like to have for themselves. Here, the cutter does not actually get anything from this deal—instead, it’s setting up the cache with the knowledge that the chooser must take exactly 2 cards from the cache.

If you get a mix of good and bad cards, how do you set it up? Do you put the good stuff up front, hoping that the chooser will dig further in case it gets better? Do you spread out the good and the bad, ensuring that no matter when they stop, they’ll get a mix? Or maybe you put some bad stuff up front, thinking that they’ll stop because things could always get worse.

More difficult, in my opinion, is when you have to set up a cache and it feels like all of the cards are good. Do you set them up so they’re pretty even, so the player will get about the same thing no matter which pair they choose? Or do you make them imbalanced, and hope that they wind up with one of the weaker piles?

Of course, the values of cards will shift over the course of the game. A Honey Dipper by itself is quite valuable at 6 points, but once somebody has one already, the next one subtracts 3 points. If you put in a pair of Honey Dippers in the cache together, you’ve already spoiled them a little. (On the other hand, maybe somebody will manage to get a Blind Swap later and ditch an extra Honey Dipper.) If somebody has been collecting disguises, then you’ll be able to see which disguises are worth more points to them.

The possibility of swiping also changes the equation a little. Swiping tokens are worth 2 points, but getting a pair of good cards could be worth much more than that. Did the cutter set up this cache, hoping that it would get passed to the next player for swiping? And did they correctly predict the first chooser’s decision? There’s a lot of room for psychological games here, with a lot of second-guessing and Battle of Wits–inspired banter: “A clever man would put the negative cards in the second pair, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for the first pair he was given!”

There’s also an incentive to take some Bad Intel cards because of the round bonuses: if you have the most negative cards at the end of the round, you’ll get a bonus card. And you don’t have to have the most negative total score—just the most negative cards. The risk is when there are exact ties and the round bonus is discarded, because then you’re sitting on the negative points but also didn’t get the catch-up benefit. A full set of Bad Intel gets discarded, which can also be tempting, but dangerous.

The Honeycombs are a fun risk because taking one is a net negative at first: you gain 3 points for the Honeycomb itself, but lose 7 points for the Beees! token. There’s only one Beees! token, which means if you already have it you can accumulate more Honeycombs without any additional penalty. The best outcome, though, is that somebody else ends up stuck with a Honeycomb later than you, taking the Beees! from you and leaving you with just sweet, sweet points.

Honeypot is an excellent, quick game for players who love to get into each other’s heads. It’s all about figuring out what your opponents would want and whether they’re likely to take risks. I really like this spin on the “I cut, you choose” genre.

For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Honeypot Kickstarter page!

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

Forage for berries, mushrooms, and plants in this clever roll-and-write game.

What Is Forage?

Forage is a roll-and-write game for 1 to 6 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 15–30 minutes to play. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $19 for a copy of the game. Other pledge tiers include a $10 print-and-play version, or $35 for both Forage and Honeypot (see my other review for more!). The game has a family-friendly theme that’s suitable for kids, but it does have some complexity that can make it challenging; less experienced players  and younger kids may need a little more assistance with it!

Forage was designed by Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, and Shawn Stankewich and published by Flatout Games with AEG, with illustrations by Beth Sobel and graphic design by Dylan Mangini.

New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.

Forage Components

Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. However, as with most of Flatout Games prototypes, it is pretty close to what the final version will look like.

Here’s what comes in the box:

• 96 Foraging cards (Pantry, Gift-giving, and Exploration)
• 18 Starting Foraging cards (Pantry, Gift-giving, and Exploration)
• 8 Foraging dice (7 regular, 1 special)
• 24 Journey tiles (6 starting 12 regular, 6 final)
• 6 Goal cards
• 6 Time Tracker cards
• 6 Scoring cards
• Foraging Basket card
• 6 Dry-erase markers

All of the cards in Forage have a glossy surface so they can be written on with the dry-erase markers. The foraging and goal cards are regular-sized cards, and the time tracker, scoring, and foraging basket are oversized cards.

There are three types of foraging cards: pantry, gift-giving, and exploration. Pantry cards show a grid of 16 jars, grouped in rows by color, with various rewards shown for completing rows and columns. Gift-giving cards have a number of boxes that require a specific number of certain symbols to complete. Exploration cards show a map with various symbols at each intersection, and rewards in the spaces enclosed by the paths. The starting cards have the same features but are typically a little easier to complete, and are distinguished by a darker card back and a little dot by the hourglass in the bottom corner.

The foraging dice are oversized wooden dice, and each one has 6 unique symbols on it: two brown mushrooms (morel and porcini), two green plants (stinging nettle and fiddlehead), and two pink berries (salmonberry and huckleberry). All of these are found in the Pacific Northwest, and the rulebook includes a little section about foraging facts (with an important note about poisonous mushrooms and berries!). The special foraging die has the same faces, but has a darker base color.

The journey tiles are small rectangular tiles, most showing a little path through a field. They’re used to track the number of rounds in the game and also have various effects on the backs. My only complaint is that the shape makes it a little more tedious to flip them all face-down and mix them up, but they work fine otherwise.

Kickstarter backers will also receive the “Secret Glade” mini-expansion, which adds 6 more journey tiles and 3 more goal cards.

How to Play Forage

You can download a copy of the rulebook here.

The Goal

The goal of the game is to score the most points over the course of 13 rounds by using the dice to complete your foraging cards.

Setup

Shuffle each of the foraging decks and place them in the center of the playing area, and place the foraging basket card below them so that it matches the decks of cards—orange edge for pantry, green edge for exploration, and blue in the center for gift-giving. Place the dice nearby.

Randomly select 3 goal cards and place them nearby. (The goal cards are double-sided; the “A” side is a little simpler and is recommended for new players.)

Set up the journey tiles: 3 starting tiles, 10 regular tiles, and 3 final tiles. Reveal the 3 starting tiles. (Return the rest of the journey tiles to the box.)

Give each player random starting cards (one each of pantry, gift-giving, and exploration). Also give each player a time tracking card, scoring card, and dry-erase marker. All cards are placed in front of the players, face-up.

Gameplay

Each round, you first roll all of the dice and arrange them by the foraging basket card. The special die is always placed on the card itself. Any dice that match any other regular dice (not the special die) are placed on the orange side of the basket, grouped with the dice that they match. Any dice that are unique are placed on the green side of the basket in one group.

Then, reveal the next journey tile. Yellow tiles have immediate effects and are then discarded, but white tiles are simply revealed and added to the rest of the revealed tiles.

Players then simultaneously choose an action using the available dice and mark their cards, optionally using time to enhance actions or take extra actions. Whenever you gain time, you circle an hourglass on your time tracker, and then you cross off circled hourglasses to spend time. (The card starts with 2 already circled.)

You have 3 actions to choose from: store, gift, or explore.

Store: Choose one matching set of dice on the orange side of the foraging basket plus the special die in the basket. You may cross off one jar of the same color for each die in the set. If you complete a row or a column, you immediately gain the bonus shown on the edge of the card. (Some rewards require two rows or two columns.)

Gift: You may choose a set of dice from either side of the basket plus the special die in the basket. Using those dice, you may check off matching boxes on a gift-giving card. Some spaces can take any dice (grey “?” spaces), some will require a specific color, and some require a specific symbol. Each die may only be used once, but you can mark off multiple spaces with one group of dice if there are enough. Once a card is completed, you gain the reward shown at the bottom, as well as the scoring condition (or other bonuses) at the top.

Explore: Using the set of dice from the green side of the basket plus the special die in the basket, mark off matching symbols on your exploration cards. You can mark anywhere—they do not need to be connected. If you’ve marked off all the symbols surrounding a reward, then you get that reward immediately. As you gain additional exploration cards, they are added to the right or left of your existing cards—to gain the rewards on the edges of the cards, you must complete the loop formed by both cards.

When you complete cards by filling it out completely, you also gain 1 time, as indicated by the hourglass in the lower right.

You may spend time to add wild symbols to your action—each time spent counts as 1 wild, so you can cross off more jars, match more gifts, or cross off more path symbols.

You may also spend 2 time to take an additional action. However, you must choose a group of dice that you have not already used (but still include the special foraging die). If there are multiple groups of dice, you may continue spending time to take additional actions until you have used all of them.

Finally, most journey tiles have a time cost and a reward—if you spend the time, you get the reward immediately. Points gained are recorded on your scoring card in the “Journeys” section. When you use a journey tile, announce it to all players; other people may also use the same journey tile that round if they can afford it, but it will be discarded at the end of the round.

If you complete one of the goals, you circle the first available point value on the card, and write that on your scoring card in the Goal section. Other players who complete the goal in the same round also score the same number of points. At the end of the round, cross out the circled point value.

Once you are done with your actions and any rewards earned, draw a foraging card from any of the three decks and place it face-down in front of you. Once everyone has a face-down card, then the round is over. You may look at your card and either keep it (face-up in front of you) or discard it to gain 1 time.

Be sure to discard any journey tiles that were used this round, and cross off point values on goal cards that were earned this round.

Game End

The game ends at the end of the 13th round (the last journey tile will be revealed). Time to score!

Your scoring card shows the various things that will be scored:

• Experience/Knowledge: 5 points per pair
• Goals: total score for the three goals
• Journeys: total score for up to 6 journey tiles
• Gift-giving cards: points as shown on your completed cards; some gifts give points for completing other tasks
• Pantry cards: total points that you’ve earned by completing rows and columns of jars
• Exploration cards: total points that you have earned by encircling them on exploration cards

Highest score wins, with ties going to the player with the most unspent time.

Solo Variant

The solo variant plays exactly like the regular game, but with one difference: the points earned for completing goal cards will decrease depending on what round you are in. For instance, you’ll get 5 points for completing a goal in the first 9 rounds, but 3 points if you complete it in rounds 10 or 11.

There’s a list of achievements in the back of the rulebook that you can try to complete in the solo game.

Why You Should Play Forage

Roll-and-write, flip-and-fill, draw-and-draw … there are a lot of games in this still-growing genre, but what they usually have in common is some sort of randomizer (rolling dice, drawing cards) and then some sort of marking. But that marking can take a number of forms: checking off spaces, writing numbers, drawing polyominoes. I’d consider Forage to lean more toward the traditional roll-and-write: you roll dice for the randomizer, and you use those dice to check off spaces on various cards.

And in that vein, Forage also leans heavily into action combos: completing a row here gives lets you check off a space here, which might then earn you another bonus action. Each round, you get to choose one set of dice and take an action… but taking only one action per turn is for suckers. The three different card types have different sorts of rewards. Pantry cards can be great for some quick bonuses: most of the time you’ll get bonuses for completing a single row or a single column. They might not be worth as many points, but they’ll help you chain things together, especially when the dice roll has a lot of matching dice.

Exploration cards are a little more varied—the bonuses here require a variable number of checks, and you’ll need to match the exact symbols instead of just the colors. These can be completed with 12 checks instead of 16 so in theory they’re a little easier, but because you have to use the unique dice, that can be a limiting factor. (It’s possible, however unlikely, to have all 8 dice showing the same face to make for a huge pantry action, but at most you’ll get six dice to use for exploration in a turn, including the special one.)

Gift-giving cards vary a bit in how many dice they require, but the trick there is that you need them all at once. Pantry and Exploration cards can be checked off one at a time, but each space on a gift-giving card requires a number of dice that must be collected at once, so you’re constantly on the lookout for groupings that work. To me, they felt like the hardest ones to complete, but the rewards can also be significant. While all three card types may include points as rewards, some gift-giving cards have goal-type bonuses: 1 point per completed pantry card, for instance. If you can line up those goals with your strengths, they can be quite valuable.

At the end of each round, you’re presented with the choice to draw a card from any of the three decks. That in itself is not always too difficult: you usually want at least one of each card in play, because a lot of bonuses let you check off spaces on other card types, and you don’t want those to go to waste. If you don’t have any berry jars left in your pantry, then you might want to look for more, in case the next roll has a lot of matching berries; likewise, if your exploration cards are almost completed, you don’t want to lose out on the next roll with a lot of unique dice.

But then, after you’ve selected your card, you get another choice: keep it, or discard it for one time. That often feels like a much trickier choice to me. It’s probably unlikely that you’ll complete 12 cards in a game, so it’s not worth keeping everything you draw. On the other hand, is the 1 time a better payout than filling in a couple spaces on the card and getting a few bonuses? That’s a much harder calculation.

Finally, there are those journey tiles. Spending your time for extra checks or extra actions can be extremely helpful, because you might be able to reach goals more quickly when they’re still worth the most points. Using them at key moments can trigger cascading chains of bonuses, making your opponents wonder what they’re doing wrong because they’re already done with their turns. But if you don’t save up some time for the journey tiles, you might regret it. The rewards on the journey tiles are often more efficient actions, or make up for it by awarding points as well. And since they are discarded after the round when somebody uses one, the timing is important. If somebody uses a tile that you wanted but you don’t have the time to spend during that round, then you miss out.

Since the turns in Forage are simultaneous, it can be harder to catch mistakes when players are still learning the game. It’s important to make sure everyone understands how the dice are grouped and how many they’re allowed to use on any given action, and it’s also helpful to remind everyone about the journey tiles and the other ways to use time. The first time I played, I know a couple of players felt like they must have missed something because halfway through the game they were well behind others in terms of how much time they’d earned or cards they’d completed.

If you like roll-and-writes, and especially making action combos, then take a trip to the Pacific Northwest in Forage! Despite its small box size, Forage feels like a pretty hefty roll-and-write because of some tough choices throughout the game.

For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Forage Kickstarter page!

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

For RPG fans around the world, Munchkin has been a Tabletop game favorite when we aren’t rolling a d20. To celebrate their 25th anniversary, Steve Jackson Games is releasing a Second Edition of its hit game, including new mechanics, updated art (yes, it’s illustrated by John Kovalic!), and updates to various parts of the game to bring the core game in line with modern standards. To get this game, however, you must back it on Backerkit or visit GenCon 2026 (or wait for it to reach retailers). The price for the game is $40 either way. But for the savvy Backerkit user, you can get a Second Edition Upgrade Set ($20) and stretch goal rewards if you back it now. This project is fully funded and produced by a reputable brand, so let’s dig in before you run out of time.

What’s New in ‘Munchkin Second Edition’?

Most of the rules and mechanics you know and love from ‘Munchkin’ are intact, but updated for more satisfying game play. Instead of Kicking Down the Door, you Listen at the Door. When selling treasure, you get change back, now! There are 48 coins of different values to help you track your wealth. As a bonus, you start with some coins and can trade with or bribe your friends while figuring out how to win. Other updates are a natural correction of overlooked opportunities, such as the new win condition. Now, when a player reaches level 10 (winning the game), any helper they have also wins the game. Overall, these changes seem to enhance the original playing experience, rather than disrupt it. The changes add to the game rather than remove. 

The notable exception is the tactful removal of the card ‘Curse – Change Gender’. This card served very little purpose in the original game other than to bully people about gender norms, and the mechanical identity of one’s gender is gone completely. You can expect any cards which were restricted to male or female characters to be reworked with this change entirely.

What’s Included ($40 Game)?

The new edition comes with 100% new art, a game board, standees for players, rule books, an upgrade guide, a d6, 150 cards, and 48 coins. While the author hasn’t been able to review the components for quality, we do know some things. First, Steve Jackson Games is a brand known for producing high-quality games and components. Second, the art has been redone by John Kovalic, the original artist for the franchise. Third, this product is a celebration of the game, and the Backerkit specifically states that they aren’t interested in rushing production arbitrarily, so there’s little chance of receiving a defective, rushed product. All this is only $40.

What’s in the Upgrade Kit($20)?

The upgrade kit isn’t intended to be a retail option, it’s just for backers, since it updates your existing game! So, you might be wondering what’s in the Big Box? Well, it seems pretty intuitive. The base feature, of course, is the box itself. Now you have another way to store your various ‘Munchkin’ products. There are copies of the rule books and reference cards, so there’s no confusion about the rules created by reading the changes on a fan site. The most impactful inclusion, however, is the 50 new and reworked cards which are needed to take your original game and make it a Second Edition version. The lease impactful inclusion is a “Second Edition” sticker so you can update your original game box. (Of course, if your home is anything like me, the original box has been played with for so long, the upgrade kit is tempting just for the box.)

Stretch Goals

As you might imagine, the stretch goals are all unlocked at this point. All Munchkin fans can benefit from the free update to the Munchkin Digital app and improved quality for the components. Backers alone will receive a dice tower STL for 3D printing, and an exclusive skin for the new app. These goals come at no additional cost for the backers, so they’re purely bonuses.

Who Shouldn’t Back this Project?

If you’re planning on being at GenCon 2026, and aren’t interested in the backer-exclusive rewards, you could easily just wait until GenCon. The production team has been clear that they are prioritizing having copies for GenCon, even if that delays delivery of products for the Backerkit project. There is a chance you won’t be able to get a copy due to demand, however, and it’s still possible that backers will receive their units before GenCon. Use your judgement, as always.

Why are You Still Here?

You know what it is, you know it’s on Backerkit, you know it’s fully funded, and you know whether you want it. Go back it already before it closes. Or don’t, I’m not your boss. 

Develop mastery and unlock the power of the Infinity Engine.

In “Reaping the Rewards,” I take a look at the finished product from a crowdfunding campaign. Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection was originally funded on Kickstarter in the summer of 2023, and was delivered to backers at the beginning of 2025.

What Is Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection?

Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection is a deck-building game for 1 to 6 players, ages 13 and up, and takes about 30–45 minutes to play. It retails for $60 and is available directly from Stoneblade Entertainment. Shards of Infinity was initially published in 2018 and was followed by several expansions; the Saga Collection is an all-in-one box set that incorporates the existing expansions, with some tweaks and rebalancing.

Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection was designed by Gary Arant and Justin Gary and published by Stoneblade Entertainment, with illustrations by Aaron Nakahara and Yoshiharu Nakahara.

Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection Components

Here’s what comes in the box:

• Game Board
• 6 Player mats (Kickstarter edition)
• 6 Player cards
• 160 Center Deck cards
• 60 Starting Deck cards (15 per player)
• 30 Destiny cards
• 12 Relic cards
• 86 Boss Battle Campaign cards
• 6 Hero cards
• 7 Boss cards
• 6 Health/Mastery dials
• Boss Health/Mastery dial
• 12 Hack tokens
• Shadow of Salvation Campaign book
• Saga Achievement Tracker (with stickers)

The Kickstarter edition included 22 promo cards; some of these are the foil versions of the hero and boss cards. What I’ll cover in the review is primarily what is available in the retail edition of the game. (The Kickstarter edition also has the text “Kickstarter Edition” printed in foil on the cover and across the center board, though honestly I could do without that.)

Unlike most of the games I review for GeekDad, this one was not sent to me by the publisher—I backed it on Kickstarter myself, and did not actually get photos of everything before I started playing through the campaign, which means that I can’t show you how everything was organized when it first arrived. The cards are divvied up into five “chapters” that you can play through that gradually add what was originally new content from the various expansions. Although you could just open up everything right away (particularly if you were already familiar with the expansions), the saga campaign is a way to play through the various chapters and give players a chance to digest the new rules before adding more. The Saga Tracker includes various achievement-type tasks to complete before opening the next pack of cards.

The Battle Book is a smaller, separate book that is used for the cooperative campaign, which is unlocked along with Chapter 3. This was originally included in the Shadow of Salvation expansion.

The main game board is a double-sided tri-fold board, with spaces for the center deck, a banished area, and the six center row cards. One side of the board has an additional panel for the cooperative campaign mode, and the other has a panel for the Ingeminex, which are unlocked in Chapter 4. I do like the fact that I can fold over the Ingeminex panel to make the board a little smaller for the first three chapters, when the extra panels are unnecessary. (The original game did not include a board at all—really you just need room for the deck, a banished cards pile, and the six center row cards.)

The player mats are just cardstock—again, not entirely necessary, but they help you organize your deck and discard pile, as well as providing a limited amount of space for your champions. They do have character stories on the back. The retail edition just uses the hero cards to track who is who instead of these mats.

The health/mastery dials are wide and rectangular, with two digits for each. These are a big improvement from the original game, which had a single dial for each number, going up to 50 for health and 30 for mastery, making for a very large tracker for each player. Although the trackers are basically identical, they do have a different shard colors to match the player colors. (The boss’s health dial goes up to 90 instead.)

One of the primary reasons I backed this was that the original games and expansions came in smaller boxes and there was no really good way to combine them into one box, particularly with the really large player trackers. I liked the idea of having a one-box solution, though unfortunately there wasn’t a way to get just the box and storage and use my own existing cards. The box insert works pretty well, but the one thing I find odd is that the large foil cards are underneath all of the health trackers, and unless I’m playing a 6-player cooperative game I wouldn’t typically need to remove all of them—but, as I said before, those large cards are also mostly decorative and I usually don’t even use them. (I don’t know how everything is stored in the retail edition, where you’ll use the large hero cards instead of the mats.)

How to Play Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection

You can download a copy of the rulebook here. There are a few different play modes in the game, including solo and cooperative modes, but I’ll explain the basic gameplay (Chapter 1) first.

The Goal

The goal of the game is to eliminate all the other players.

Setup

Place the gameboard in the center of the playing area. Shuffle the center deck cards and place them on the space provided, and then reveal the top six cards to form the market.

Give each player a starting deck of cards, a hero card (or mat), and a health tracker set to 50 health. The first player starts with 0 mastery, the second player has 1 mastery, and so on. Shuffle your own deck and draw 5 cards.

Gameplay

On your turn, you may take actions in any order: play cards, acquire cards, use your focus ability, attack.

Most of the cards you play are “Ally” cards—you place the card in an area called the play zone and do its effect. Most cards will generate gems (currency for acquiring new cards) or power (for attacking), but there are a host of other effects as well.

Unify effects will give you bonus effects if you have other cards of the same faction, and Dominion effects have bonuses if you play a card from each faction.

Champions are cards that will stay in play, and they can be exhausted once on each of your turns for their abilities. Champions also have health, and will stay in play until another player attacks them or uses an effect to destroy them, at which point they go into your discard pile.

Some cards have mastery threshold bonuses: if you have reached a mastery level shown on the card, then the card has a stronger effect. Of particular note is the Infinity Shard, one of your starting cards: if you have 30 mastery, it gives you infinite power, which means you automatically win by defeating everyone else.

To acquire a card, you pay the gem cost (shown in the top right corner) and place it into your discard pile. Mercenary cards—outlined in red—can be fast-played: pay the cost and use the card’s effect immediately as if you played it from your hand. At the end of your turn, fast-played cards will be banished from the game. The card market is refilled each time a card is acquired or fast-played.

Each turn, you may “focus” once—spend 1 gem to gain 1 mastery.

You may use attack power to attack other players or their champions. To attack a champion, you must use enough power to match its total health, because damage does not carry over from turn to turn. You may attack players at the end of your turn, using whatever power you have remaining, and you may split up the damage among players however you chose. Some cards have shield icons on them—if a player is attacked and they have shields in their hand, they may reveal them to reduce damage by that amount. (Shields cannot be used to protect champions.)

At the end of your turn, discard all the cards in your play zone, as well as any left in your hand that you chose not to play. Unspent gems and power are lost. Draw a new hand of five cards.

Game End

If you are reduced to 0 health, you are eliminated from the game. The game ends when there is only one player left, who wins!

Continuing the Campaign

As you play Shards of Infinity, you can mark achievements on the saga tracker as you play. While it’s not required (and you can certainly just add all the expansion content in immediately), the tasks are a way to make sure that you’re familiar enough with the rules of the game before you add some more rules. For instance, to unlock Chapter 2, you just need to complete 4 of the 8 possible tasks, ranging from “Win a game with 30 mastery” to “Have 3 or more champions in play at one time.”

Chapter 2: Visions of the Future adds the relic cards. Each of the characters has two relic cards; when you reach 10 mastery, you choose one of them to add to your deck, and the other card is banished. They provide two different approaches to playing that character and are what introduces the asymmetric player powers to the game.

Later chapters unlock the warping ability—fast-playing non-Mercenary cards—and the Shadow of Salvation cooperative campaign. You’ll also meet the Ingeminex, enemies that will appear in the center deck and attack all the players. Finally, the last chapter is the Destiny expansion, where characters will gain destiny cards that give unique abilities—if you win, then you lock that destiny card to your character, with the ultimate goal of claiming 3 destiny cards.

Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection is GeekDad Approved!

Why You Should Play Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection

As I mentioned in the components section, I bought Shards of Infinity myself through the Kickstarter campaign. What I didn’t say earlier is that this is a game I like so much that I’ve bought it twice. Back when it was first released, I didn’t have the opportunity to review it, but I was curious about it and picked up a copy at my local game store. Over the years, I ended up buying all of the expansions for it, but I was never entirely satisfied with needing several small boxes for everything. (The original health/mastery trackers were so large that I ended up having one box with cards, and one with just the trackers, and then a third for some of the expansion content that didn’t fit in the first two.)

So when Stoneblade announced that they were making an all-in-one box set, I was thrilled. Of course, I would have preferred an option to get just a box to put all my existing games into, but a combination of factors made it logistically impossible—card tweaks, a 6th player, and some improved components. I sold off my old set and have been enjoying the new version, working my way through the saga.

Shards of Infinity owes a lot to Ascension, which was first published in 2010 and has spawned several expansions, as well as a spin-off tactics game. Ascension was, after Dominion and Thunderstone, one of the earliest deck-building games, and I think the first to use a center deck rather than the market stacks. Ascension essentially featured two currencies—runes and power—which were used to recruit cards and attack enemies, but the fact that all of the cards were mixed together in the center deck could lead to disappointing turns. If you had a lot of runes but the center row was filled with monsters, you felt cheated. Likewise, if you had a lot of power but there were no monsters in the center row, you had to make do with fighting the ever-present cultist (who wasn’t worth much).

Shards of Infinity still has those two currencies, but now the enemies you fight aren’t in the center deck—they’re other players, and their champions. If you have a lot of attack power, there’s always something to hit. Of course, it’s still possible that you have a lot of gems and there are only cheaper cards in the market, but it’s less likely that you can’t spend anything at all. That’s just one of the ways that Shards of Infinity takes the lessons learned from nearly a decade of Ascension and makes some tweaks that I think really improve the experience.

The faction colors in Shards of Infinity will also be somewhat familiar to fans of Ascension. Each one has its own sorts of strengths: Undergrowth (green) tends to focus on healing, Homodeus (yellow) relies on a lot of champions, Wraethe (purple) does a lot of damage and lets you banish cards. Even though your character represents one of the factions, you can still recruit whatever you want, but the unify effects mean that there are benefits to specializing. Meanwhile, the dominion effects pull you in the other direction: what are the odds that you can get at least card of each faction?

The mercenaries are a mechanic that felt new to Shards of Infinity. In most deck-building games, you put new cards into your discard pile, and you’ll have to wait until you get all the way through the rest of your deck before you get to shuffle them in—and then maybe they’re at the bottom of the deck. If you see an effect that you really want right away, mercenaries give you that ability. The downside, though, is that you only get the effect once, because you don’t get to keep the card. Still, sometimes that’s worth it, getting a powerful effect without diluting your deck.

I like all the various modes of play included in Shards of Infinity: the cooperative mode, which uses the battle book, is its own mini-campaign where you’ll play multiple rounds, choosing a boss to fight each time. The destiny mode is also its own campaign, ideally played with the same group of players as you compete to lock in your destinies.

If you like deck-building games, I highly recommend Shards of Infinity, whether you go for the original base game or the all-in-one Saga Collection. If I’d reviewed the original back in 2018, I definitely would have given it our GeekDad Approved seal then, so consider this a long-overdue award!

For more info, visit the Stoneblade Entertainment website.

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