Gen Con 2026 – Devir

If I had to pick one adjective for Devi’s booth, it would be colorful. From the rainbow pie pieces in the party game, One Round? To the wildly colorful Gaudi (not gaudy, though!) and its rondel, to the clay craftspeople (worker placement) of Nijar, and the over-the-top centerpiece of Orloj: The Prague Astronomical Clock. Each provides a riot of color (of which I’m not complaining, I’m a big fan of color…) Sure, the Rock Hard 1977 expansion Ear Candy isn’t exactly a rainbow. The goofy potion art of Risky Mixes has some color, but the moody, dark dice-battler 7th Seal isn’t going to show up on the color-o-meter. Overall, I felt like I was in a boardgame world of stained glass. But while the colors are nice, what about the games?

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Dale Yu: Review of Rocking Raft

Rocking Raft

  • Designer: Carlo Emanuele Lanzavecchia
  • Publisher: Horrible Guild
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 6+
  • Time: 15 minutes
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3TgM4pz
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Adrift on the open sea, a creaking raft carries a glittering pile of stolen treasure. Gems slide and tumble across the deck as pirates rock the raft to grab the richest prizes… Gather the sparkling loot and load it into your Lifeboats, and make sure to grab as much loot as possible before the Pirate Flag signals the end. When the chaos settles, the pirate who rescued the most valuable treasure wins! 

 

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Gen Con 2026 – Thames & Kosmos

The blue tables of Thames & Kosmos were busy with folks clamoring for more of what they like. The newest title in The Crew line, Journey to the Ends of the Earth and the deluxe version of The Gang were sold out every day. In addition to more in the Exit series (family, kids, holiday calendar, and regular versions) there was the new hot-potato-ish word game, Oh My Word and the co-op tower-rotating Temple Twist. Rounding out my booth visit was a mention of the “spicy-ish” party game Realtalk: Fourth Wing and the not-spicy flower-growing game, Wildblooms.

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Dale Yu: Review of Omens

 

Omens

  • Designer: Maxime Rambourg
  • Publisher: Spiral Editions
  • Players: 4-6
  • Age: 14+
  • Time: 30 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

You’ve found a mysterious box filled with strange cards. As you try to decipher their meaning, you soon realize that you won’t be able to do it without help. Surrounded by your friends, you begin to unravel their secret: played the right way, the cards eventually disappear. But they always come back, safely tucked away in the box, for the next game. In Omens, you team up to get rid of your cards until you have only one left in your hand. Each of your cards interacts with the cards played by your partner, as well as those of your opponents, so you need to play them at the right moment! The team that sheds its cards first wins.

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Kickstarter Preview of 2 Button Shy games – The Cursed Cat, Forest Rivals

 

So, we don’t do a lot of Kickstarter Previews, but I was approached by Button Shy to look at their newest offerings which will go live in August 2026.  

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/239309591/button-shy-micro-games-summer-2026-collection

I’ll admit that I’m on a bit of a Button Shy high right now, having spent much of this year playing through a huge collection that I bought second-hand back in January.  The company is well known for its tiny format – eighteen card games that come in a nice little pocket sized wallet.  As of 2026, the company announced that they will now start packaging their games in boxes (to help fit in to retail norms), but that doesn’t change the amazing amount of innovation and ingenuity needed to cram such good games into this small format.

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Gen Con 2026 – Luma Imports

Hot on the heels of Dale Yu’s review of Not Alone: Remastered Edition from Geek Attitude Games, you get to see it again here as I was given a rundown on the new title by the folks at Luma Imports. We also discussed the new release of the popular two player card game, Compile: Main 3 by Synapses Games. Of course, I also had to stop to look at the great art in Postcards it seemed to manage to perfectly fit the cycling around France vibe.

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