JinxO, Rebirth, and Mooki Island Are SdJ Winners

Yesterday, the Spiel des Jahres jury announced the winners of their three awards.  The big award (the SdJ) goes to JinxO, a party game from Martin Ang.  It beat out the other two nominated games, Cozy Stickerville and Morty Sorty Magic Shop.

The winner of the Kennerspiel (for “connoisseur” games) is Rebirth, from Reiner Knizia.  This gives Knizia an SdJ triple crown of sorts, as he had previously won the SdJ for Keltis and the Kinderspiel for Whoowasit?.  The other nominated games were Boss Fighters QR and Moon Colony Bloodbath.

Finally, the Kinderspiel for best children’s game went to Mooki Island, by Florian Sirieix, emerging victorious over Boo Party and Verflixt Verzaubert.

Congratulations to all the winners!

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Dale Yu: Review of One Round?

One Round?

Designer: Tobias Tesar
Publisher: DEVIR
Players: 2-12
Age: 8+
Time: 15 minutes
Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4h9uBt8
Played with review copy provided by publisher

What do the terms “work” and “banana” have in common? Perhaps the word “farmer”? What about “harvest”? And where does “fruit” fit in? In the co-operative party game One Round?, you need to close the gaps in the word circle — quickly! — in order to win. The game is played with one hundred numbered cards on which you can write.

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Heroscape: RenegadeCon June 2026

Not quite a month ago, the good folks at Renegade Game Studios hosted yet another RenegadeCon – an online “convention” with new product reveals, painting videos, playthroughs, and general silliness. As always, RenegadeCon meant lots of information about the upcoming Heroscape releases… in addition to lots of extra ‘Scape related content. My job is to distill all that information down into a digestible blog post, enabling you to watch the video content you want to watch and get all the skinny on the cool items getting ready to come down the pike in October 2026.

Fall 2026 New Releases 

As the Secrets of the Citadel era continues, the newest wave is entitled Nastra’s Nightmare… which is not surprising what with Santa’s evil twin, the Frankenstein monster’s cousin, and a couple of common squads with unusual hardware. But the nightmare also has a silver lining with remastered “old skool” Heroscape favorites – a veritable bohnanza of Jandar-aligned heroes and squads that have long been out of print.

Good news for Heroscape players: all four of the boxes that contain common squads have TWO of each squad in the box. This makes it much easier (and less expensive!) to build armies based on these kind of squads and/or particular types of bonding/reliance with heroes. I’m really glad to see Renegade doing this and hope it continues as they move forward.

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Dale Yu: Review of Micro Hero: Hercules

 

 

Micro Hero: Hercules

  • Designer: Leandre Proust
  • Publisher: Grammes Edition
  • Players: 1 – 2
  • Age: 10+
  • Time:  20 minutes x 12 
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Step into the mythological and humorous world of Micro Hero: Hercules, a minimalist solo deck-building card game inspired by the 12 Labors of Hercules. As the legendary hero, you’ll embark on an epic adventure, revisiting his mythical feats with a fresh, humorous twist. This compact and strategic game invites you to prove your strength and resilience as you face increasingly challenging obstacles.

 

Each game consists of twelve rounds, each representing one of Hercules’ Labors. Using your deck of technique cards, you’ll gather experience points (EXP) to improve your abilities, upgrade your cards, and overcome mythological foes. Master the balance between offensive and defensive stances, strategically chaining your card plays to unleash powerful combinations while minimizing the damage you take.

 

Your goal is to complete all 12 Labors of Hercules without succumbing to the burden of wound cards. To triumph in each round, you must reduce the Labor’s health to zero by dealing enough damage while defending yourself from its attacks. Defeated Labors transform into blessing cards, which can be added to your arsenal for future rounds. Victory is achieved by completing all 12 Labors consecutively, while the game is lost if your deck becomes overwhelmed by wounds.

 

With its evolving card system and streamlined mechanics, Micro Hero: Hercules offers high replayability and minimal randomness, ensuring every decision is impactful. Each Labor takes about twenty minutes to complete, and the game can be paused between rounds, making it perfect for long campaigns or quick sessions.

 

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Dale Yu: Review of Tiny Towns: Fortune

 

 Tiny Towns: Fortune

  • Designers: Peter McPherson, Josh Wood
  • Publisher: AEG
  • Players: 1-6
  • Age: 12+
  • Time: 45-60 minutes
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4v81EC8
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

The smaller creatures of the forest have created a civilization free of predators, and they look to you as mayor to guide their growing and thriving town. However, the area is small, and resources are scarce. The clever use of limited resources will determine the most successful tiny town.

In the expansion Tiny Towns: Fortune, the creatures of the forest have found a way to trick each other into thinking shiny bits of metal have arbitrary value. It’s very useful — so much so that you can use this thing called “money” to get other creatures to give you almost anything in return for the right number of shiny bits. If only earning money weren’t so difficult!

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Dale Yu: Review of Golden Goal

 

 

Golden Goal

  • Designer: Corne von Moorsel
  • Publisher: Allplay
  • Players: 2
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 15 mins
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3QnUevz
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

After a hard-fought battle, the game is tied, and it’s down to overtime. The first team to score a goal wins immediately!  Unfold an entire soccer pitch from this tiny box as you line up your squad to face down your rival club. Use clever positioning to set up that perfect shot into your opponents goal, but be sure to protect your own goal as well!

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