Dale Yu: Review of Misfit Heroes

 

 

Misfit Heroes

  • Designer: Phil Walker-Harding
  • Publisher: AEG
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 30-45 minutes
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4xvABBQ
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

After a bizarre interdimensional event of massive proportions, Earth as we know it has been forever altered when a fantastic realm merged with ours. The result is a land called Absurdia, where magical beasts live among ordinary people and vice-versa. There’s no going back to the way things were in this place of improbable combinations from monster-accountants to cosmic wedding planners.

In Misfit Heroes, players are organizing crews in hopes of claiming influence to win over the hearts and minds of the citizens in nearby regions. The character cards players will use are different every time you play! Before a game, the cards you will use are created by placing each character transparency together with an attribute card in a card sleeve. You’ll never know which new characters are in the deck, and the combinations are almost endless!

During play, each character card gives a player special actions, such as earning money, drawing more cards, and (most importantly) gaining influence in the mountain, forest, sea, and city regions of the kingdom. When a player has collected 6 influence, they may claim a region of the corresponding type, which scores them points. The player who best uses their characters in combination and gains the most points wins!

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Dale Yu: Review of Tales of Myth & Legend

 

 

Tales of Myth & Legend

  • Designers: Michael Guigliano, Keith Ward, Bobby West 
  • Publisher: Van Ryder Games
  • Players: 1-4
  • Age: 14+
  • Time: 60-150 mins
  • Amazon affiliate link: 
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Tales of Myth & Legend is a paragraph book game set in the time of ancient Greece. Players each control a fledgling hero or heroine that has their sights set on power and glory. The players compete not only with each other, but also against Alexander the Great himself.

 

In each round of the game, players simultaneously play a movement card that determines how far they will travel. Based on the results, the turn order will be adjusted, with players traveling farther distances going last, and those traveling shorter going first. In turn order, each player visits a city or location and has an encounter there, choosing a type — e.g., political, religion, or strength — based on the types available. The encounter is read aloud to the player, then they have to choose how to proceed.

 

Tales of Myth & Legend features many surprises and hidden components that are unlocked only based on certain events! With thousands of possible stories and encounters, this is a game you’ll be playing for years to come!

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Solo Gaming 2026: The First Eight Months

The new era of well-designed automata and solo modes for multiplayer games, coupled with excellent new solo game designs, is actually quite heartening to someone (me!) who finds something very satisfying about physically playing a game: shuffling cards, moving pieces, seeing it all spread out in front of you. (I will note that the new era has also brought some really weak solo modes for games that probably shouldn’t have had a solo mode in the first place, but I’m trying to focus on gratitude rather than griping in 2026.)

Solo gaming is now a decent-sized chunk of my gaming experiences – while I still play a lot of games with friends and family, 21% of my gaming in the first eight months of 2026 was solo. Last year is was over 31% for January through August, so this is a bit of a drop-off. For comparison, the yearly total for 2025 was 24%, the yearly total for 2024 was 31%, 2023 was 20%, 2022 was 22%, 2021 was 33%, 2020 was 19%, and 2019 was 6%. I’ve actually more opportunities for both online play (BGA and playtesting games on TTS) and in-person play this year… and I think that I’m playing a greater number of long-ish solo games.

So, what follows are my thoughts on the forty-nine (49) different solo games I’ve played so far in 2026 – ordered by the number of times I’ve played them. (Note: this is not necessarily how much I like a particular game for solo play – for example, I think Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread is an excellent solo game design but I haven’t played it [yet!] in 2026.)

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Dale Yu: Review of Cascadia Alpine Lakes

 

 

Cascadia Alpine Lakes

  • Designer: Randy Flynn 
  • Publisher: AEG / Flatout Games
  • Players: 1-4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 30-45 mins
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4yjWdkB
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Cascadia: Alpine Lakes is a standalone follow-up to the hit spatial puzzle game Cascadia! In this puzzly tile-layering game, players continue the journey started in Cascadia to create the most diverse Pacific Northwest environment as they draft new double-hexagon habitat tiles and unique new wildlife tokens to build out — and up — their beautiful landscape mosaic.

Each game of Cascadia: Alpine Lakes features unique combinations of scoring objectives linked to how the five wildlife species are arranged across three different alpine habitats. Players also score for how well surrounded and elevated their lakes and wildlife are. Habitat and environment scoring cards add unique scoring conditions so that each game provides a new spatial challenge with thousands of possible combinations.

Turns are simple: Choose a habitat tile and wildlife token pair, then place them into your expanding environment. This time, each habitat tile is a double-hexagon and tiles can be stacked. Many of the core game mechanisms are similar to Cascadia, but the twist is that each habitat scores in different ways and your environment is now a three-dimensional spatial puzzle with new stacking and adjacency challenges.

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Dale Yu: Review of Trial of the Forest

 

 

Trial of the Forest

  • Designer: Giancarlo Spinelli
  • Publisher: Rebel studio
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 12+
  • Time: 60-120 min
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3Tpm9MK
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Embark on a journey deep into the ancient forest of The Trial of the Forest. Traverse labyrinthine paths, gather resources and choose which deeds you wish to accomplish. You may peacefully forage for berries or seek lost artifacts on dangerous expeditions; ambush your rivals or surprise them with a cup of tea; buy equipment at a store or burn it to the ground. Each deed improves your skills and earns you fame. However, only one adventurer can emerge victorious from the Trial of the Forest.

The Trial of the Forest is a strategic narrative adventure game featuring resource management, multi-use cards, skill progression, combat and an evolving board. Every decision shapes your own story, creating a unique emergent narrative and forging a personal path to victory.

 

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Gen Con 2026 – Resurrection Games, Archon Studios, Avalon Hill, Hasbro

There’s still more to talk about in the gaming hall. It really is a big mix of trading card game, miniatures, and boardgames from big and small publishers.

 

A new publisher, Resurrection Games, had a very nice setup showing off their new superhero bag-builder battler called Brave & Bold. If I were going to spend far too much money on a miniatures game, StarCraft: Tabletop Miniatures Game by Archon Studios would be awfully tempting.

As is traditional, Hasbro and Avalon Hill were only to be found in the gaming hall. They had rereleases of Fury of Dracula (now 5th edition) and the old Guillotine card game along with the new Market Fresh game of produce-stacking. Hasbro had two new flavors of Monopoly Deal: KPop Demon Hunters and No Mercy. There is also a new release of the BB shooting Crossfire for some mindless fun. In honor of the wonderful midwestern weather, we’ll take a peek at the bonus water also appearing in the gaming hall.

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