Dale Yu: Review of Jibber Jabble

 

 

Jibber Jabble

  • Designer: Cassie Sikes
  • Publisher: Allplay
  • Players: 3-10
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 15 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Your goal each round is to convey a secret word to the round’s guesser. You and your team gets to spell three words in order to do that.

Players spell one letter each. The catch? They aren’t allowed to discuss what clue they’re trying to spell. The first time you have a perfect clue in mind, but the person next to you says a letter you weren’t expecting at all… well, that’s Jibber Jabble.

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Dale Yu: Review of Grabble

 

 

Grabble

  • Designer:  Naoki Fukuda
  • Publisher: CMYK
  • Players: 2-6
  • Age: 6+
  • Time: 5 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Here’s how it works: you have a box of gloriously mismatched pieces from games that never existed—hogs, bananas, traffic cones, dice! On the count of 3-2-1-GO, everyone plunges a hand into the box, grabbing pieces as fast as they can, one at a time, and dropping them into their cup. The moment someone’s cup is full, they snatch the huge pawn and count down 5-4-3-2-1-STOP! Last player to slap the table pays them a piece.

 

Then comes the showdown. Players take turns calling out a piece from their stash and tossing it back in the box. Got one too? Toss it back in. Don’t have it? You’re OUT.

 

Last player standing wins! 

 

…and immediately demands a rematch.

 

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Dale Yu – Report from CapCon2026 (lots of new Essen games!)

 

Well, I just got done with a weekend full of new games at the local CapCon2.  This is an event run by Capstone Games – which just happens to be headquartered in my hometown.  It’s a wonderful event, free to participate – though the badges were limited, so you had to act quickly in order to secure a badge.

 

Capstone opens up their warehouse space with tables and chairs, and you can always also move into the adjoining store.  There were anywhere from 20 to 60 people there at the times I was there, and plenty of games to play!  Capstone had a full library of their previous releases, and they also had a handful of games that will feature at this year’s SPIEL fair in Essen.  Many of them will be done here in the US by Capstone, and others were here for a test-drive (so to speak) – and decisions on those will be made in the upcoming weeks.

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Dale Yu: Review of Codenames: Critical Role Adventures

 

 

Codenames: Critical Role Adventures

  • Designers: Vlaada Chvatil and Felix Podlesny 
  • Publisher: CGE
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 25 min/player
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

 

Enter the world of Exandria, a land of infinite wonder and unexpected champions, and experience the Critical Role adventures through Codenames. Assemble a party of heroes from the first three Critical Role campaigns, embark on missions, and level up your characters to defeat the final boss.

Codenames: Critical Role Adventures is a unique take on Codenames inspired by the Critical Role universe. It’s a fully cooperative version of the game where one GM (game master) leads their party through perilous missions, each with its own twist and take on the classic Codenames rules and featuring a new set of themed words. Play the game in three separate campaigns, choose from seven Critical Role characters, and, by levelling them up, unlock new abilities and equip items to use during missions.

 

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“I’ll Have a Wicked Game”: A Review of Distilled: Cocktails

As a youngster, we used to drive by a bar/lounge every time my family went most weekends to visit my grandparents. As neither of my parents drank, I kept peering at the neon sign on the side of the building, confused by the word. I finally asked my parents, “What are cook tales?”

Fast forward 55+ years. Like my folks, I don’t drink – but I do know what a cocktail is. Well, now I do. 

I also know the identity of my favorite game of 2024 – Distilled. Distilled has both drafting & push-your-luck elements, along with a smidgen of set collecting & a bit of engine building. That can sound like a mish-mash… but it actually pulls together nicely into a very playable game. 

Distilled: Cocktails is a big expansion to the original game that was released this summer… and it’s my privilege to let you know how it works and what it does (and doesn’t) do to the original game.

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Dale Yu: Review of a_way

 

 

a_way

  • Designers:  Clément Bongibault, Louis Fievre, Benjamin Niess, Hugo Socié 
  • Publisher: Blue Orange
  • Players: 1-4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 10-30 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

In a_way, players take part in the legendary spaceship race of the Quazarys galaxy. Each pilot must reach their own base — which is also an opponent’s starting point. The race track is made of solar paths filled with stations, directional arrows, and strange space phenomena, creating a constantly shifting cosmic circuit where clever navigation matters as much as speed.

On your turn, you combine movement and card play to advance your ship. Players move from station to station, respecting one-way routes and mandatory checkpoints, while avoiding landing on the same station as an opponent. Cards drawn from a shared deck allow players to manipulate the board, trigger special effects, teleport through vortices, or disrupt rivals. You may play single cards or powerful combos from the same faction, discard cards to cycle your hand, and gain an extra movement each turn for well-timed bursts of speed.

Positioning and timing are key: you can leap over opposing ships if conditions are right, anticipate blocked paths, and adapt as the layout changes. The game ends immediately when a player reaches the opposing base (or the base directly across from their own in games with three or four players).

a_way is a fast, tactical race where clever card play and sharp movement decisions decide who crosses enemy territory first.

 

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