January 2026
Games I played for the first time this month, from worst to best, along with my ratings and comments.
Cabanga – 5/10
Cabanga is a very simple card game, about the weight of the very lightest games like Tsuro and Just One. I’m a bit loath to even explain the rules at all, because that won’t make it sound very fun. The actual experience is better than it sounds, though it’s still a fairly inessential affair.
Your goal is to get rid of all your cards. Cards come in four colors and are numbered from 1 to 18. On your turn, you will play one card to its matching discard pile. Each color actually has two discard piles, and you would like to keep the values of the two top cards as close together as possible.
The gap between the two top cards is an opportunity for other players to play cards out-of-turn, yelling “Cabanga!” in delight as they do so. For example, if you discard a yellow 12 onto one of the two yellow discard piles, and the other yellow discard pile shows a 9, players can throw in any yellow 10s or 11s they have. Each card an opponent plays this way will force you to draw a new card from the draw pile, undoing your progress in emptying your hand.
So what are the strategies here? Well, not much. You do need to pay attention so you don’t miss Cabanga opportunities. Cabangortunities. You might have a tough choice about whether to play a card that allows fewer options for your opponents versus getting higher-penalty cards out of your hand. But for the most part, you just enjoy the ride.
For what its worth, I think most people I’ve played with enjoyed this more than I did. And it will definitely stay on my shelf as a teach-it-in-30-seconds filler that will generate cheers and jeers. Just don’t stare to hard at it, lest you break the illusion that your choices matter much.
Panda Spin – 7/10
Panda Spin is not a trick-taking game, no matter how many times its rules insist on referring to it as such. It’s a climbing and shedding game, in the vein of Tichu. Players will make sets and runs, each of which must be better than the previous one (climbing) and the hand proceeds until all players but one pass (not trick-taking, in which each player only plays once).
Climbing and trick-taking are often unfortunately conflated, but both have seen plenty of new games use these mechanics in recent years. So there must be a twist of some kind to set it apart. In this case, there’s a hint in the title: the cards have different values at the top and bottom, and you have the ability to spin them to their better side at certain points in the game. Fans of Scout will likely recognize some influence.
All of your cards start on their weaker side. But if you ever play weak-side cards that get beat, they go back to your hand spun to their stronger side. This will improve your chances of getting rid of those cards, not just because they’re now more likely to win a hand, but also because if they get beat again, they are simply discarded rather than returning to your hand.
The game always feels good to play, because any time you play cards from your hand, something good will happen. You’ll get rid of cards or they’ll get better, and you might even win the hand getting to lead the next one. Deciding how to make sets and runs of the cards you own as well as when and how to use your powerful spun cards are the primary strategic choices offered.
Panda Spin does enough with its twist to justify its existence and also happens to be a lot of fun to play. The rulebook is not the cleanest, but the ruleset itself works quite smoothly. It doesn’t rise to the level of the very best card games like Scout or Seas of Strife, but I’m happy to play it.
Riftbound – 8/10
Did you know they are still making new CCGs? Sure, not as many as during the glut of the mid-90’s. But, especially if a popular IP can be leveraged, it does still happen (see also: Lorcana, Star Wars Unlimited). For some people, the whole concept will be a dealbreaker. It’s often a money pit with little chance of recouping the investment. And that’s especially true with Riftbound, which has been plagued with shortages and scalpers since day one. But, in its defense, Riftbound brings a lot more to the table than its contemporaries from a gameplay standpoint.
As is so often the case, the influence of Magic is inescapable here. You will pay mana to play increasingly powerful creatures, which then can attack until they die. Likewise, you can play spells, which also cost mana, but provide a one-time, instant effect. Still, like the very best riffs on Magic, the feel is something totally different and unique.
Instead of attacking your opponent directly, you will attack one of two locations. Taking over a location will grant you a point (one of the eight you need to win), but you will need to be stronger than any opponent’s creatures that happen to already occupy said location. By taking over both locations in a turn, you can score two points, generally the maximum possible. But hold on to a location until your next turn, repelling any attempts at seizure by your opponent, and you’ll score it again. Deciding which location to attack and how much to commit to holding a location once you have it add seriously meaningful decisions to the already existing ones such as how to spend your mana and manage your hand.
This system has the effect of making combat the real heart of the game. If you wish that Giant Growth was a tournament staple, you’ll probably really enjoy the vibe here. Yet aggro, tempo, midrange, and control archetypes can certainly exist and succeed. At least at this point in its life cycle, just one set in, Riftbound decks offer various paths to victory while avoiding overly-complex board states that grind the game to a halt with analysis paralysis as well as the opposite side of the coin, decks that have no intention of interacting with the board and simply seek to play an interminable combo while you watch helplessly.
If you didn’t understand some lingo in the previous paragraph, that’s okay. This game is probably not targeted at you. It’s accessible enough in terms of complexity, but it does seem to make certain assumptions of the players and their familiarity with games like this. If you’re into League of Legends, its TV show Arcane, or you’re just in the market for a CCG that offers something different but still strategically dense, keep an eye on this one.
Scholars of the South Tigris – 8/10
Nearly all of the Shem Phillips titles follow the [Profession]s of the [Cardinal Direction] [Place], which makes them annoyingly difficult to keep straight. So if you find this confusing, you’re not alone. And, fair warning, if you are expecting a mid-weight euro, like many of them are, you’ll be surprised at the complexity weight that Scholars of the South Tigris offers.
The main way to score points in the game is by track movement. There are six main tracks you can progress on, each with different bonuses along the way and more points the higher you go. But you can also pursue points via an area majority mechanic in a separate area of the board. To enable these actions and increase their efficiency, you’ll also need to hire the titular Scholars, who will either provide you a one-time bonus or, if you compensate them well enough, an ongoing bonus and endgame points as well.
So far this isn’t exactly groundbreaking. And while that’s true, there are some subtitles and twists to each of these board spaces that create tactical interest that is too complex to explain in this summary. Suffice it to say, each action is interesting in its own way, even once you’ve solved the problem of which one to choose.
But the real innovative twist is the dice. This is a bag-builder, and as you pull dice out, you will immediately roll them. The values they show indicate the strength of the action you can take. However, you have the option to add two dice together, making a single action stronger, but perhaps limiting the amount of actions you can take. Cleverest of all, the dice have colors. White dice can only be used for very basic actions, while the red, blue, and yellow dice can be used for better ones. But if you combine two of the colored dice together for an action, you make be able to take an even more powerful purple, orange, or green action. This use of elementary school color-mixing knowledge is quite charming while at the same time adding a layer of relevant decision-making.
Despite being a lengthy and complex euro, the charm of rolling dice, bag-building, and managing your colors injects a surprising level of fun. It should be noted though, a four-player game with several newbies ran over three hours, which isn’t a dealbreaker by any means, but it is difficult to imagine even a game with only two experienced players lasting the 60 minutes that the box claims. Still, if you don’t mind the rules weight or the playing time, there is a lot to explore and enjoy.
A highly recommended game that I have most certainly played prior to this month, probably many times.
Conquest of Planet Earth – 9/10
Conquest of Planet Earth: The Space Alien Game is not nearly as popular as it deserves to be. I think the primary reason is one of marketing. It came out just a few months after another Flying Frog game, Invasion From Outer Space: The Martian Game. Obviously, that’s pretty confusing. But where IFOS:TMG was simply a re-theme of the didn’t-need-to-be-re-themed classic Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game, Conquest offers an amazing experience that feels like the designers knew exactly what I like in a game and gave it to me.
You play an alien race bent on the domination of our humble planet. However, there are other alien races as well, each with their own special powers. Only one thing is certain: the humans can’t win. So, as in Cosmic Encounter, your alien race has a special set of powers that are different from everyone else. In addition to the special abilities your race affords you, each race also has two stats: strength and intelligence. Intelligence is essentially your size of your hand, which refills at the end of each turn. Strength is the combat value of each of your plastic spaceships. When using your ships to take over objectives or battle other aliens, you will each add up your total strength and each roll a die to be added as well. A roll of 6 is a critical hit (automatic win), so you are never completely outgunned. These races feel very thematic and definitely demand a different play style depending on both your powers and your opponents’ powers.
One of the most brilliant mechanics in this game is the action point system. Basically, you have 6 action tokens numbered 2-6 and d6. (So instead of a 1, there is a d6.) Obviously, you want as many actions as possible each turn so… oh wait. Actually, the player who plays the lowest action token gets to go first. Sometimes, that is extremely crucial, and at all times it is useful. But wait, there’s more! Each action token has to be used before you can use another one (except the d6 which has no limit on its uses). So once your 6 is used, the best you can do is use a 5. When you have spent your 3,4,5, and 6, all you have left is a 2 and a d6, wouldn’t you just use the d6 the rest of the game? Well no, because once you have spent all your action tokens (aside from the d6), you get all of them back. So you will need to decide when you plan to take a lousy 2-action turn so that you can get your big action tokens back. The best time to do this? When you want to go first of course! I hope that wasn’t terribly confusing because it’s a beautiful and intuitive thing in practice.
So many incredibly tough decisions. Should you hang on to a card that is really useful in certain situations, or discard it to draw more cards? Do I use my instant battle winning card this battle, or might there be a time of greater need? How do I manage my action tokens? How many aliens should I commit to each battle, especially since I am also rewarded for spreading out and exploring? How do I spend my action points and tokens?
With two players, it’s much more beer-and-pretzels, because it’s quicker and there’s no ganging up. But with 3 or 4 (4 especially) it really shines, creating some extremely memorable situations that will leave you talking about “that one time” long after the game is over.
Did I mention I’m only talking about the competitive version of the game, but there is a co-op scenario as well? I’ve never even played it! The competitive game is so good, a true masterpiece of Ameritrash, that when I pull it out of the box, it’s all I want to play.
Every single game seems to come down to the wire, with one player making a desperate bid for the final objective they need and other players throwing every card they can at them to stop it from happening. There’s never a “sneaky win”, it’s always hard fought and extremely satisfying. The humans are appropriately pathetic, easily crushed by the alien forces, and the weakest have the keyword SOFT, because they are pink and squishy. Just watch out for Earth’s mightiest hero, Captain Fantastic! I could go on, but I won’t. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if anything I’ve said appeals to you at all, play this one ASAP. |
