Gulf Games started in 1998… and I’ve had the honor of being a part of it (on and off, due to living halfway across the country for a decade) for twenty-eight years. In 2015, I started bringing my oldest son with me, followed in 2017 by bringing both boys with me. With them grown up (25 and 21 -sigh) and living away from home, Gulf Games is not only a wonderful 4+ days of gaming, it’s also a really special time for the three of us.

The aforementioned fish-shaped ice cream sandwiches…

I won’t bore you with our family conversations, which covered everything from the haplessness of the Tennessee Titans to the merits of a fish-shaped ice-cream sandwich… but I will attempt to entertain you with my thoughts on the 41 different games I played over nearly five days. (They are grouped by number of plays and then alphabetical order.)

Games I Played Three Times

Natera: New Beginning (designers: Eric Fugere & Hugo Tremblay-Ledoux)

My good friend (and former boss – who my sons affectionally hail as “King Bob!”) described Natera: New Beginning as being “the right amount of crunchy”. I would heartily agree.

Thematically – in what should be no surprise to us here in 2026 – humans did something stupid and manage to kill themselves off… leaving behind animals getting smarter & smarter due to the “something stupid”. Which means that each of the players is part of an animal group trying to gain dominance by utilizing the stuff humans left behind. Natera is not that dark in its theme – it’s closer to Everdell than to Watership Down. It does remind me of Everdell in some ways – worker placement with resource management and tableau building – but with some interesting twists and its own rhythm.

Bob & Braeden making beaver faces in honor of Bob’s victorious beaver tribe.

Over the week, I had the opportunity to play Natera three times: once with three players, once solo (in my hotel room), and once with four players. While I am perfectly happy to play it any player count, I think the sweet spot will be three players – balancing length of game with some extra freedom of tribe member worker placement. The solo game pits your animal tribe against the robots the humans left behind, who really aren’t trying to kill you as much as they just get in the way over and over again – I liked it.

Collin (my younger son) won the three player, while “King Bob” and I tied in the four player game – which was resolved by him having SLIGHTLY more progress on the authority tracks than I did. All hail King Bob, indeed.

The three Jackson men loading into the hotel… man, I love my sons!

Games I Played Twice

Draftosaurus (designers: Antoine Bauza, Corentin Lebrat, Ludovic Maublanc, & Théo Rivière)

I first played Draftosaurus on BoardGameArena which does a nice job of translating this simple drafting game into an online format. This Gulf Games was actually my first opportunity to play the game with physical pieces, as well as playing both the “summer” and “winter” boards.

You’re just drafting dinosaurs and assigning them to different scoring areas – and while there is some look ahead based on what other players are doing, there’s still an element of press-your-luck for some of the scoring opportunities. The group I played with was a lot of fun, but I think I prefer Spirits of the Wild for this kind of drafting game.

Riverside (designers: Eilif Svensson & Åsmund Svensson)

I taught this slightly more complicated roll’n’write to two different groups last week – and lost both games. One of the nice design choices about Riverside is the variable nature of the board (which is made up of 10 randomly placed tiles). Your tactical choices about which village to visit with your boatload of tourists can be very different depending on the map you’re navigating.

Note: I originally played as an Essen release in 2021 – and finally got my own copy earlier this year (2026).

Gelini Nightlife (designer: Reiner Knizia)

Gelini Nightlife’s design is Dr. Knizia taking the base mechanic of his own Tutankhamen and makes it lighter and more enjoyable. And about gummi bears going to discos. You know if this is the right game for you based on that short description. I played it twice – one win, one loss. Happy to play it again (and again and again).

Some version of this picture is a tradition with the three of us.

Games I Played a Single Time

3 Chapters (designer: Joe Hout)

3 Chapters is short (15 minutes with experienced players, 30 minutes with a full table of five newbies) but it manages to mash together a “pass the hand” draft, a quick round of trick-taking, and a bit of card synergy for final scoring. Add in the some really nice cartoonish fairy tale art coupled with thematic touches to the various scoring opportunities… and I will happily jump into a game of this whenever anyone offers.

Battle Beyond Space (designer: Frank Branham)

I was a long-time playtester on this epic (but short!) space battler, the hyperbolically named Battle Beyond Space. You would think that all of that playtesting would make me really good at the game – but that would not be the case.

I’d love to see this reprinted with better minis and more variety in the special powers – but in the meantime I enjoy every time I get it to the table.

Big City (designer: Franz Benno Delonge)

I first played Big City at Gulf Games 3 – part of an incredible selection of new games brought in by Jay Tummelson who was coming pretty much directly from the Spielwarenmesse in Germany. (That haul included Union Pacific, Ra, Lost Cities, Tikal, Klunker, and Chinatown.) That was also the Gulf Games where I experienced Maxi Bambeleo (which is very cool!) and a serious crawfish boil.

So it was fun to bring the game and its cool 3D bits back to the table. Three players is probably the optimal number for the game –  and that’s how we played. (I won on the strength of church-building and making a nuisance of myself with the streetcars and a well-timed park.)

Circus Flohcati (designer: Reiner Knizia)

There are multiple editions of Zirkus Flohcati (the original German name of the game) – and my love for the original German art is probably more about nostalgia than it is the inherent value of the art itself. Either way, it’s WAY better than the creepy “flea heads on human bodies” edition.

Push-your-luck plus card drafting with some actual tactical decisions – and it plays in ten minutes? Yes, please.

Downtown Farmers Market (designers: Johan Benvenuto & Alexandre Droit)

Maybe it’s what I do for work – but Downtown Farmers Market feels a bit like you’ve designed your own spreadsheet and are trying to fill it. Charitably, it’s actually more like a self-created Sudoku puzzle where you’re drafting the pieces to make it work.

I actually turned out to be pretty good at it on my first play, edging out more experienced players.

EGO (designer: Reiner Knizia)

EGO is the re-imagining of Beowulf… in which he modifies the push-your-luck element, adds additional variety to the game system, and does away with the weirdly L-shaped board. Most importantly, the push-your-luck mechanism now rewards players who have 100% success and lets players who utterly fail off the hook – only punishing players who have partial success. This leads to some different decisions as you manage the anger of the alien races you’re negotiating with… all to the good.

In general, I like the new art style, though it does introduce some UI issues (the weird 1, 2, and 3 coin icons, for example) and the boards are awfully busy. But the game plays slightly quicker with additional variety to keep players from locking into a particular bidding pattern – what’s not to love?

Faraway (designers: Johannes Goupy & Corentin Lebrat)

While I still haven’t played any of the expansions, I’m happy to play this intriguing filler card game pretty much at the drop of a hat. As I wrote a few years back, a quote by Soren Kierkegaard inevitably makes me want to crack open Faraway and play: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

Fast Food Franchise (designer: Tom Lehmann)

I had the joy of teaching three new players (and one single play player) one of my favorite games: the Monopoly-adjacent genius of Tom Lehmann’s Fast Food Franchise. To my surprise, it was a five player game where no one was eliminated – but Laurie crushed us with her ever-expanding pizza empire.

Brian Leet wrote in our 138 Games To Play Before You Die series (which is well worth your time) that he once had a conversation with Tom Lehmann where he strongly suggested that “a gripping game will take the familiar and add to or twist it enough to be interesting, but not so much as to be confusing.” That’s Fast Food Franchise.

Flip 7 (designer: Eric Olsen)

First, stop with the Uno-fication of Flip 7 already. We don’t need a bunch of theme versions.

Second, enjoy it for what it is – a great filler game that combines elements of blackjack and the aforementioned Uno.

FlipToons (designers: Jordy Adan & Renato Simões)

I like FlipToons… but I don’t feel a need to own a copy. It’s a perfectly cromulent deck-builder game with a tableau-building element that doesn’t overstay its welcome and offers some fun decisions. Peter beat the rest of the table… but especially me.

I will note that we (the OG) just published a review of the new stand-alone FlipToons Season 2.

Free Ride (designer: Friedemann Friese)

Friedemann Friese’s Free Ride (say that five times fast) is a really solid game design that is unbelievably difficult to play at a reasonable clip without the aid of aftermarket bits to mark available cities. Thankfully, Leon’s copy of the game included 3D-printed bits that made this game run smoothly. And Leon won – I’ll give him credit rather than the 3D bits. :-)

Got Five! (designer: Yoann Levet)

I’m not the target audience for deduction games – but this clever little puzzler actually worked pretty well for me. The nice production quality coupled with the relative ease of the puzzle makes Got Five! a great family game that would help introduce folks to basic logic and puzzle-solving.

And I won, thanks to (a) a good tile draw, and (b) a fortuitous choice of clue tiles that narrowed my search range quickly. Also, beating Ted Alspach is always fun.

Hallo Dachs! (designer: Klaus Teuber)

I beat Ted again (the same morning) when I introduced him to Klaus Teuber’s memory masterpiece, Hallo Dachs! I called it the “Best. Memory. Game. Ever.” in my most recent top 100 games list – and I’ll stand by that. It combines randomized memory tasks with clever board play.

If you haven’t played it yet, just ask me. I’ll bring my copy and we’ll enjoy it together! (Sadly, it’s very OOP – it was actually published thirty years ago.)

Heroscape (designers: Stephen Baker, Rob Daviau, & Craig Van Ness)

For a number of years, I’ve been hosting a Memoir ’44 event on the Saturday afternoon of Gulf Games – most of the time, it’s been one or two Overlord battles. Last summer, we did the massive D-Day Landings scenario with six breakthrough maps in a row (and 12 players). This year, we did something different.

My sons and I hosted four simultaneous 4-player games of Heroscape, using a scenario entitled “Last Man in the Pit” (or “I’ll Dance on Your Grave”) that is short enough to work in this environment. We trucked in the terrain, had the participants draft pre-built armies ahead of time, and randomly assigned folks to battle.

It went swimmingly.

• Michael Labranche’s Men in Black team (with Michael actually dressing the part) won handily against two Soulborg armies (Vydar & Jandar) and an Unfathomable team.
• Ben Comeaux (our youngest player) used Torin, a Feral Troll, and some Mezzodemons to push back a Marro army, a horde of ninjas, and a bevy of heavily armed polar bears.
• Ben Sidore’s orcish horde narrowly defeated the forces arrayed against him (Sacred Bands, MacDirk Warrors, and some fiesty dwarves)… with a single Arrow Grut squad making the final push for the win at the very end of the game.
• Last but not least, my Mohican River Tribes edged out a phalanx of samurai and the remnants of a Viper army after the three of us had focused all of our firepower on the dragon Charos.

The original plan was to have those four armies fight each other – but we’d started late and run out of time, so we simply declared victory and went on with our day.

If you’d like to see more details on the armies and how we set up the game, you can check out a PowerPoint I sent to the participants back in June.

Hot Streak & Magical Athlete (designers: Jon Perry [Hot Streak]; Richard Garfield & Takashi Ishida [Magical Athlete])

Post-Heroscape, we ended up playing both Hot Streak and Magical Athlete with enthusiastic crowds. Both games are VERY crowd-dependent… and that’s part of the fun of being at Gulf Games, because boy oh boy did we have the right crowd.

Highlights from each game:

• Luke has a new persona: Jackknife Jones. (Hot Streak)
• Braeden managed to get Sisyphus all the way around the track within two spaces of a win – only to roll a six and be teleported back to start. (Magical Athlete)

I was NOT a fan of the original edition of Magical Athlete. After a couple of excruciating plays, I gave it a “4” on BGG and was happy not to see it hit the table again for nearly 20 years. I actually wrote a fellow OG writer at one point: “I hated Magical Athlete. Really. Wanted to gnaw off my own leg to stop playing it. High level of whimsy coupled with SLOW play. Grrrr. I like whimsy, if the game rips right along. This didn’t.”

So it was with much trepidation that I approached the new re-developed/re-imagined version of Magical Athlete… based mostly on the good track record of CMYK with getting the tone/presentation of Hot Streak exactly right.

Well, my mind is changed… at least about the new version. Once again, the production helps (example: the Huge Baby piece literally takes up the entire space), the art style has a weird retro aesthetic with some Crumb/Bakshi vibes, and the interactions between character powers are pretty well spelled out in the rulebook.

Neither of them are serious games – do not mistake them for Revenant or Nucleum (both of which I’ll write about it in a minute). But with the right crowd, they both delivers whimsy and laughter at a cracking pace.

No help for you!

Igel Ãrgern (designers: Doris Matthäus & Frank Nestel)

This classic racing game from Doris & Frank was a lot of fun to drag back out – we played with the Fizzy Lifting variant… and evidently a variant which included not letting me win. (See picture… many people pointed at my quick-witted hedgehog who crossed the line first to explain why they REFUSED to help me again.)

Innovation (designer: Carl Chudyk)

Collin & I played one of our favorite card games the night before we drove in for Gulf Games… Innovation is a chaotic pile of mechanics and combos that we make even more chaotic by the addition of the Echoes of the Past expansion. My point scoring engine was revved up when Collin decided to blitz towards the later ages to snake out a winning card – but to no avail.

If you haven’t played, I strongly recommend learning in a two-player game… maybe three. Four player should only be played as partners… and five player should be avoided at all costs.

JinxO (designer: Martin Ang)

This Spiel des Jahres winner is a “match game” where you score points for having the same answers as other players – but the structure of the game and the 3×3 board where you write your answers (and where the positions of those answers affect your score) makes it substantially more enjoyable. Both of my plays of JinxO so far (one at Gulf Games, one post-Essen when it first appeared) have had moments of great humor as well as opportunities for clever bits of mind-reading and well-thought-out positional play.

Of the three SdJ nominees this year, I think it’s the clear winner. (Note: I really like Cozy Stickerville, but it’s a pastime wearing a board game costume.)

Jump Drive (designer: Tom Lehmann)

Mid-Jump Drive with Collin, Alejandro, me!, Braeden, and Brad.

Jump Drive is fast (the longest game I’ve played went 8 turns – even with the expansion)… but is surprisingly meaty for a filler. You have to make real decisions about what you’re going to buy, the wisdom of exploring to find appropriate cards vs. the loss of a turn, and finding the synergy in what you have in your hand. It’s not as layered as Race for the Galaxy – but Jump Drive is more than just “build the most expensive card you can build.”

I love Jump Drive. I love beating my sons (and their friends) at Jump Drive. :-)

Liar’s Dice (designer: Richard Borg)

Every Gulf Games, there is a Liar’s Dice tournament. In spring, I actually made it to the final table. That did not happen this summer.

Hot take: Liar’s Dice > Perudo.

Magic Number Eleven (designer: Bonghwan Ju)

Braeden & I played one of our two favorite head-to-head soccer games – Magic Number Eleven – and this time we got to add the expansion rules, which include corner kicks (with flicking!), VAR, red cards, and a variant away team. The game was tied at the end of regulation – so we went to penalty kicks, which my team won handily.

Note: the other great head-to-head soccer game is Streetsoccer – which was just recently republished in a highly portable format as Golden Goal.

Meister Makatsu (designer: Reiner Knizia)

This was – if my memory is correct – the first game I played at Gulf Games. It’s also one of the very few completely new-to-me games I played. I’m still unclear exactly how Terry won (wackdoodle tie-breaking rule) but Meister Makatsu itself was really enjoyable. My apologies for not being able to describe the mechanics better… or at all. (Check out Dale’s linked review!)

Nucleum (designers: Simone Luciani & Dávid Turczi)

So, Nucleum is a weird one for me. I got a copy for lower than the normal price, hoping to learn it to play solo. I’ve had good experiences with some of David Turczi’s designs that way (Voidfall and Expedition Earth) and the buzz around Nucleum is pretty dadgum positive.

But I only managed 1.5 plays of it solo – and I was pretty sure I was getting rules wrong on a regular basis. When Michael Weston offered to teach three of us at Gulf Games, I jumped at the chance.

Technically, I ‘won’ the game we played – but we know we had one scoring rule messed up (the difference between immediate scoring and income track scoring), so who knows who would have actually won.

On the bright side, I learned the game well enough that I think I can run the automa now and give it a go. The game itself is relatively straightforward – but the implications of your actions along with the actions of the other players is a bit mind-bending. I really liked it and would be happy to play again with no more than 3 players.

Ohanami (designer: Steffen Benndorf)

I’ve struggled a bit with the way to describe Ohanami – and have finally ended up with this: it’s like crossing the card-drafting of 7 Wonders with the card play of Rack-O, then adding really pretty card art and some interesting scoring rules. It works well and would be a great filler game to add to your collection.

This was my first time playing – it hopefully won’t be my last.

Ra & Traumfabrik (designer: Reiner Knizia)

Three bearded men play Ra. One bearded man is not very good at selfies.

An impassioned early morning conversation between Ted Alspach and Braeden and I about Reiner Knizia’s Ra led to us actually playing Ra. It’s so darn good three-handed… and we got to play with one of the fancy wooden sets. Additionally, I ended up with three solid epochs while Braeden crashed in epoch one and both Ted & Braeden ended up on the wrong end of a bunch of Ra tiles in epoch 3. (Yes, I won.)

Ra competes with Traumfabrik as my favorite Knizia auction game – and I managed to play both of them at Gulf Games. Both have closed monetary systems that mean your bidding choices have ripple effects in later auctions.

Our four player game of Traumfabrik saw me trying a “build crappy movies fast” strategy, followed by hording contracts for end game scoring. It didn’t work – but it was fun to try! And we got to play on the classic Hollywood version of the game rather than the more recent parody versions.

Race for the Galaxy (designer: Tom Lehmann)

My current #1 game… this time played with the new Xeno Counterstrike expansion using the Frontiers variant. (Sadly, still haven’t got to play the full Counterstrike variant… soon!) After you climb the iconography mountain to figure out the game, Race for the Galaxy is an amazing adventure in hand management & reading your opponents’ mind – made even better by clever card design & interaction as well as great sci-fi art.

Braeden & I have now split our three games with the new expansion 2-1 in his favor. This battle is not over.

Revenant (designer: Allan Kirkeby)

Braeden & Dallas are either discussing Revenant strategy or college football.

Speaking of Braeden, he won our epic four-player game of Revenant, the newest release from Mindclash Games. It’s a bit cynical to say this, but the biggest amount of points in this game of fleeing an alien invasion boil down to a stock market game – where players can (and do) let ships of a House they are not supporting become targets for the Voidborn. Additionally, there’s a good bit of engine-building and resource management wrapped up in this heavily thematic game.

Closeup of the Revenant with large Voidborn rift looming in the background.

I’m not sure I’ll get it back to the table with four players – it runs a little long – but playing solo (which I’ve done) and/or 2-3 players feel just right. The game isn’t long structurally – four ages in which each player gets 3 turns – plus dealing with the attack of the Voidborn and the potential to jump (a la Star Wars: The Last Jedi) to reduce the pressure of their onslaught.

BTW, this is not a sequel to Voidfall or an expansion (though there is an expansion coming next year!) – this is its own game set in the Voidfall universe.

Robo Rally Dice (designer: Kane Klenko)

I have fond memories of playing the original RoboRally in the floor of our duplex with students in my youth ministry – usually on much too ambitious race courses. Over thirty years later, I’ve sold my copy of RoboRally and I don’t play games on the floor anymore since getting up is a much more dicey proposition at age 62.

Robo Rally Dice is shorter and slightly less fiddly – but it was also less fun. I would not go out of my way to play it again.

Take it Easy! (designer: Peter Burley)

The yearly game of Take It Easy with 100+ players happened again – and that’s about the right frequency for me with what I’ve affectionately called “Gamer Bingo”. This game was pretty brutal – the tiles came out in an order that wrecked most folks boards – including mine.

Tanz der Hornochsen! (designer: Wolfgang Kramer)

For my money, Tanz der Hornochsen! is the best of the 6 Nimmt family of games – it plays 8 players, you get to make jokes about falling in cow poop, and you can anticipate (sometimes) when something is about to go horribly wrong and try to buy your way out of it by spending points.

David Sidore edged me out by a SINGLE POINT… gosh, I love this game.

There is a new printing of it with a re-theme – Dance of Ibexes – but I haven’t seen a physical copy of it yet.

Tenpenny Parks (designer: Nate Linhart)

Tenpenny Parks with the fancy new Collector’s Edition bits.

The only problem with teaching people to play Tenpenny Parks is that there is a definite advantage to players who’ve played before… like me. So, yes, I won.

I really like the clever interplay in the game between actions, cash, and trying to work around the environment (trees) as much as possible. I also love the high-quality art and production values – which were plussed with the recent arrival of the Collector’s Edition box.

I’m looking forward to playing with the new expansions – particularly the Innovation expansion, which may help deal with some of the concerns a couple of players had about the way turn order works.

Viva Pamplona! (designer: Wolfgang Kramer)

Welcome to a very WEIRD edition of “Say hello to our friend, Toro!” as we managed to fill the stadium at the end of the game. (When the losing score is 15 more courage points than any player started with and the winning score is more than double that number – yowsa!)

Braeden & I tied for the Viva Pamplona! win – and there is no tie-breaker in this classic running of the bulls (well, bull) game.

Also notable: getting to play a game with Greg Richardson for the first time in 16+ years!

Warp 99 (designer: Reinhard Staupe)

After playing the original release last year at a post-Essen gaming event, it was fun to get to play the new version – Warp 99 – from Bezier Games with Ted Alspach – and finally beat him. We used the Hyperdrive expansion – which gave us a funky but interesting set of rules to follow.

I’m convinced that 2-3 players is the sweet spot for this game of sequencing cards based on the rules – 4 player games have a little too much downtime and the game overstays its welcome.

Web of Power (designer: Michael Schacht)

Another game I played for the first time at Gulf Games… this time, Gulf Games 5. Web of Power became a personal favorite. (I think it was the first game I heard referred to as a “super-filler”… meaning a shorter game with a lot of meat on its bones.)

This is another game where experience makes a difference – and I’ve played a lot of Kardinal & Konig (the original German name makes a lot more sense) over the years – from China to Iwari and the various maps & variants that the designer posted on his personal website.

Zauberschwert & Drachenei (designer: Jochen Schwinghammer)

The 23 year old Adlung card game Zauberschwert & Drachenei (translated ‘Magic Sword & Dragon Egg’) is a favorite of both the Bailey and Jackson families… and this play was my first with six players. This fantasy auction/negotiation game is highly enjoyable, especially with the two major expansions in.

With that many wizards (aka “players”), there was a decent amount of negotiation (and negotiation-dodging) as each of us built our magical engines to defeat the evil monsters. In the end, it was Brad who walked away with the win.

The links throughout this report are to game reviews published on the Opinionated Gamers website or articles about the game on my personal blog akapastorguy.

I was given a complimentary copy of Battle Beyond Space and have received review copies of the Renegade Game Studios Heroscape material.