Gen Con 2026 – Thunderworks Games

Gen Con 2026 is over (as well as the fall school kick-off) and I’ve come back up for air, just in time to ramp up the annual Gen Con run-down here at OpinionatedGamers. Will I out-do last year’s lineup as seen in last year’s One Post to Rule Them All? Only time will tell, click on your seatbelt and join us for a wild ride through the halls and rooms of Gen Con 2026.

First up, Thunderworks Games, a wonderful company to start my 2026 adventure. My Thursday meeting covered: Fliptoons: Season 2, a sequel to the original card-flipping slot-machine-esque card game; Questline, a fantasy-themed take on the classic Spoons card game; and a pair of expansions for the excellent Tenpenny Parks amusement park building game. There’s the holiday themed Winter Lights and Spooky Nights and the more game-mechanic oriented Innovation.

Fliptoons: Season 2 (by Jordy Adan and Renato Simões)¹

Fliptoons is back with the same card-flipping action. Flip cards from your deck to create two rows of three cards to produce monies that can be used to buy new, and better cards for better flipping down the road.

Season two (still 1-4 brings in a few new mechanics and serves as a stand-alone set or as an expansion to the original. To fully combine the two decks, simply add two new market card slots, one on each end. Players can also curate a custom deck composed of bits of both releases.

Off the bat, Season 2 provides players with new starting decks (compared to the original) but should still be balanced if you are playing with both. (It was noted the new grey starting cards also are labeled with a zero to help colorblind players pick them out more easily.)

This new, stand alone version includes two standout mechanics. Return has players taking cards from the playfield and putting them back on the bottom of the deck. This power is usually conditional on other cards.

The set also contains a new type of animal, the fish. Fish are typically entirely unflippable (for good or ill) and tend to strongly interact with each other. I was advised not to let only one person specialize into fish as they can become quite powerful.

Questline (by Marc-André Lavoie & Martin Lavoie)

Questline is a real-time, simultaneous card set collection game set in the Cartographers/Roll Player setting. It has a mild resemblance to the classic game of “Spoons” where people race to get a set in order to claim a spoon (and not be eliminated.) When everyone is set, the race is on to collect a sequence of cards. The first player to complete their set is set up to grab the prize of one of the bonus scoring cards in the middle, with the higher value score cards obviously grabbed first. At game end, players score their hand through a series of card combinations. Unless they’re set against it, players can reset the game and play it again!

Each player starts out with a hand of 8 cards, two of which are class cards. These set up some key traits/icons/tags to give a player some direction to pursue as they try to combine their blue class card together a high scoring hand of red adventure cards. Players simultaneously draw cards from the central deck, one’s own discards, or the discards of your neighbors.

Players are trying to form an 8 card hand going from 1 (a class card, which is required) sequentially upwards. Duplicates are OK and players can even play a card as long as it’s no more than one higher than their highest card. Thus 1,2,3,3,4,2,5 is a valid sequence. Players can even “multi-class” if they feel it will help them out. Cards actually go all the way up to 10, which can be accomplished with special cards that let players jump in the sequence. Upon forming a complete run, a player will grab the current best reward card in the middle of the board, but also flip over their discard pile, making it unavailable to their neighbors for the rest of the game. If a player makes a sequencing mistake, they lose their highest card and it is flipped over to cover up the problem card.

Like many card games in this category, every card has a suit and most cards have various traits and/or special abilities. At game end, players go through their cards and add up their points, including those bonus points for finishing early, to determine the winner. Players are highly encouraged to read through their cards as they are scored to bring together the story of their character’s complete “adventure”. The game goes from 1 to 6 players with the solo mode comprised of an (untimed) push-your-luck mechanic where the goal is to complete one’s hand before the draw deck runs out.

Tenpenny Parks and Expansions (by Nate Linhart)

Tenpenny Parks, one of Thunderworks flagships was out in full force. Several expansions were being shown, alongside the Collectors Edition which is a big box with a nice storage solution including lidded boxes for the premium bits, all current expansions, and a few promos. (Yes, all the expansions and things are modular so mix and match to your heart’s content, or just play a massive game…)

Winter Lights and Spooky Nights is a small box containing two expansions. Winter Lights has a “Cheer Track” where players gain a bonus but also have to give something to one of their opponents. Spooky Nights adds in ghosts which are placed onto existing rides to “haunt” them. These give bonuses, displayed on their back, when placed onto the correct ride.

Innovation is a larger, more “crunchy” addition to Tenpenny Parks. While the base game leans toward an entry-level eurogame, Innovation brings into slightly heavier territory. It is a large-box expansion that adds variety as well as some asymmetry to the game. There are several parts to the expansion, but in this case, because of their interactivity, players will need to use all or none of them.

The asymmetry comes in several ways. Players have asymmetric starting abilities as well as a unique starting board. Players can pursue an unlockable research track that will continue to differentiate player’s powers and goals.

One example mentioned to me was a starting beachfront property. There aren’t any trees, so things are easier to place but the prices for putting down things are higher.

I’ve not personally dipped my toe into the Tenpenny Parks world, but after our own Mark Jackson’s take on the full game, I’m looking forward to having a go.

1. Inspired by W. Eric Martin’s article pointing to the Tabletop Game Designers Association’s cry for more recognition of game authors, I will be attempting (but probably not succeeding very well) to include author credit on the games I mention this year. I shudder to think how much I will screw things up, but I will try my best and hopefully “it’s the thought that counts…” A priori apologies to all authors’ credits that I mess up.