When I think of Alderac Entertainment Group (or AEG, as you’ll see on the box cover), I tend to think of more lighthearted games with lots of player interaction or of several of their card-crafting games which have a bit more thought involved. This year there are still several highly interactive games like the party game, Word Wipe – a co-op word association game, the werewolf/deduction game Jumblejack, Assemble! – a set collection drafting game, and Honeypot – an I-split-You-choose push your luck title. Misfit Heroes – brings that card-crafting mechanic to the game but here it’s primarily all done at the start to create a very unique set of cards which are then used to gain influence and claim regions of the game. However, there are also a few titles that venture into deeper strategy territory. Let’s Go to France takes the series into just a slightly bit heavier territory with the addition of a board and timing mechanics. Into the Machine has players racing robots down a line through use of worker-placement mechanics, and Electrify – an engine-building game where cycling through the same powers too often makes them less useful.

Assemble! by Remo Conzadori, Stefano Negro

Assemble! is a fast-paced (10 minutes?), team-building (set collection) card game where players draft from a line of cards over six rounds. Its one of those games where any card by itself is fine, but they all come into their own when they being to power each other up through card combinations. Heroes can make your own team more powerful but it is also possible to build up things to get in the way and mess up your opponents’ grand plans.

Word wipe by Matt Bahntge, Peter C. Hayward

Word Wipe is a cooperative, real-time word association game for up to 10 players or so. Players are given a hand of white cards and are trying to clear the table of orange cards. This is done by grouping the orange cards together on the table in an attempt to get other players to guess the white card in your hand. (There are a few “hint” cards that stick around, like person/place/thing…) If the group guess of the white card is correct, the linked orange cards are “wiped” from the table. The game is real-time in that any player can jump in and try to get the other players to guess one of their cards. Incorrect guesses remove cards from the table and the entire game is governed by a timer.

Jumble Jacks by Emanuele Briano

I was pitched JumbleJack as a sort of Clue/Werewolf hybrid. Each player is a specific Hat, Hook, Cape, and Sword. Over the course of the game, players accuse each other, with the accused each round being handed the JumbleJack doll. If the doll matches a player exactly, they lose, if not that player can add or remove one accessory and another round begins – with the current doll-holder always immune from another accusation.

Honeypot by Joseph Z. Chen

A quick I-split You-choose game with a bit of press-your-luck, Honeypot puts 1-6 players in the role of secret agent bears. Players make a stack of cards and pass them to their neighbor. The neighbor can then look through those cards stopping to take the cards they want. However, if they wait until the bottom of the stack, they must take the remaining cards – and with some cards having negative consequences, one must decide – did my neighbor put the best or the worst cards on the bottom? It’s a set collection game with cards keying off each other for points (and/or negative points.) It’s all about getting those scoring combinations, with comparisons to AEG’s popular Point Salad in mechanics and easy play, albeit with that whole tricksy card-stack passing thing..

Misfit Heroes by Phil Walker-Harding

Before starting a game of Misfit Heroes, players create the starting deck of cards by combining clear cards on the outside of the opaque cards to form a new and unique deck for use in the game. During their turn, players spend resources to buy cards which are placed into their own 4×4 tableau.

Cards obviously chain off each other through clever combinations. The end goal, beyond points for bought cards, is to get points for claiming any of the four types of regions and/or trophy cards.

Let’s Go! to France by Josh Wood

As a moderate Francophile, I’m still excited about the upcoming Let’s Go! Game is headed to France. I’ve seen references to it releasing in 2026 but will probably appear around late spring 2027. If you haven’t heard about it, the gaming formula hasn’t changed. Players are still drafting cards and planning out their vacations in Paris. Some complexities have been removed. It’s just one city so no need to juggle train movement, and bonus scoring at the bottom of cards will no longer have prerequisite requirements. However, its slightly more involved as cards now have time values to manage and there’s now a travel board on which players can move around. There’s actually several different boards to play, each centered on a different part of France.

Into The Machine by Kasper Lapp

Into the Machine was being shown last year and should be rolling out in stores soon. It’s is a 2 to 5 player game of racing robots along a track all the way to the end, upgrading, and then racing back to the start. If a player gets two robots to the finish before anyone else arrives, they win. Otherwise, the first player to get three total robots to the end wins the game.

It’s a bit of a worker placement game with three main rows from which to pick. Each player has worker robots in three shapes: circles, triangles, and squares. Each row has a limited number of types of robots that can use it. Only circles on the top, circles or triangles in the middle, and all three available for the bottom row. Players can use occupied locations, but must pay extra robot workers to do so.

Electrify by John D. Clair and Ian Hutchison

Keeping with the electric robot theme, Electrify (a mid- 2027 release) puts 1-4 players in the role of a visionary leader of a steampunk city, trying to grow your city into a green-energy powerhouse of the age.

Players earn points by satisfying the conditions on a row of energy cards in the center of the table. Meanwhile, players have a set of tiles below their player board representing the types of actions they can perform. Players simultaneously, and secretly, choose which action they want to invest in using a personal dial. There is a small bonus if one is the only player to pick that action. The dials are all revealed and players “run” their actions by taking the action along with any upgrades previously placed on that tile. Tiles that are further to the right in the order will give greater benefits, but whenever an action is selected, it gets moved to the bottom on the left, pushing up the others to the right.

These action tiles are the movers and shakers of the game engine, with multiple slots available for upgrades – each of which will then be activated when a player selects that particular action. Players will also have to weigh the advantages of specializing in one or two actions against the disadvantage that those actions will necessarily usually be lower powered since they are always getting reset to the left.

Two more parting photos. Gamers not afraid of a bit of a late night can sign up for the AEG Big Game Night. Players get to play through several of AEG’s new (and newish) titles as well as walk away with a nice goody bag.