Everything Ever

• Designer: Nathan Thornton
• Publisher: Floodgate Games
• Players: 2-10
• Age: 12+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Per the publisher description on BGG: “You’ve prepared your whole life for this. Every movie you’ve seen, every show you’ve watched, every song you’ve listened to, every place you’ve visited, every book you’ve read, every kind of food you’ve eaten, and every person you’ve ever heard of makes you better at this game. It’s finally time to get credit for everything you already know!

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IV Studio had two main games on exhibit this year. Fractured Sky was flashing lots of plastic bits in this area-control/worker placement game while both Volume 1 and the upcoming Volume 2 of the 1v1 Mythic Mischief game were being played.

Disney Animated

• Designer: Prospero Hall
• Publisher: Funko
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: ~20 min/player
• Review copy provided by Funko
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3seSTKS

Work together in Disney Animated like the team at the famous Walt Disney Animation Studios to create movie magic!  In the game, you need to produce five classic Disney films using detailed background art, vibrant paint colors, and lively sound to bring cherished stories to life on the screen — but the villains from these feature films will rush your deadlines and create all the calamity they can. As a team, you must use the strengths of the animation studio — heart, focus, inspiration, grit, and teamwork — to vanquish the villains and finish your films in time.

—description from the publisher

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NorthStar Games had several titles in addition to showing the Legends of the Deep expansion to its Evolution-adjacent game, Oceans. Eila and Something Shiny is a story-centric game where players as a group determine the fate a bunny off to find something shiny (duh.) Inheritors is a small box card game where players discard to draft cards to create sequences of single-color cards.

Nautilus Island

• Designers: Johannes Goupy, Theo Riviere
• Publisher: Funny Fox
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Review copy provided by publisher at GenCon 2023

You are shipwrecked on a mysterious and deserted volcanic island. In the wake of a storm, you come across a grounded and abandoned submarine: The Nautilus. You must explore it from top to bottom, and will need to collect as many objects as you can to ensure your survival, repair the submarine, and leave the island before the other castaways.

During their turn, players move their Castaway marker in a column and then choose between collecting object cards from the column or place down cards from their hand to start a collection. Storing objects allow players to claim bonus and/or porthole tokens before their opponents and get victory points. When a column is empty, the game ends. Player with the most victory points wins the game.

—description from the publisher

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Cephalofair, the little booth with the big boxes was once again present and showing off the recent Frosthaven, the Gloomhaven RPG, and a revamped Gloomhaven, 2nd Edition. Combined and shoved into your trunk, they will be sure to reduce your car’s overall range. On the other end of the spectrum (size and thankfully, price) comes a new Gloomhaven entry: Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs, which was shown still in a preproduction stage.