Ringer Designer: David Yakos Publisher: Mindward Players: 2-5 Age: 8+ Time: 20 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4mNN3qD Played with review copy provided by publisher Play cards in numerical order or different colors to try and match the dice in the … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/11/05/dale-yu-review-of-ringer/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
The forger starts the game with two of four or five identities, and after you've ditched your second identity, the next nab will be the last one, with the FBI agent putting you in jail permanently.The FBI agent has two random abilities revealed, but if the forger gains the action, they get to discard the ability of their choice before the agent uses the other one.Within a tight design, supplemented by 1970s-style art by Amélie Guinet that provides a nice atmosphere, Red Notice has a lot going on
Staying on theme, these sets will take a "tag team" approach when it comes to design, with the as-yet-to-be-named "Arthurian legend" set being by Benoit Turpin and Florian Sirieix, the third IP-based set by Christian Kudahl, and the fourth set by the original designers.Work-in-progress art and designThe Arthurian set will contain six characters with the same average complexity as those in the original release:• Morgan lets you see the card the opponent adds to their deck, although not where they
Dice Words Designer: Tim Phillips Publisher: Thames & Kosmos Players: 2-4 Age: 8+ Time: 30 min Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4mN6gbM Played with review copy provided by publisher In Dice Words, each player begins by choosing a set of seven letter … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/11/04/dale-yu-review-of-dice-words/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
When an animal reaches a space in the finish lane, it's done moving, and once all seven spaces are filled, players tally their points, with animals that finish later being worth more points and with tortoises earning more points than hares.Non-final art and materials▪️ Other items coming from Blue Orange (EU) include new versions of Dan Levy's Ruckus in February 2026 — marking more than two decades of longevity for this frantic card game — and Ryan Wallace's What's The Point?: The Cactus Card Ga
Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 27) A while back I had a rant about the casual misogyny found in rule books in relation to using he/him (not examples, but in the actual rules and card effects) and how … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/11/03/alison-brennan-game-snapshots-2025-part-27/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
This was something I'd noticed in my own early playtesting, which is why I'd so quickly cut the game down from ten rounds to five.Paul's suggestion was simple: At the start of the game, roll the three dice. Your second, fourth, and sixth words had to start with those three letters.The biggest difference between this and the final scoresheet was the addition of an alphabet down the sideI'm a big proponent of "every idea is worth playtesting", so even though I had a million reasons this wouldn't w
Waddle Designer: Corne van Moorsel Publisher: Allplay Players: 2-5 Age: 8+ Time: 15 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4pKevrZ Played with review copy provided by publisher Strategically place your penguins to form groups and claim fish to score the most points! … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/11/02/dale-yu-review-of-waddle/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
Qwirkle Flex Designer: Susan McKinley Ross, Reiner Knizia Publisher: MindWare Players: 2-4 Age: 8+ Time: 30 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3IhvLUn Played with review copy provided by publisher Take your Qwirkle strategy in a whole new direction! Tiles with three … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/11/01/dale-yu-review-of-qwirkle-flex/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
Spooktacular Designer: D. Brad Talton, Jr Publisher: Level 99 Players: 1-5 Age: 12+ Time: 45 minutes Played with review copy provided by publisher Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4oyG99U It’s Halloween night, 1986, and the all-night Spooktacular Film Festival is running in … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/10/31/dale-yu-review-of-spooktacular/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
<p>by <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1?bloggerid=15693" >Jorge Zhang</a></p> <div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8822732"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/C3Z-e9ZZKOpU9P5CWZWVLQ__small/img/ufWnIfT0MC4u78AH09wrCAZ_oBU=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8822732.png" border=0></a></div>Hi there! I led the design of <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/436219/stitch-the-fix-for-626" ><b><i>Stitch! The Fix for 626</i></b></a>, which is a <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/277085/love-letter" ><i>Love Letter</i></a> system game, and I am here to share a few stories about its development.<br/><br/><u><b>Setting the Stage</b></u><br/>Every game designer will tell you that complexity is a constant battle, and this project was no exception. It was important to me that a bright kid could follow along and still have a good time, even if they were not strategizing.<br/><br/>It was also important to have mechanical differentiation from other <i>Love Letter</i> games, that is, I should tailor the mechanisms to better fit the theme and offer novelty to <i>Love Letter</i> fans.<br/><br/><u><b>Lilo as the Princess</b></u><br/>Lilo felt natural to me as the Princess — the most powerful card to hold at the end of the round.<br/><br/>In <i>Love Letter</i>, this strength is counterbalanced by the fact that the Princess loses you the game when played or discarded, but that's not the case in this design as our licensing partners rightfully pointed out that it would feel bad for an iconic character to not have a cool effect.<br/><br/>I had to find a creative solution here, which is where Cobra Bubbles comes in. In the movie, Cobra Bubbles often catches Lilo and Nani causing trouble, so he made the perfect sense for this role. Cobra Bubbles' power is to look at another player's hand, and if he finds Lilo or Nani, then the player holding Lilo or Nani is out of the round!<br/><br/><center><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8899678"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/rksm0rH2s6Bvj1wb1cTyZw__small/img/HezAjXc4B5xVBPKG0TR7coEj_BY=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8899678.png" border=0></a></div></center><br/><u><b>Representing Stitch</b></u><br/>If Lilo is the Princess, then what about Stitch? I considered making Stitch a second princess, but I felt that this made Lilo — that is, the Princess — less special...and yet it was important for Stitch to have a main role, so I didn't like the idea of putting him on a different card.<br/><br/>At the same time, I was thinking about how to represent Stitch's chaotic nature as a character who is equally capable of destruction and of good. That's when I landed on the idea of Stitch being a token. Since tokens have two sides, Stitch could flip back and forth between his "good" side and "destructive" (Experiment 626) side, making him as chaotic and unpredictable as he is in the movies.<br/><br/><u><b>Cut from Development</b></u><br/>A large part of managing complexity is having discipline, and this meant that I had to sacrifice some of my favorite mechanisms for the greater good of the game.<br/><br/>I won't go too deeply into these as they could still show up in a future <i>Love Letter</i> product, but I'll share one of my favorites. We had a version of Jumba that let you laugh like an evil genius and instantly win the round if you had the Stitch token on the Experiment 626 side. This was a fun card, but something interesting emerged in testing — suddenly, you wanted to have Stitch on his not-good side! This created a weird meta and needed to be axed.<br/><br/><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8899679"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/w01bUKDLwELcYzoeOsJIJQ__small/img/QVg9YwjEMxfW3agvFF4VV9WdUWQ=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8899679.png" border=0></a></div><u><b>Player Count</b></u><br/>When recording data during playtests, I started noticing that the ratio of games ending with only one player standing (compared to the deck running out) was a lot higher at low player counts. This ratio also occurs in other <i>Love Letter</i> games, but for this particular version of the game, it was undermining the core mechanism of Stitch: a token whose effect kicks in when hands are compared at deck out.<br/><br/>I started looking at all the ways that players could be knocked out of the round. Sparky, numbered 3, stood out as an issue. Sparky makes you compare hands with another player, and the player holding a lower number is out of the round. With two copies in the deck, a game with two or three players is nearly guaranteed to end the round with the last person standing.<br/><br/>I looked at several possible solutions, one being to allow you to lose Good Stitch to avoid being eliminated by Sparky. While this played well, it was also complex. The Gordian Knot solution worked best: a rule that you remove the 3s from the deck at lower player counts.<br/><br/>Another player count decision I made was limiting the game to 2-5 players. This version of the game doesn't have enough cards to support a six-player version well, and I felt that it was more important to nail down the 2-5 player experience than it was to make compromises to fit in an additional player.<br/><br/><u><b>What's Next?</b></u><br/><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/5187432"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/FAlbPXjS_EQu-kXbrUZ19Q__small/img/7xRarocY9O2c5rrER3C64Ga0HTQ=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic5187432.png" border=0></a></div>This game is particularly special to me as it was the last <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/538/z-man-games" >Z-Man Games</a> project I fully completed before starting a new role as a developer for <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/387866/star-wars-unlimited" ><i>Star Wars: Unlimited</i></a>.<br/><br/>I am grateful that I got the chance to work on a game line as iconic as <i>Love Letter</i>, and I can't wait to see players get their hands on the game! If you have any questions or want to let me know about your game experience, feel free to send me a message or leave something in the comments. Thank you for reading!<br/><br/><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/112177/jorge-zhang" >Jorge Zhang</a>
Eric Martin French publisher IELLO is another company that previews its release line-up for the next year at SPIEL Essen, so let's get a taste for what's coming — and thanks to a distribution deal with Blue Orange Games, IELLO titles will be available in North America once again starting in November 2025 with Little Soldiers, King of Tokyo: Luchador, King of Tokyo: Mindbug, and Popcorn, among other titles.▪️ Speaking of Little Soldiers, a wargame/party game combo from Florent Baudry and Adrien F
Wordsy Designer: Gil Hova Publisher: Allplay Players: 1 – 6 Ages: 10+ Time: 20 Minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4gCOSoC Wordsy is a streamlined re-implementation of Prolix. Each round, players study the 8 letters (always consonants) on the board in real … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/10/30/opinionated-gamers-review-wordsy-2025-allplay/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
Fliptoons Designers: Jordy Adan and Renato Simoes Publisher: Thunderworks Players: 1-4 Age: 10+ Time: 20 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/45HYoSt Played with review copy provided by publisher It’s time to cast the next great animated show! A top talent agent … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/10/29/dale-yu-review-of-fliptoons/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
While the deck has four suits, you're free to play any card on your turn, and once all players have played a card, you resolve the turn, with the highest-played card being discarded from play and all other cards returning to their player's hand...except that each card has a special effect — some instant, some at turn's end — and those effects have a huge impact on the game.Calm, for example, is a green 4 that's discarded if any red card is played, so if your teammate plays Calm, you want to make
In addition to everything else associated with it, Essen represents the unofficial end of the annual game award season. We’ve already mentioned the a la carte results which were announced there. A newer tradition is the revelation of which of … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/10/28/setis-search-ends-with-two-more-game-awards/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
spies amongst the group in order to complete missions.Devir plans to debut Berlin 1960 at UK Games Expo 2026.▪️ 7th Seal is a solitaire dice-management design from Julio Falagan in which you need to break the seven levels of Hell before you get the chance to confront whatever awaits you at the bottom of your descent.▪️ Devir plans for 7th Seal to be its primary release at Gen Con 2026, with its second new title for that show being Ear Candy, an expansion for Jackie Fox's Rock Hard: 1977 that fea
The last day of Essen saw us rush in to grab a game of Kavango and boy was it a highlight. Kavango is a medium weight game designed by husband and wife Matt Brown and Zara Reid, who are British … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/10/28/simons-short-sunday-report-really-a-kavango-mini-review/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
Strange World above the clouds Designer: Florian Grenier Publisher: Grrre games Players: 1-4 Age: 10+ Time: 15 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3VLTyiu Played with review copy provided by publisher Create a strange world inhabited by puzzling creatures. At each creation … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/10/28/dale-yu-review-of-strange-world-above-the-clouds/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
The RP zones are the actual city, so that became the new goal.Final: At the end of any round, control all RP zones on the City Board and maintain a supply line into at least one RP zone on the City Board.The Soviet Total Victory changed a lot after a few playtests.Original Allies Total Victory: After Round 10, no Axis units on the City Board.Since the Axis wasn't in the city at the start of the longer scenario, we had to put an awkward timer on it, but that unfairly penalized an early launch of