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In tabletop game industry, some gamers only look for a good gameplay, regardless of the theme or art. Some others might disagree and this eventually pushed some publishers to develop their game better. Good gameplay with also good presentation to draw more people into playing it.

There was an example when a gameplay is considered great, maybe even the best for some people but somehow had horrible art, theme and settings. Santa Maria was one of the popular example. It was about colonization. Even though the designers explained that they were trying to make it like a satire, it kind of hurts the reception.

So, now, the designers tried to fix it by releasing a new game called Saltfjord. It is not just a change for the theme or settings but there is some additional change to the gameplay.

Saltfjord is about building a fishing village but with the similar dice drafting, dice worker placement and tile placement mechanism from Santa Maria.  I personally have never played that previous title so I don’t know the change and how different both games are. Some might say that they still prefer the gameplay in Santa Maria.

Title: Saltfjord
Year Released: 2024
Designer: Kristian Amundsen Østby and Eilif Svensson
Publisher: Aporta Games
Artist: Peter Bartels and Yan Moussu

Genre: Norway, Nautical, Farming, City Building, Dice Drafting, Dice Worker Placement, Tile Placement, Polyomino, Competitive, Official Solo Mode, 1-4 players

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Walking in Provence is the 2nd title of the “Walking in” series from Taiwan publisher, EmperorS4. At the time of this writing, the publisher already released the 3rd title, Walking in Osaka, in 2025 and about to release the 4th one, Walking in Kamogawa in 2026.

The first 2, Burano and Provence were designed by one designer but the other 2 were done by different designers. All of them have a unique gameplay mechanism. For Provence, you will be laying cards, adjacent to existing or overlap some of them like in Sprawlopolis.

This is one of the more dynamic tile laying games where not only you have end game scoring, but there is a race element to score things during the play. It is less static as you might end up destroying your previous effort in order to afford the next one.

Title: Walking in Provence
Released Year: 2019
Designer: Wei-Min Ling
Publisher: EmperorS4
Artist: Maisherly Chan

Genre: Tile Placement, Card Closed Drafting, Pattern Building, Layering, Melding and Splaying, 2 – 5 players, Small Box, Photography, Provence (France).

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In a lot of tile placement games, usually, when you place a tile, it is considered connected by placing the tile adjacent to it. If then the tile is separated, some allow you to connect them by placing a road line between the 2 like in the Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write. In cases like that, the game may become a Route Building game.

This next game, Foxglove Farm takes that idea one step further. Not only this is a city building tile placement game and also a network and route building game but this has the engine building feel you get from something like Oh My Goods! game.

The idea is that, each building tile may produce resources that you place on the tile. Players may spend resources to build more buildings or they transport them into other buildings. On those buildings, those resources might be scored for points or upgraded into other resources for better value with the next building to be transported to.

So, there is production chain between these buildings but they have to be connected by the same network or path. In standard play, you can transport any resources through any kind of buildings as long as there is a path. However, players can choose to play the expert variant where the resources can only go through one building that has to do with that resource.

The challenge is not just spatial and resource conversion. Players also have to manage the capacity of each building. Making room to produce more or for some building you want leave some to generate more like for livestock.

Foxglove Farm is the same game as Minecart Town which was crowdfunded and released earlier. The former was from Japanese publisher with their own art and title. This newer one is more available worldwide. Even before these 2, the designers self-published the game with My Trolley Town as the title.

Title: Foxglove Farm
Year Released: 2026
Designer: Shun Taguchi and Aya Taguchi
Publisher: Alley Cat Games
Artist: Isabelle Overturf and Jorge Tabanera Redondo

Genre: Tile Placement, City Building, Manufacturing, Network and Route Building, Competitive, Official Solo Mode, Solo Achievement Scenarios, 1-4 players

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This is a direct sequel to Flamecraft, a worker placement game from 2022 with same designer and artist. Flamecraft is about human living and doing businesses with the help from mystical dragon pets. It was very popular, even though some think that the game is not that deep.

With that success, the publisher then released Flamecraft Duals. This dual version, with completely different gameplay mechanism, is more an abstract game for one or two players.

The two players take turns drawing random dragon chips and place them in the shared board. If they can create the same pattern involving 3 dragon chips that matches with their card, they score the card. Everytime you place the dragon chip, you may activate its power.

Each of the 6 different dragons has different power effect. One allows you to take another turn. Another allows you to draw 3 and keep one to place. Some others allow you to move one or more chips adjacent to it, helping you to match a pattern.

You can place the next chip in any hex and stack up to 3 chips. Only the top one counts for scoring a pattern. So, there is a bit of 3-dimensional challenge. Because you place the chips on shared board, players may accidentally help their opponent scoring the card.

Some chips have dual colors and it works for both in any pattern. Same for the power so they give a lot of flexibility.

Title: Flamecraft Duals
Year Released: 2025
Designer: Manny Vega
Publisher: Cardboard Alchemy
Artist: Sandara Tang

Genre: Fantasy, Tile Placement, 3D Challenge, Pattern Building, Optional Modules, Competitive, Official Solo Mode, 1-2 players

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The original King of Tokyo game was already popular since it was released in 2011. This is about Kaiju monsters fighting each other. For some people, it looks like a game for kids and they might refuse to play. Even the art looks like cartoon for kids. Some others hate it for the randomness of the dice roll. So, I didn’t pay much attention when I got into this hobby.

But now the publisher released a new version with the Godzilla IP which is perfect for what the game is. They even use different art with the style matching the original theme. A lot of people now seem to be interested just because of the theme. Well, especially after the successful movies in recent years. At least I did.

Will Godzilla or the other Monsters become the next King of Tokyo?

Title: King of Tokyo Godzilla
Year Released: 2026
Designer: Richard Garfield
Publisher: IELLO
Artist: Markus Erdt

Genre: Godzilla, Fighting, Push Your Luck, Dice Rolling, Rerolling and Locking, King of the Hill, Player Elimination, Take That, Race, Competitive, 2-6 players

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At the time of this writing, Ark Nova is the highest rated game of the last 5 years on BGG and already at number 2 of the overall ranking. Even to solo gamer community, this is already in the top 10 for a couple of years, even though many suggest using the fan made variant of the solo mode.

While I already knew the game since it was released and heard a lot of praise I only got it at the end of 2025 just to make sure it was really proven by more audience. At this moment, the publisher also already released the simpler game called Sanctuary. I thought about getting that one instead actually but it was not very convincing from the earlier reviews. So, I decided to just go with the big one.

Ark Nova is considered a heavier and longer game to play and yet a lot of people seem to love it. It is already one of the most played games even though most of those plays came from the digital version on BGA.

Title: Ark Nova
Year Released: 2021
Designer: Mathias Wigge
Publisher: Feuerland Spiele
Artist: Steffen Bieker, Loïc Billiau, Dennis Lohausen

Genre: Zoo, Animals, Tile Placement, Hand Management, Competitive, Official Solo Mode, 1-4 players

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A lot of board gamers consider Vlaada Chvátil as one of the best designers in the industry. Before he designed light party games like Codenames, he also had some heavier, more advanced one like Mage Knight.

For a while, it felt like Codenames was his final design which was very successful as he kept releasing different iterations of it. So, when they announce Severton, a lot of people are looking forward to it.

The story in Severton is based on a novel by Jaroslav Foglar which has become a cult classic Czech adventure literature. It’s about a group of 5 young friends exploring an area in Old Prague trying to locate the mysterious Caged Hedgehog.

Title: Severton
Year Released: 2025
Designer: Vlaada Chvátil
Publisher: Albi
Artist: Miguel Coimbra

Genre: Cooperative, Multi-use Cards, Thematic, Official Solo Mode, 1-5 players, Stealth, Scenario Based,  

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Some say that Shallow Sea is like Calico, Cascadia and Verdant combined with aquatic theme. Those 3 games came from the same game developer and publisher while this next one came from different publisher.

Like in Calico and Verdant, you have a board to fill in Shallow Sea. While Cascadia introduced the idea of drafting a set of 2 things, Shallow Sea took the idea from Verdant. You have 4 columns of 3 things each and from each you can choose to draw 2 of them. One of those two things must be the fish token which is one of the selling points of this game.

In Calico, there are 3 pattern tokens in the middle that if you can follow its rule, you get more points. Shallow Sea took that idea but gives you the freedom to place it in anywhere you want on the board.

If you manage to follow and complete the pattern, not only you get points but also shell tokens. These tokens work similarly like pine tokens in Cascadia. You can spend them to manipulate the market. Get different sets from different column or refresh them.

But that is not all. In this one, you can also use them to move Fish tokens. The purpose of fish tokens is to complete Coral tiles by placing the fish at one corner of the tile with the matching color. After you complete one coral tile, you want to move the fish to help complete the other coral you have taken and placed.

Completed Coral is how you complete the pattern. So, not only you need to take and place 2 different tiles, Coral and Pattern / Sealife, you need to complete them by placing the fishes. Shallow Sea is definitely a more challenging game than those 3 other tile placement games.

Can you manage to create the best ecosystem in the sea?

Title: Shallow Sea
Year Released: 2025
Designer: Yeom.C.W.
Publisher: Bad Comet
Artist: Sophia Kang

Genre: Tile Placement, Animal, Aquatic, Pattern Building, Competitive, Official Solo Mode, Solo Achievement Scenario, 1-4 players

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The Lord of the Rings is at this moment, probably the hottest popular IP in tabletop game industry.  In 2025, they released 3 games, Fate of the Fellowship with the Pandemic Game system, then the roll and write game about the Hobbit and then this one with trick-taking mechanism.

Trick-taking gameplay itself is probably the most popular gameplay genre in tabletop industry ever since The Crew. While there are a lot more competitive trick taking games, the cooperative ones are still rare. So, the combination of the popular IP and genre make this one an easy sell.

At this point of time, the publisher already released the 2nd box following the story in the 2nd book.

Title: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings – Trick-Taking Game
Year Released: 2025
Designer: Bryan Bornmueller
Publisher: Office Dog
Artist: Elaine Ryan, Samuel R. Shimota

Genre: Cooperative, The Lord of the Rings, Trick-Taking Game, Optional Campaign Mode, Scenario Based Game, Official Solo Variant, Stained Glass Art style

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Before this one, I’ve never played the original Forest Shuffle from 2023 which was at this point already within top 200 games on BGG. And at the time of this writing, the publisher already released the 3rd title.

From what I understand, these 3 games have almost identical gameplay with some new twists here and there. Apparently, you cannot mix and match them because they use different back of the cards. It seems, each also has their own sets of expansions.

Forest Shuffle is a game about building ecosystem of your forest. You first need to have a tree or terrain cards. From there, you can add either animals or plants around them. Every species you add to your forest might give you points at the end with possible extra requirements you need to meet. Some need more unique species of the same type while others need to work with different species.

Title: Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor
Year Released: 2025
Designer: Kosch
Publisher: Lookout Games
Artist: Toni Llobet and Judit Piella

Genre: Nature, Multi-use Card, Animals, Hand Management, Official Solo Mode, Additional Component Required for Solo Play, Competitive Game, 2-4 Players

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