Games Leaving & Being Added: April 2026 - The Druids of Edora, Guards of Atlantis & More!!!

0:00 Hey, I'm Alex Radcliffe from BoardGameCo, and these are the games entering and leaving my collection for April of 2026. We have four games being added to my 200 game collection, which means four games are leaving my 200 game collection. Those of you who have been following along know that I'm keeping my collection size at 200 games, which means any game that gets added, something else has to go. I'll be going through those four added and four leaving shortly. We also have six games passing through. Those are games that I covered, I played, but I do not choose to keep them because well, I'm trying to keep only 200 games, which means most games inevitably have to pass through. Honestly, that ratio of four being added with only six passing through, that's a pretty good ratio all things considered. We'll be diving into all of that. Usual things to cover first though. First of all, this channel is sponsored by All Play. All Play is a site where you can get a variety of things including the table you see in front of you, the shelves you see behind you. I am so overdue on the review video for the shelves. I think it's a long story. The whole process of the table, there's a topper coming, there's a whole long story here, but I do owe you a shelf review video coming soon. I say coming soon. I owe you a shelf review video.

1:01 Anyways, All Play, you can go ahead and get their shelves, their tables. You get their board game bags and of course their games as well as their partner publisher games. You can check all of that out at allplay.com. Also, a general reminder that I always do in the covering of the series is I play a lot of games every single year. In fact, this year I have a daily challenge or a challenge to learn more than 365 new games this year. I am currently ahead of the pace on this. I'm at like I don't know. I'm at more than I need for for where we are in the month, for where we are in the year so far. But, that does mean that playing a lot of games means I cannot keep everything. If I want to keep a collection size of 200 games and I'm going to be learning more than 365 new games this year alone, I just can't keep most games. So, a lots of great games come through. Good games Good games almost always leave. Great games sometimes leave and bad games definitely leave or just don't get added. They don't leave so much as they never get added in the first place. This is a whole lot of preamble. Let's go ahead and start off with the four games that are being added to the collection. In no particular order, we have these four games. We have Shallow Sea, which I love Shallow Sea. I am really enjoying this one. This is currently up there with my favorite of the tiling genre. Very thinky, very hard to min-max everything.

2:08 It feels very It feels like a nice blend between Calico and Cascadia. Like it kind of has more of the structure of Cascadia and Calico and Cascadia are some of my favorite in the genre, but has the structure of Cascadia, but it has that feeling that Calico has that no, no, I can make everything work perfectly before you inevitably fall apart and you can't. It's just a question of how well can you make things worse. So, I'll be adding Shallow Sea. Also going to be adding Borealis Arctic Expeditions. I should have a review coming for you soon on this one. This one already has a review. Borealis, I I need to give you a review at some point soon. I enjoy this one. I do not think it's a forever game. Right now I'm still enjoying it. There's a fun little tension of laying cards down and trying to min-max where each card goes as it goes towards multiple scoring criteria. I think the art is beautiful. It's very simple to play, fairly quick to play. I also think that it lacks some of the depth that something like Shallow Sea has, pun not intended in that in this case. But for right now, it's here. I do wonder if this will be here in a year.

3:03 This is the kind of game that like when I'm looking at what games to add next month, I will be looking at games like this, but I do want more plays of it for right now. So, right now it's still like in that grace period, but I I have to guess, I would say this is going to be 6 months to a year. I just want to play it and explore it more, but I don't think it's sticking around for a long time like Shallow Sea probably is. The Druids of Adora. Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to give you a review on this one, but I need more plays first. I've only played this twice so far. I need more plays before I give a review, but um I like it. I like it a lot. It's definitely being added. It's a Stefan Feld game that I I wasn't super excited. I was like intrigued, but not super excited because I try to manage and temper my expectations. Not every new Stefan Feld game is a game I'm going to love, but I had a chance to play this at Dice Tower West and by somebody who was a big fan of Castles of Burgundy and they're like, "Alex, you got to play the game." They taught the game. I loved the game and I immediately like that day, I went on Amazon and bought it. Like I tried finding I only I found a copy as Amazon and in fact even that link was dead 2 days later cuz I was trying to recommend to somebody else. I got my hands on a copy as soon as I possibly could because I really enjoyed it and more more content coming soon around this one. But the Druids of Adora, I I I I think it's absolutely phenomenal. And then we have Lairs. This is another one that probably will not be in the forever category, but we'll see. Also, this is like a weird caveat. So, the way I manage my 200 games is I only count my collection. I don't count like my kids' collection for example. So, games they want to keep don't count against my 200.

4:26 The main reason for that is because if they sit there and say, "I want a game." I don't want to be like, "Nope, you can't cuz I'm going to have to get rid of a game if you do that." I don't want to do that. They can keep whatever games they want. For right now, I'm counting Lairs as in my collection too because for right now, I'm holding on to it. There's a possibility that at some point it shifts to a game I'm willing to let go, at which point whether my kids are or not will be up to them. But the way I count it is if I would keep it myself, it goes in my collection and if they want to keep it, it goes in their collection. Anyways, I like Lairs. Lairs is a two-player game. There's a three and four-player mode, but it's a two-player game of both players building a dungeon and then both of them taking turns exploring each other's dungeon trying to avoid the traps and monsters while getting the treasure and exiting the dungeon. So far, I've only just I started dabbling in it, so I still have a lot more to explore, opening packs, unlocking new content, new monsters, new rules, new things like that. For right now, very much enjoying this one and again, we'll see we'll see where it goes. Will this be in my collection in 6 to 12 months? Will it be in the house at all in 6 to 12 months? I don't know, but for right now, I'm definitely enjoying it enough that I I do have it here. With that, let's go ahead and talk about the games that these are replacing because four games got added, which means four games have to leave. So, in no particular order, let's say that Druids of Adora is replacing Keyflower.

5:37 Because Keyflower, I played this a few times recently. I I was on my goal. I did a bunch of videos of games I want to play again this year. I games I want to play either games I want to play more than Okay, sorry. I did three videos. I did a video of expansions I want to play, board game arena games I want to play, and then just 10 games I haven't played before. And I can't remember which video this went in, either the board game arena or the games I haven't played. But I have played Keyflower before, but I only played it once a long time ago and I had so much fun with it that I held on to it for like several years. But I finally played it again. Several times in fact. I've dove into it several times since doing those videos and it's not holding up the same way it did back then. I don't know what it is about it. I don't know whether it was the people I played with, the mood I was in. Keyflower, I liked my first play so much that I held on to this game for like four years since then without playing it granted. And now I'm like, "You know what? I I I think it's a good game, but not a game that sparks joy the same way it used to." So, Keyflower is leaving the collection. Then we're going to have Borealis is going to replace We'll have Borealis replace YINSH. There's no particular correlation between the two.

6:40 Games don't have to be the similar category to replace them, but I'm finally letting go of YINSH, which means the only game in the GIPF series left in my collection at this point is TZAAR, which has always been my favorite. YINSH has been accessible in a way that TZAAR hasn't. YINSH is the game I introduce people to when I'm like, "Oh, you like Othello, but you want something more?" That's YINSH. It's Othello, but something more. I think YINSH is fantastic. It's a great game. I've had it in my collection for like eight, nine, 10 years. It's been a long time. But ultimately, I realize I haven't pulled out YINSH or TZAAR for that matter in a long time. TAK, I still pull out a ton. With GIPF, it still gets a lot of play. But from the abstract, SENTORYN still gets a lot of play. But from the abstracts in my collection, YINSH and YINSH and TZAAR have not been played in probably over a year if not longer. I played YINSH on BGA, but like that's It's separate. Like you can still play it on BoardGameArena. Don't worry about that. But in person, I have not played it in a long time and TZAAR, I'm holding on to for right now, but we'll see. It might be next on the chopping block at some point. YINSH, I am ready to let go of unfortunately. Then we have Guards of Atlantis. This one will be replaced by Well, the game that's replacing this is Onward. Onward is replacing Guards of Atlantis. I think Guards of Atlantis is absolutely fantastic. In this category over here, I'm going to have Lairs replace Guards of Atlantis. I don't know why. I just The other one's more Euro-y, which is more Shallow Sea. That's why. But Guards of Atlantis over here, absolutely fantastic game. I've enjoyed it a lot. A long time ago, one of the first video series I did on the channel was Skytear versus Guards of Atlantis versus Runebones. I still have Runebones. I think it's fantastic, although I don't play it nearly enough. I still have Well, I replaced Skytear with Onward, but Onward felt like a blend between Skytear and Guards of Atlantis. And the biggest thing for me is it's playable at

8:11 two. Like it's a Not just playable. This is playable at two, but this is really requires four plus to be ideal. Onward is actually better at two, which is more often the count that I'm playing these types of games at. I find I'm usually not Like I very rarely play Guards of Atlantis at four players. It's been a while since I last played a four-player game and at two, it's just not the same in my opinion. And so, Onward is replacing it cuz it does share a lot of DNA. It's like definitely again, they took what they took what Skytear did and then they took the I I don't know if they did this officially, but they they seem to be inspired by by Guards of Atlantis and kind of had a blend of their own game with elements of another game, which made it easy to replace Guards of Atlantis. It's a phenomenal game. It really, really is. This is just the nature of me not playing this game at four players nearly enough to justify having it and Onward taking up a very similar spot in my collection that I don't need both. And then lastly, we have Shallow Sea replacing Tapestry. I like Tapestry. This has been in and out of my collection several times. But the fact that it's playable on BoardGameArena definitely helps my ability to get rid of it. In fact, I'm in the middle of a game right now as we speak. But Tapestry is excellent. I think with the expansion, it's even better. But I still do find that I At the end of the day, as much as I enjoy Tapestry, it's a solid four out of five in a game in a genre Hey, we got a cat showing up. It's a solid four out of five when I play games like this, games that are going to be in that 90 minutes to hour range that are in this Euro category, I'm more likely to play the 4.5s and the fives. So, overall Hey, Alfie. Did I scare you off? I wasn't trying to scare you off. I was trying to play with you. I'm sorry. That made me look mean. I'm not mean. They they like me. Alfie, come back. Come back.

9:38 I'll leave you alone. She's chilling. She's in heat right now. I need to get her spayed. Anyways, and and and I I I long story short, I would have gotten her spayed a while ago, but the problem is she went through this whole pneumonia thing for a bit, so she's been sick, so they didn't want to spay her while she was getting while she was recovering from pneumonia. She finally seems to be recovered from pneumonia, which means I need to go ahead and get a an appointment. But in the meantime, every 3 weeks she goes through a cycle where she mews at everyone and then tries to sit on my face every night while I'm sleeping. So, it's lovely. I do like her a lot, but yeah, she needs to get spayed. Anyways, where were we? Tapestry, I think it's great. I think it's very fun. I think this mansion is added to it. I think it's great production value. I've had such a on and off relationship with it over the years. At the end of the day, when I can't play the games I love enough, Tapestry just doesn't have a chance of surviving, unfortunately. Those are the games being entering and leaving my collection, which means it's time for the less exciting part. I debated I debated making the less exciting part the first part and saying, "But stay till the end so you can see the exciting part." But that feels like that feels like playing the algorithm game. Like I'm going to tease you at the beginning. Stay tuned for the real meat of what's entering or leaving. I'll just give it to you up front. You can end the video now. You don't have to watch the rest, but it sure is appreciated for the sake of the algorithm and the whole watch time and all that stuff. YouTube likes their watch time. They like their likes. Like this video. Share the video. Comment on the video. Do all the good things. If you haven't yet, subscribe. I also have a Patreon, Ko-fi, all those things down below. You can do all the various things. But in the meantime, let's head to the six games not entering, passing through. First of all, we have Piñatas

11:08 over here. Piñatas from All Play. This is a fun trick-taking game, but ultimately it kind of relies on a single hook. I just did a review for the game, you can check it out. I think the single hook is not enough for me to love it and want to add it the way many other trick-takers are. Great production value, a solid gameplay, but solid gameplay does not make it into the collection. Praga Caput Regni over here. This is part of the games that I wanted to learn, games that I've been had around for quite some time. In fact, this has a Board Game Co sticker on it, which I can peel off because these stickers I spent years Some of you may not even know this. The reason Board Game Co, the YouTube channel, started is because I had Board Game Co, the online store of bought and sold and traded used games. I spent years finding a sticker That's not true. I spent like 6 months. I spent 6 months finding stickers that could peel off years later without leaving residue. This sticker has been on this box for at least 4 years. I know that because I closed down Board Game Co in 2022 and this is one of the games that I got on the way out. I grabbed this on the way out cuz I was like, "I should play that game." I didn't play that game until until recently. I finally played the game and the sticker is now off. I'm going to put it We'll take care of it later. I'll put it on the side of the table over here.

12:12 Anyways, Praga Caput Regni. I played it. I I don't care. I don't care for it. I'm glad people like it. I'm not saying it's bad. It's totally fine, but ultimately, like I didn't even bother I only played it once. So, like you're not even going to get a review from me on this because I generally don't review things that I only played once and I decided I don't want to give it a second play. I could have called it a first impression, but it feels like I'm 4 years too late to give a first impression of Praga Caput Regni. So, here's my first impression. I I understand why this game is appealing and I'm glad it works for some people and I couldn't tell you why Darwin's Journey I love and adore and Praga Caput Regni just fell flat for me. But the actions, even though there's like the all these interconnectedness between the actions, it feels it doesn't feel smooth to me. It does it feels like they're they happen to connect, but like it doesn't feel like it works thematically and appropriately. Like Darwin's Journey, I guess I'm telling you why I like Darwin's Journey and not Praga Caput Regni. Darwin's Journey, everything feels natural and smooth and Praga Caput Regni is like, "Well, if you do this thing, you go up on this track."

13:05 Why? Cuz cuz we needed a thing to do. And also, if you do this thing, you move to the right on the track and you can time your bonuses. What what is that track? I don't know. It's a box where you get things. Why is there a box where we get things? Cuz we had to give you things to get. I I think Praga Caput Regni checks a lot of boxes, but it doesn't feel like the soul and spirit of what I want in a game that has that level of interconnectedness and I'd rather play other games instead. So, I'm sorry. Vladimir Suchy is a great designer. Don't need to keep this game. We have Tem-po. Fell flat for me. I did not love Tem-po. It's not bad, but it's also not exciting. It just feels like do the thing until you win or lose, which granted most games are do the thing until you win or lose, but this one feels like do the thing until you win or lose. It doesn't feel like a particularly amazing game. I mean, it looks beautiful. It's from the designer of Heat, I believe. Is it Is it It's from Oh, he's one of Mads Flo, one of the designers of Heat. I did not care. I did not care for Tem-po. I wanted to like it. I did not. It was It was not great. I have a review. Oh, do I have a review? I might have a Solo Sunday video. I think I did a Solo Sunday gameplay and review that hasn't gone up yet. I should probably put that up.

14:08 Do I have I I need to go ahead and edit that video if I didn't edit that video. Skurry Up. It's a cute game. It's a cute little fun little game. It's not particularly amazing, but it's cute and fun. It's basically a game where players are going to be choosing areas to get stuff and if you clash with other players, then possibly no one gets stuff. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's core of the whole idea. But then you can tell people before where you're going to go. You can say, "I'm going to go to there." And then people will be like, "I'm going to go to there." And you're like, "Well, I'm going to go to there, so I guess we'll both bust." And which one of you is bluffing? Jokes on you, you're both bluffing. It's cute. It's fun, but it's like it's fine. It's not like amazing. It's It's another re-implementation of a thing that's been done and it's not done particularly better. It's just another re-implementation. We have Way Too Many Cats. I I wanted to like this one. It was cute, but like the actual visual absorption of what's going on at the table when you're playing is not easy. So, it was one of those point-scoring games.

14:56 Like I like point-scoring games like this. I like games like Where's the Shallow Sea. I love games in which you're just trying to like place the things to min-max your score as you try to fulfill multiple scoring criteria. But I do think table comprehension, visible comprehension of what's happening is important and I felt that Way Too Many Cats had way too many symbols and things going on to be able to at a glance understand what's happening. I just don't want to count things up in my head every single turn that I play a thing. So, good concept, execution was lacking for me. And then we have Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons. If you like D&D, this might be your best version of Horrified to play. It's a cooperative game. In fact, I actually did a Solo Sunday of this. I did a Solo Sunday of this and this. And in fact, I'm debating filming a Solo Sunday of Shallow Sea tonight. Fun fact, I don't actually film the Solo Sunday videos on Sunday. I film the Solo Sunday videos whenever I want to, which sometimes happens to be Sunday, but they go up on Sunday. That's the point. But I do want to play Solo Shallow Sea more and I want to do some on camera cuz I haven't done that for you yet. Anyways, back to Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons. I did another like, you know, thoughts and impressions and gameplay of this if you want to check it out. I think Horrified is a fun system. It's one of the first reviews I've ever done on the channel.

15:56 The original Horrified, that is, not this one. But over the years, I've reviewed Horrified, I've reviewed Horrified: Greek Monsters, I've reviewed Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons. I think I skipped American Monsters if I'm not mistaken. But overall, it's it's a good system. It's a fun system. The Greek Monsters is my favorite, but I still think that there are other games that I prefer. Like The Loop. I'd play The Loop a million times over over Horrified. So, like you just got to pick and choose the games that particularly work for you. Horrified is always a fun system and one that I don't feel the need to own. And those are the games passing through, which brings us to the end of the video. That's it. That's the end. That's all the stuff I have for you today. So, these are the games entering and leaving the collection. We have Layers, Druids of the Outer Regions, Borealis, and Shallow Sea entering. Shallow Sea is going to be around for a bit. Druids of the Outer Regions is going to be around for a bit. Layers and Borealis, we shall see. They might be in 6 months, they might not. We have these four: Tapestry, Guards of Atlantis, Yinch, and Keyflower all leaving the collection for those reasons just so I could have that collection size of 200 at a nice even number. And then we have these six that are passing through. They don't feel the need to to enter. They're just games I covered, I played, and now I'm not keeping them. And then in the case of an emergency, I'm Alex Radcliffe from Board Game Co. I hope you appreciate fun Board Game Co. I'm Alex Radcliffe from Board Game Co. I hope you appreciate this video. And as always, I hope you have a good one.

17:03 I'm realizing that I often do a thumbnail shot at the end and that's that needs more context than I'll just do Now I'll just do this.