Top Ten Hidden Gems at UKGE 2026!

0:00 Hello and welcome to Bor Stupid. My name is Wild Matt. Matt, I've been digging for what? Digging for gems. Where? At Birmingham in UKG 2026 because there's tons of them. Of course, this is our top hidden gems at the UKG show. And uh yeah, we want to talk about all these like little game that you might have missed. All these like indie creators, they got beautiful, fantastic game with the great stories behind. And we want to talk about a few of those.

0:30 Some of those ones that sound super cool to us. So to join us in our dig to find some hidden gems.

0:35 Well, hit the subscribe button and uh

0:39 ding the bell.

0:39 Yeah. And at the end of the video, all the instruction about our live giveaway.

0:45 Biggest one ever. This one uh we want to talk to you about it is game from our friends Sean hold at Allies or Enemies that um it's it's another YouTube channel. So go and check them out. Check that out. And um they they made a game they made one of those people that you know what I made a game and it's actually pretty cool.

1:15 Yeah. They they walked the talk and they've got their own game called Last Week of Summer set in 1986, which I may or may not be old enough to have experienced.

1:27 The the less I say about that, the better. Uh, it's really cool. It looks awesome. It has those neon vibes. And the idea is you're going to have the best week you possibly can before you have to go back to school. So, what does that mean? It means that

1:43 but that week is epic.

1:45 Epic. You're going to be going to the video store, going to the arcades, going to the skate park, seeing your friends, doing all of this cool stuff in multiple mini games. Essentially,

1:54 exactly. Each mini games going to play different, but um at the end of the things, what you want to do for each one of these mini games is collecting memories and the memories are cassette like the the music cassette. Oh, that was so cool. I remember I've been doing a few cassette when I was a kid. If you're if you're

2:10 probably there's someone watching this video that might not even know what we're talking about.

2:14 This is obsolete technology.

2:15 Yes, definitely.

2:16 This is literally what it is. But this looks it's really fun. Had some friends in the show that have played the game and had lots of great things to say about it. So, uh yeah, we're excited to go check it out ourselves last week of summer. Some of you uh might saw um in the past Fame and Fable from Owen Davis Studio and um Owen uh did another game. This time it's not um fantasy, it's sci-fi.

2:44 Yeah.

2:44 And we're talking about Mariners or Mariners.

2:47 Mariners. Mariners.

2:48 Mariners. It's

2:49 space mariners.

2:50 Space Mariners. Mariners.

2:52 Mariners. Mariners.

2:53 Whatever.

2:54 So you Oh, well then you tell us.

2:56 You let us go. Yeah. So essentially, you are going to be in this game taking the role of scientists in space using a deck building system and a little bit of resource management. You're going to be placing your ships on different places to get different bits of resource. Uh you can uh place in a normal place or you can go into the abyss for a little bit of riskrewards to maybe find some rare stuff as well.

3:20 This is a game where you're going to be gaining points by making scientific breakthroughs. This sounds super fun. It's not coming out for a little while. This Kickstarter will be next year, but this is your first chance to see it, and you want to see it because it has Owen's amazing art.

3:34 Yes. So Owen is the designer and the artist behind the game. Same things for for Fame and Fable. So Fame and Fable is going to be there. I think the fulfillment is around September. So you're going to be able to play both the games. Uh but we we already saw Fame and Fable. We saw it for for a few years now, but we are really excited about this one with this sci-fi twist on his art. The art that that we we can see now is already fantastic and we know how good he is at doing it and how good is at doing games that it just like is is brilliant. So, um definitely if you want something that looks cool and it plays even better, definitely check Mariners.

4:14 And while you're there, favorite fan favorite both of them. Yeah. So, next up on our list is a trick taking game. Me and Matt do like a bit of trick taking and it has this fantastic pixel art which immediately brought our attention.

4:28 Of course. Of course it does. Yeah, of course it does. Uh and it's called Can't Win.

4:33 Yeah. From Japanese designer. I need to write the the

4:37 Tik Shinawa.

4:38 Tiki Shinawa. Yeah. Good. Oh, better than me. Uh faster than me. Uh but um so trick Taking trick taking has been on the crest of the for for a while.

4:49 Yes, it really has.

4:49 Um but um this one sounds to have like a beside the magnificence like the art with these pixel art that we're suckers for. Uh but um sounds have this kind of like

5:00 um weird twist. So basically um to win to win the game uh you must guess exactly how many tricks you're going to you're going to win. Uh but on top of that, at it's the start of each round, you're going to have to put some constraints on yourself in terms of which cards you can win the tricks with. So, it's kind of like betting on yourself on not just the number of of um uh of tricks you're going to win, but as well like, oh, I'm going to win without using red cards or or just using blue cards or stuff like that. So, they could work for you or you can they can work against you. again. I want to really play it. It sounds like a like a smaller game and um that looks beautiful and it's Japanese. Yes, nice game.

5:47 You got me there.

5:48 Yeah, the designer also did a bunch of stuff. He did some work for Oink Games in the past with Maskman as with numerous other games like this.

5:55 Uh so this is going to be a really interesting one. Me and Matt will be playing it. Uh let's go. Let's go.

5:59 And I can't wait. Can't

6:00 we can't wait. Can't win.

6:04 Well, you know, I'm a massive football fan, right? really.

6:11 Yes, you are.

6:12 Unfortunately, I'm unfortunately I am unfortunate. Uh but um there has been so few games that managed to get the spirit of football and talking about football for you American dudes. It

6:28 and we're not going to call it. It's football.

6:30 It's football. We're talking football.

6:31 That's it. Yeah.

6:33 Conversation. Oh,

6:34 conversation closed. what I was saying there's been a um not many games that managed to get the football essence into a board game. I know a few of them. Uh one of them is Unichi. Uh it's a fantastic game. Yeah. Possible. But go and check it out. Uh but um the one that we're talking here is called Golden Go and he's taking the essence of football and shrinking in a teeny teeny teeny tiny box from All Play. Yeah, we like what All Play do by condensing their games down into those beautiful little boxes. Yeah, they're just they're just so nice and so easy to carry around and yet I like the idea of being able to create a sort of abstracted football game in this tiny little box. And I think you're very excited. Just theme alone was the one.

7:20 Exactly. So that's I'm buying that. The game is going to be basically an action selection. you only got um I think it's four or five players per per side and you need to position your players in the right way um moving them in the right way to to to score a goal uh but without leaving the back um uh cuz otherwise you're going to get a goal. So um it sounds like a like a 15 minutes game so it should be like nice and simple. It's got the pitch itself is going to be one of those clock things that you really love. Uh, but it it looks like it looks super cute. It reminds me a lot if you're old as me and you've been able to play World War Cup on the first Nintendo. It looks like that. It looks like that. So, I was just like, "Oh my god, this I need to have this one." Uh, but again, if you're a football fan, this sounds like a very small It's going to be very small price as well.

8:14 Why not?

8:15 Why not? Wait, Matt,

8:19 you know I like football, but I know I know you like birds with hats,

8:27 right?

8:28 Yeah, I suppose. I suppose I do. I do, do you?

8:34 I mean, who doesn't?

8:35 Yeah, who doesn't? Especially with that fantastic artwork that fetching feathers for you.

8:41 That's the worst segue I've ever heard. But Matt, you are right though. 13 What feathers the game by Chris Chris who did Zuli otherwise known as Moving Wild from O Games. Uh this is his new game uh which is absolutely fantastic. Me and you have played it. We played a bunch.

8:56 Yeah, we do have an like a a review of the game as well because we were one of the few lucky people to get a copy like a a first edition copy uh last year. There was literally just like 20 copies or something like that. Uh, so this year is where you can actually go there and get finally your copy. Um, it's it's a very very cool game that we played quite through the summer quite a lot.

9:19 It's really fun. It is a drafting game and we really like drafting games cuz when you have a closed draft it has an inbuilt sense of tension and what you're trying to do is match the birds to the right habitats but then of course the birds will migrate depending on Exactly. they fly away and when that happens you need to turn your guards upside down. There's all sorts of things going on. Very interesting. A little bit of combo building. Uh, plays nice and quickly. I think he's done a great job with this one. Starwork is amazing as well.

9:45 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With all these like um birds with hats and they all like kind of resemble some famous people. It's just like, you know, no, no, it's it's really lovely. We played it. We played it a ton. Uh we It's one of the games that we um took with us on on holiday and uh we had a fantastic time. So, um, we definitely invite you to go get your copy of Faction Feders. While you're there as well, you can check the other games. Um,

10:12 do it's like a dueling game.

10:15 Yeah, exactly. That one is pretty cool as well. So, go there. You can check both the games.

10:21 So, Matt, this year 2026 is the year of your stack.

10:27 Your stack. Can't wait for my stag. I can't wait for my stag. It's going to be amazing. We're going to have a great time, mate. And more importantly for right now, for the people at home who can't come on your stag.

10:39 No, but you can play stag.

10:41 You can play stag.

10:42 It's the game's called stag, but there is no shrinking involved. Sadly, unfortunately for you. Uh, but there's a lot of beetles involved. This is Stag, the a game that talks about beetles. talks about the life cycle of a beetle from a little what you

11:00 grub I guess whatever that things up to a

11:03 egg all the way up to

11:04 to a big stag that fight all the stags and um and you need to get points out of it.

11:10 This is by Split Stone Games and uh JJ Neville Jack who brought us Mycelia the strategic mushroom game

11:20 that we loved very very much.

11:21 Exactly. And this is his new one that he's been working on for a very long time. It has a very elaborate production with this giant rotating circular board. You have these amazing sort of triple layered personal boards as well. Lots of different resources. The game has this very deep resource management flow to it. We are obviously trying to deal with what the Beatles need to grow, to survive, and to eventually thrive to fight in the middle of the board.

11:48 Yeah, exactly. So during during the game, you're going to um uh as you say, grow up your your Beatles. Um each card is going to be different and uh and Jack is taking care of the artwork of all the beautiful art.

12:00 Absolutely beautiful. If you saw um um Mycelia, you will understand like the beauty beauty of the game. And and then you got this um um simultaneous action selection from the from the people where you got this board where you kind of like slide piece different pieces of the board and whatever is revealed whatever is in the central line is going to be your action. Whatever is left revealed is going to be the resources that you're getting back. So you always get that balance that you need to say all right I'm going to do this action this action but I cannot do this because I need this resources that it will not be available if I do this other action and on top of that growing up all the all your beetles and sending them on this I don't know the central borders tree of life of life I guess of beles hunting um where as soon are on the um on the final level of this concentric uh board they're going go head to head and fight in this kind of like rock scissor um rock scissor type where you can you can be like each player will do with simultaneously selecting okay I'm going to fight or I'm going to tribe when you drive is basically if we both tribe we're going to be like all right we're buddies you know what we we can leave

13:15 we're just going to gather we're going to eat some food

13:17 or or if both of them fight they both dies

13:21 or if one fights and the other one drive the one fighting wins and it's getting more Yeah. So there is like this this very interesting kind of prisoners final showdown.

13:31 Yeah. Like there like the prisoners dilemma/ golden balls dilemma at the end of each round which is very interesting.

13:36 Yeah. So um again uh production looks beautiful. Uh go have a look at stag.

13:44 So Matt has had a renaissance recently. He has become

13:48 a solo gamer. I

13:50 I've been trying a lot of solo games and I've been enjoying it. I have to say I have to say I always been quite skeptic. Not skeptical but just like I always been like oh let's play video games. I'll play video game. Uh but I recently started playing quite a number of um of solo games especially card games. So I'm really excited about this one because it's finally is ready is finished and it's time trooper. It's time which we got to play a prototype copy of at Aircon last year. Yeah, quite a while.

14:24 And we were really excited about it early. I I think it's really awesome and as a solo game, this is going to be a great experience. It's like a solo adventure deck builder.

14:32 Yeah, exactly. So, you're going to travel the different and putting together a squad and managing through the cards, managing all the the bad things happening. Uh so, think about something like Stargate style. Uh but in in very cool way. Um it is a solo games. We did try to play the two-player as well. That was actually fine because you can take decision together. You got resources that you need to spend. You got fight that you need to fight or maybe avoid fighting to try to achieve whatever the mission tell you to do. And in this like overbranching um uh campaign depending on what you do the things are going to be different. You might visit Eido Japan, you might visit the future or Egypt. And uh with always the threat of this like uh bad guys Yeah, like they're trying to kill you from the future. They're coming with you and yeah, but that's it's really cool.

15:27 Um the game uh was um um it's just been delivered. I think the campaign uh Kickstarter game found campaign was last year. Uh I think it's just been delivered. So there should be copy as well there. Um and uh yeah, that's that's a game I'm really looking to get my hands on.

15:45 It's really cool. Quite an ambitious project for a solo game as well. So definitely go check out if that's your bag.

15:51 Wayne, how's your Irish passport application going? It's

15:55 going well.

15:56 Yeah. Have you Are you Irish now?

15:58 Not yet. It's happening though.

16:00 Are you just going to start drinking Guinness tomorrow?

16:03 I do like a stout. And as every day gets closer, I find my desire for stout increases.

16:09 So, uh, yeah. So, in my I I have Irish heritage. My mom's family is all Irish.

16:15 Yes. You're getting your your Irish your Irish passport. And while you're getting your Irish passport, why

16:21 why don't you check packs? Because we're talking about Irish mythology and folklore to play a game.

16:28 I can play this while I'm waiting for my passport.

16:30 Yes, it's a 15 to 20 minutes game from the guys at DVC game.

16:34 I'm going to need to play it a few times then.

16:35 Yeah. Area area majority um uh with I split you choose mechanics.

16:42 Love that. Yeah,

16:44 it looks honestly this looks super cool. Um,

16:47 just the idea of I mean I love love Celtic Celtic mythology and legend anyway. It's called ancient lands. You got fairies, you've got fay, you've got the sulky, you have the celely versus the unseely and you're basically controlling and manipulating one of these two courts.

17:03 Um, a two-player dueling game. I mean, there's been quite a few of them in recent years. Uh, but we can't get enough of them. We love a two-player game. um reminds me a little bit of um something like Caesar C Rom kind of on on that on on that kind of style of the game. Yes, it does. But this adds this kind of ice speed you choose mechanics as well that I find really cool because this is one of those things. It's like in um ancient avenue style.

17:31 Exactly.

17:32 It makes the games very interesting with this bluff and counter bluff and all that stuff. And on top of that, this area majority uh production looks pretty cool with this

17:41 very small little box. Beautiful

17:43 with the with the your lovely uh

17:46 Wait, wait, wait.

17:48 It looks amazing. Except is what you're going to say the cloth. There's a cloth board. Some people love them. I don't

17:53 I I'm not against the cloth at all.

17:55 That's not

17:55 I'm not against the I don't know why you got against the cot. Is it because you can't iron it?

18:00 I can't iron. I hate the clock.

18:02 But

18:02 but definitely check that.

18:03 It looks amazing to be fair. Okay, next up is a little bit of a wild card because we started reading about this game and went, "Good grief, that looks very interesting." And then we saw some pictures and the art looked absolutely charming.

18:19 Yes.

18:19 Yeah. So, this could be uh really fantastic or it could be like way too heavy or it could be somewhere in between. So, we're really excited to try this game out. But this is Cat Veil.

18:31 Yeah. That where you are playing as a cat. sentient cats.

18:34 Sentient cats. We're not cat people. No,

18:37 a lot of you guys are. We're more dog persons. You know it. But um as soon as I saw the artwork, I was like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

18:46 hang on a minute."

18:47 Um and uh it looks pretty cool. You got um this kind of like they promised like this dynamic gameplay two to six player uh with this uh tower basic map that creates like unique ever changing landscape a little bit of adventure with action points. There's a tons of like different mechanics all together rolling combat resource management building. You got some adventure stuff going on. Um, this is like there's a seem like there's a lot going on here with of course uh like a he a healthy dose of player interaction. You got people developing your own areas, but then there's also like cooperative elements that you need to work together on. Like there is a lot to consider.

19:32 Yeah. I as as far as I understand this game is going to go to Kickstarter later in the year, I believe. Uh so it's going to be like a very good chance for you to test the game and then understand if this is for you or not. But uh from what we read and what we saw, it sounds super cool. So, we're gonna be one of those trying the game and try to understand should we back it or not when whenever it comes out.

19:56 We will definitely be doing that. So, see us at the table for Cat Veil.

20:00 Yeah, it could have been Dog Veil as well.

20:02 Yeah, do dog veil.

20:03 Do veil next then.

20:05 Yeah,

20:06 mate. The I suppose modernday curse is that we can't just enjoy life. We have to work.

20:14 Yeah, we do have to work. Yes. for bread.

20:16 For we have to

20:17 bring home the bread.

20:18 Bring home the bread. And we're talking about a game called Loaf, which is kind of a critique on this whole situation.

20:26 Yes. Yes.

20:27 Well, you it's it's this um semi-op game. So, this game came out in 2025, but I never heard of it. You never heard of it. So, we're going to talk to you about it because you might not have never heard of it. And it's going to be at the show. So, that that's good. Uh basically the um the bank the the story of the game is we're all working in a bakery. Uh the head baker tell us um to bake a certain amount of uh of bread each turn and we need to contribute to this amount of bread with cards from our hand. Yeah. However, you don't want you want to contribute to it but without being the ones that contribute the most because at the end of the game the uh then the the the value of the cards that you going to left um in your hands and left it's going to be your scoring points at the end.

21:14 However, you don't want to be the laziest one because you're going to get fired otherwise. So, you kind of always need to be in that middle way. You don't want to spend the highest card because otherwise it's out of your hands for points. But you don't want to play the lowest card because otherwise you you're going to get burned.

21:33 Yeah, it's it's pretty cool.

21:34 Sounds really fun. I I love the idea of this where you're just basically just trying to do the minimum work possible. Kind of like quiet quitting. Exactly.

21:43 Quiet quitting your job in the baker.

21:46 Quiet quack quitting the bakery. Yes.

21:48 Yeah. Absolutely. Just like ah do the absolute bare minimum. I mean, it's just a hilarious theme and like and with the the picture and the artwork, it absolutely sold me with the idea of it. I was like, I'm I'm game for that.

22:00 Yeah, it's smaller box, 20 to 30 minutes play up to four up to six play. Yeah. Uh this one is one of those I'm sure that we're going to trying to get it and and have a laugh at the end of the one of the days because it sounds hilarious, sounds simple to understand, but at the same time like very interactive. Yeah, it's probably one of those you can play with with your family as well as you try to quite quit your job uh having

22:26 you can live out your fantasies in life.

22:31 So Matt, that was just a selection of the hundreds of games that you can find that could be your next favorite game at UKG. We just went with our gut on what we saw played already,

22:44 but I'm sure we'll discover stuff as we walk along.

22:46 Yes. And that is the best part of UKG is always like walking the horse and find other hidden gems. Last year one was 10B. So

22:55 yeah, exactly.

22:55 Have you got a copy of TMBB there and then you're lucky because otherwise they went sold out for the entire year and they're now back for this UK. But there's going to be copy. So you can go and check that out as well while you are there. But also something that we'd love you to check out is our Patreon page. Reason being is because we go in depth on a whole bunch of other games at UKG. We go through almost the entire BGG list.

23:21 Yeah, we got a big episode just for the for our patreon where we go game by game having conversation about all of them. So if you want to know more of what we think of the entirety UKG shenanigan, you can go in there h and then you can join our um WhatsApp group. You can enter the monthly giveaway and all the all the loads of stuff. Just go check it out if you like.

23:47 But there's an extra bonus for you for UK Games.

23:49 Yeah, because we just say monthly giveaway for the Patreon. But for the UK GE, we're doing our live giveaway. It's our biggest one ever. Me and Matt have got around 50 games. Uh that just some big hitters, some huge games that we're just doing for free. It's a free giveaway.

24:06 Rules are very simple. Location and time 5:00 pm at the Cube just outside the NEC outside the UK Games Expo. Come meet us there. 5:00 PM. Don't be late. If you snooze, you lose. You need to be there, right? You got to be there 5:00 p.m. on Saturday at the Cube.

24:22 If you just arrive, we're going to give you a raffle ticket.

24:24 That's it.

24:24 Yeah. Just show us that you're a subscriber, you're getting one ticket.

24:27 So, Matt Wayne, I'm a subscriber. We got great stuff. Here's a ticket. Or more fun than that, if you can find me and Matt roaming around the halls like Where's Wally?

24:35 Yeah. If you can find us and come up to us, say, "Matt Wayne, I'm a subscriber."

24:39 You're getting two tickets. So, you can double the chances to win or win.

24:43 Literally win two games.

24:44 If you're one of those lucky sausages that always seems to win stuff, you're going to win two things.

24:48 Yeah. Just stop us during We're going to be there from the day before for the entirety of the show. Just stop us and just say hi. Show us your subscriber.

24:56 If Matt's looking grumpy, it doesn't matter. He always looks like that's fine. We don't care. We're up for it. We're going to say hello. And then finally, if you are a patron,

25:05 yeah,

25:05 you're going to get three tickets.

25:06 Three.

25:07 So,

25:07 what can we say?

25:08 Yeah. So, be there cuz it's going to be huge. Last year was big. This year is going to be even bigger. I want all of you guys to get super fun some of those amazing way. We're going to have a great time.

25:19 And it's for free. We don't want anything back. It's just our way to show to show you our love toward the community.

25:26 That's it.

25:27 Other than that, check out the rest of the videos. Make sure you're subscribed to see all of the rest of the UKG 2026 content and we're going to see you at the show.

25:35 CH will do for you and me. What's