Best of BGG July 2026

0:00 That's right everybody. It is time for the best of BG. We're going to talk about the hottest games of the month, some news, some other stuff. Let's get into it.

1:00 What's up everybody? I'm Mike. I'm Nick. We are the brothers Murf and yes, it's time to talk everything board game. This is a monthly uh situation that we do.

1:08 Monthly situation, man.

1:09 It's our situationship. You know, it's all right. I don't know. I was going to say segment and I got confused.

1:13 Segment's better. But yeah,

1:14 point is is we've got some hot games, especially right now. Uh we are in the, you know, Origins just happened. UK Games Expo just happened. Gen Con of course is coming up really soon. Looming in the back. So things are starting to bubble up. Everyone's making their announcements. All this stuff. There's a lot happening. So let's get to it.

1:38 All right. So there's often a store update with Board Game Geek. We try to keep you informed about what's out, what's coming down the line. What's coming down the line is a BG backpack and duffel bag. Those are in production and nearing uh completion. They'll be available soon. The artist series uh just wrapped up their Kickstarter campaign and those prints are at the printer so they will be available really soon. And in the store right now there's a whole bunch of Hoba games. Haba is really fantastic for uh families, especially younger kids and getting them into board games. Uh there's things like Karuba, great family game. And there are actually geekup trays because it's sort of a bingo style game where one player will draw a tile and then everybody will make use of that tile. And now there are these cool stands that BG made that keeps all your tiles in nice and neat order. So it's very easy to kind of play as you go. Big quality of life upgrade there. And if you buy Kuba through the Geekup store, you get those trays for free. There's also a lot of other Hoba games called like Galaxal and stuff like that. So if you're looking for some family fun stuff, check out the Geek uh the Geekup Store and there's a whole bunch of new stuff. So it is Spielus time. That's right. The Spiel nominees have been out there. And one thing if you didn't know is that BGG and specifically game night with Lincoln and Nikki, they always cover all of the Spielers nominees. It's something they do every single year. They've done it for a very very long time. It's super super cool. And they will cover the three main spielers nominees like Morty Magic Party, uh Cozy Stickerville, and then Jinxo. But they will also cover all of the Kinder Spiel, which is all of the

3:08 kids games. All of those videos, I believe, at this point are out and so you can go watch them and sometimes little compilations and stuff like that. Make sure to go watch those because it's a great way to see what the spiel's yards games are, especially because sometimes things like Jinxo aren't even in the United States, which is where we live. They're not always everywhere by the time they get nominated. So, it's a really, really good way to see those games and see them get played by Lincoln and Nikki and their friends. It's really, really awesome. Make sure to check it out.

3:40 All right, it's that time that you all have been waiting for. It's the hotness. Okay, right now, like we said, there's a lot of games being announced. More information about Gen Con releases and things are happening that has greatly affected the hotness. The hotness had been a little bit stagnant the last few years because everyone's kind of holding stuff close to the vest for a while.

3:58 Last few months, not last few years.

3:59 Sorry, for for months, pardon me, in the kind of runup to the convention season. But now we're here, things are all moving. We only have one repeat from last month.

4:07 Yeah.

4:08 Uh on the hotness, so let's just get right into it. Number 10 is going to be Den Up. I have a hunch. This game, uh, this was the one repeat from last month. Uh, and this game is out, but I think this is going to sell a ton of units at Gen Con because it's small. It's easy to buy.

4:23 Same sign as Scout. It has a similar like weight level. It has things with flipping cards. It functions much differently than Scout, but

4:31 I could see this move just selling so many copies because it's perfect game to buy then immediately play at the convention.

4:38 Uh, this is a card game, a card shedding game. you're trying to get rid of your hand.

4:42 Um, and there's this whole uh mechanism where basically if I play something down uh to the table and unlike scout where you can play runs of cards, here it's just sets of the same number and there's no you can rearrange your hand. You don't have to worry about not rearranging your hand. But there's this whole mechanism where if I play down something and then someone plays a stronger thing to the table, those cards come back to my hand flipped over and like scout on the other side of the card will be a different number. So, it's almost like at times you're trying to strategically play cards to be beaten to be able to flip stuff over. You also on a turn can spend your turn flipping your entire hand over. So, you're really it's really kind of in that hand management so you can then hopefully start playing your big stuff. But, of course, the timing you don't want to delay too long before you start playing your stronger hands out.

5:31 Uh, and there's also like the ability to play onto something that someone else has played. If they played two threes, you can like add on a three to their thing. uh which might, you know, mess them up because then those cards come back to them. There's like all these kind of different things you can do. So, you can see a little bit of of DNA from Scout, but it's of course a very different game,

5:50 but it scratches a similar itch. You're trying to get rid of those cards. Cards are flipping over. Numbers are changing. Uh yeah, I agree. I could see this being a big time seller.

6:02 Next up is going to be Revenant. I believe this is hitting people's hands or very, very close to it. Uh, this is a it doesn't play much like it, but this is a follow-up at least in terms of theme to Voidfall.

6:12 It's set in the same world and universe, but a stand completely standalone immater Nigel Buckle and stuff like that. Um, and you are Yeah. set in the same universe where there's like these voidfall these kind of like orange squiggly things.

6:22 Yeah. These ships and you're sort of like as a society, as a civilization, you are are fleeing and trying to to them. Yeah.

6:30 Yeah. You're trying to outrun them and jump to like, you know, a future home world and stuff. And there's all these kind of powerful houses uh that are jockeying for political position within that. And you of course are trying to be aligned with the most powerful houses as well.

6:43 Yeah. And it's interesting because all of these houses are these big old ships that are on the board in these different sectors and those are also like your worker placement spots. Like those are the actions that you're taking. They all have kind of different actions. But as these like voidfall are like basically attacking them, the ships can essentially die. They can come back, but they can actually get taken out of the game. So, it's like as the game's going and as things are getting worse, you lose worker place.

7:07 Yeah. If you're not managing, you're losing worker place spots. And it's not a co-op game. It's a competitive game, but you are kind of all working together to some degree. And uh again, like you said, it's you want influences in these various great houses. So, you think like this one's going to kind of last. You want that one to last. If you see like, oh, Mike's got this one, I want I don't care if that one goes away because that's the one you're going for. And then you kind of all collectively decide when to jump to like the next sector. There's like three of them. The last one will have like your new home world. Although consider these voidfall keeping up the whole way. I feel like it's not.

7:36 But then the home world you can have defenses or something. But nonetheless, you're you're kind of strategically choosing

7:42 in a weird kind of semi- co-op way like when to do these jumps and stuff like that cuz that kind of leaves all the voidfall behind and then they'll come back and

7:48 sort of clears the map for a minute because it can get quite overwhelming with a swarm of them.

7:52 It's very very interesting. Uh it was fun. We got to play it when it was on crowdfunding and it was interesting. It was cool. I always like the voidfall universe. I like the way it looks. Uh, it's it's got cool art and stuff like that. Tool,

8:02 baby.

8:02 You know, Tool, baby. That's right. Yeah. So, Revenant is hitting people's hands. People are excited to get it played. Um, and yeah, it's a it's an interesting one for sure.

8:10 Next up is going to be Chivalry. Uh, this just got announced. There's very little information.

8:14 You will see the cover of this game. That's about it.

8:16 There's a beautiful cover. That's all we have. It's got the stained glass uh world. You are you are inhabiting the world of knights. This is made by

8:24 Arthurian Legends. Auroran legend. Uh, this is made by David Turtzy. Uh, and all we know from from a forum post on board gamegeeek that Turtzy gave just a little bit of information on is that this is a bag building game where the bag is going to be filled with workers. Those are the knights and you going to be going out to different provinces taking actions, but you might be called to Camelot

8:47 uh to to kind of have your main, you know, meeting and different things are going to happen. So, there's a lot of like

8:53 asymmetry or going out to different areas to take actions in those areas. uh you know the types of workers you build into your bag where you

9:01 Saxons are invading so you're trying to like kick out the Saxons

9:03 got to get rid of the Sax but then uh Dave's given a little bit of information um but basically he's saying also you can you can incur basically favor with like Merlin and Morgana apparently that's like his favorite part of the game so I'm interested in what that is yeah it's like bagu a bagu euro game and I'm mainly like I'm down uh I think it's my DLP games who make um uh Orleans and so yeah I'm like baguilding Euro by DLP I'm down. Yeah, it's it's got some like bonafides there.

9:29 Yeah. So, it's an Essen release, are coming out right before Essing it off at Essen. Uh release late this year or early next year. So, there's still some things up timelinewise up in the air. I think we should all petition for them to release it now.

9:41 I would love right now. I think that'd be great. We all love that.

9:43 Gencom release. Let's do it.

9:45 Why not? Just a surprise Gen Con release. I'm sure they can make it in time.

9:49 Sure.

9:49 Uh but yeah, so that's all we know for Chivalry right now is Arthur Theoran Legends stuff. Uh a an interesting cover. a little bit of a detail about a couple of general components, but no details yet truly. Uh, so we'll have to wait to find out more.

10:05 Uh, next up, just got I guess the official full announcement just happened. This will be a duel of Melo. This is

10:12 Scythe expeditions.

10:13 Scythe vers expeditions. Yeah, this is a one or two player game where one player is playing Scythe and the other player is playing Expeditions. Like full out. That's exactly what you're doing.

10:22 It's actually a Stonem game. Stomire teased it earlier saying, "Hey, there's going to be a Scythe expedition games, but now it finally got announced. Now there's pictures and all this kind of stuff.

10:30 We hadn't had the the name. We hadn't had pictures and stuff like that, but yeah. So, Nick and I have actually had a chance to play this. Um, and

10:38 it really is Scythe and Expeditions.

10:40 It really is Scythe versus Expeditions.

10:42 Uh, you are now playing on a shared map. Uh, and one side is is playing a character from Scythe. can either play the one provided in the game or any other character from Scythe uh I think for the most part if not all I think

10:56 uh and expeditions same thing you can play uh any character from expeditions or the one that's provided in the game and depending on the side you're on you are playing that game so if you're a scythe you have your player board you're moving your pawn you're taking a top action bottom action

11:10 100% just

11:12 building mechs doing all those things the expeditions player is moving their mech around exploring the spaces doing gather actions on those corruption, getting rid of corruption, all those things. And now what you're doing in both scythe and expeditions, ultimately you end the game and there's a score. There's a a wealth score and all these things can give you money. Uh now it's a straight up race to complete four objectives before your opponent can on a shared objective board. So if I

11:39 uh complete an objective, the version on the other side of that space for you is now locked out. So you are trying to uh you know again build your mechs or do different things depending on what's on that objective board for that game and trying to get that done first. So it's kind of like this you know efficiency engine build you know get stuff up and running as quick as you can but now with a little more heads up nature

12:01 uh as well. So yeah so it's one that these are both popular games. Scythe of course is a very alltime popular game. the fact that those games can be used uh you can use characters from those games as expansions effectively for Duel of Melock or you can use the characters in Duel of Melo in their parent games as little expansions for those

12:21 uh is something that's really cool and we haven't really seen before. I can't think of really

12:24 not really

12:25 anything. And then also having these two games that of course are in the same the same world but very different but a being able to have them be played together is just feels like kind of like a cool magic trick. So, uh, there will of course be more information soon about that, but now there's starting to be leaked out details and of course that means it is on the hotness.

12:45 Next up is a shy for this is a trick taking

12:48 happiness at the misfortune of others.

12:50 Yes, this is a trick taking game uh that has been like

12:54 it's been around for a little bit

12:55 circling around for a while and gaining popularity and now allplay I believe has

13:00 no um it's uh Office Dog.

13:02 Oh, sorry. Office Dog, pardon me. Office Dog has picked it up to release more widely.

13:07 It was kind of like if you if you had everyone's got a couple trick-Tans who love trick like they would have it, right? Like it was like

13:12 that's we've played a ver the older version. Sean F from people that love trick taking games. Now officeagus is helping get it out there to

13:20 hot Web Santiago.

13:21 Oh my gosh, dude.

13:22 That cover is so gorgeous. We sag is one of my favorite authors. Do we have Oh yeah. Oh no, that's this is Detroit up there. I was trying to see if we have any Weson art behind us. Um

13:30 they're around though. They're so good. And that cover is beautiful.

13:33 Yeah. So, this is a trick-taking game, but uh is a trick taking game where essentially you want to be the second strongest.

13:40 Second place, baby. You want to be in second place.

13:43 Uh because we want to see the person who's in the lead fail. In fact, they will. So, this is a game where you going to be playing tricks and you're going to be moving up a score track. Yeah. And what you would love to have happen is for you to be moving up close to that end and then start losing tricks and then hopefully someone else races right past you and off the end of the track, meaning they are out, the round ends and now the current leader after the first one is eliminated. They are the one who wins. So you are

14:13 trying to, you know, again, win tricks, lose tricks strategically moving up this track because as soon as you get close to the end, now everyone is trying to dump. Yeah,

14:22 everyone is trying to slough

14:24 because you you move it by taking unique cards, right? Is that what I think? Yeah. Coming to like the the values of unique uh cards.

14:31 Oh, I'm going to try and throw this card at you so that you have to move. There's a lot of that.

14:34 You can move quite a bit on a turn if the cards come out the right way and stuff. So, there's this interesting thing of like I want to kind of be back a little bit, but I want to have things in my hand to be able to race forward at the right time, but again, you don't want to put a target on your back.

14:47 No. So, it very much feels in that theme of like, oh, Nick's in the lead.

14:52 Guess everyone needs to take us guy out because he's a little too full of himself, I think. A little too big for those britches, you know. So, the South Florida uh comes into play big time. It's super fun. Love this new addition. Super excited to get a wider release because uh this is one feels very much like word of mouth has kept this game going and built up a fervor to now get this wider release, which is super cool. Number five is going to be Alterara. This is a IV Studios game that's currently on crowdfunding. I think it's still on crowdfunding at this point.

15:24 It is about to wrap up or wrapping. Yeah, it's about but no, throughout the month, Alterara was all over the hotness. Uh yeah, this is a game. It kind of looks like tend even though it's not.

15:33 It's by the same designer and kind of Yeah. A similar color palette, but it's really what it is.

15:37 A different game. Yeah. But yeah, this is a game, a worker placement game where you are going to be um actually kind of like a dice placement game that then indicates your workers, right? There's a bag building with dice and you're going to place dice onto your little villa board that will correspond to the actions on the main board where your emissaries, your workers will go. So, it really is kind of all those things.

15:58 It's technically dice place, but your worker is just like a reflection of that dice place. But either way, we're placing stuff and that's dictating where you're going to go. And these um spots are going to do lots of different things. They can like bump tracks. A lot of them will give you dice or allow you to upgrade your dice because each of these dice has three different levels. There's kind of these white dice which are kind of like basic dice and then there's three different colors. Each of those has a little bit of a specialty and they have three levels to them. Obviously level two and level three are stronger than level one.

16:26 More symbols.

16:26 And so you're basically trying to get these dice because yeah, a lot of these spots will also be like, "Hey, you get to do this thing da da da per symbols you have on this diet." And so getting those level three things that might have like four of those symbols on them is very very very powerful. So you're like bumping tracks. Everyone has a a little special power that you have. You can get these are they called relics?

16:47 Artifacts.

16:47 Artifacts. So they are those um

16:49 will give you usually more special powers like a big one time ability

16:53 breaking

16:53 kind of rule breaking stuff. And there's six of those in the game but there's like 20 of them in the box. Um it was fun. We got to play this one and I really really enjoyed it. It's pretty snappy, pretty um easy to get into, but you can kind of manipulate that trying to figure out what dice you have like personal objectives that might want you to have certain dice that you know, lots of stuff like that. Yeah.

17:11 Um but I thought it was fun.

17:12 Yeah. You're kind of working up these guild tracks at the end of the round uh each track that you know, whoever's the lead in that track will get a bonus, but then they get reset on that track. So, it's also this thing of like you might want to wait till the bonus uh for that round on the guild card is something that you really want and then make sure you're ahead. Um, yeah, there's always ways to gain prestige as the victory points in the game. So, uh, yeah, the game plays quickly. It's mostly simultaneous play, which is nice. So, you can kind of get a bunch of stuff done.

17:40 Yeah, I mean, I think it's Yeah, almost all simultaneous. Yeah,

17:43 but it's Yeah. bag building goodness, uh, and and kind of dice placement. There's also a thing with the dice that you don't use to assign to action spots. you will kind of get a there's a resolve round phase where anything that's in their pool still, you'll get to get all the stuff that's on those. You can get a bunch of goodies and money and and track bumps and stuff like that. So,

18:04 there's a lot of kind of like fun things you can do uh and things change from kind of game to game. So, yeah, that's Alterara.

18:11 Next up is going to be Harmony's Crescendo. There's also Harmony's Pulse, a smaller expansion. These are both expansions for Harmonies. Both of these were in the hotness. Uh, Crescendo was uh is the bigger experience of the two and the one that's been in the hotness uh for more of the month. And this is a game that introduces I think three modules that you can use in any combination

18:32 uh to kind of spice up your play of harmony. New field boards which are slightly different as kind of

18:38 Yeah, as they'll have different ways of scoring various things. There's these new I think they're called like whisper creatures. Um, but they're basically new cards, new animal cards that will go into the deck, but that will have some kind of synergy with like other kind of animals. Um, and then there these sanctuaries, these like landscape cards where your animal cards will go

18:58 into to kind of add like another level of like the potential kind of engine building, you know, points build uh

19:04 that you have. So, yeah. So, it's just more good stuff for for Harmonies. This is a game that's been uh very well loved since it came out. I think it's in the top 100 already.

19:11 Yeah, for sure. Um, and so it's cool to see uh some expansions coming for it. Um, I love expansions, too.

19:18 It's kind of odd that it's taken this long.

19:20 I I am a little

19:20 considering how popular the game was. You You would think that by the next year they would have tried to have an expansion out. It's obviously very very popular consider all over the hotness anyway. But I was actually kind of surprised like, oh, that's right. We haven't gotten a Harmony's expansion. Yeah.

19:32 But also sometimes you're like, well, well, the game is great as is, right? So, it didn't need one, you know?

19:37 It's just more fun stuff. The other expansion, Pulse, is a smaller one where basically add some more animal cards that are a little more difficult because typically the animal cards will always show like a sort of blueprint for what you need. You need these tokens next to these ones. And usually those will show two different elements. It'll be like water and meadow and the relationship between those things.

19:55 Now, with these pulse cards, there's going to be three. So, it'll be like you need a size two tree next to a city and a size one mountain. So, they just seem a little more

20:03 and I'm bad at this game

20:04 difficult. It tests your spatial knowledge uh and stuff. That's what the other expansion brings. Uh but Crescendo again is the main one that's going to bring kind of all those different modules.

20:16 Next up is be Rolling Deep. You are super super excited about this game. I mean, I am too, but Mikey's been hyped.

20:21 So excited for it, dude.

20:22 And I want to play it so bad.

20:24 Uh this is from Bitewing. Uh this is uh on crowdfunding, I believe, still at this moment

20:29 or by just Yeah, basically just

20:31 Yeah. So this is Bitewing's table for one series. These are solo games. They have a Rolling Deep and Eureka, which is a dice rolling

20:39 uh solo game kind of mini campaign game from Ryer Canitzia. So, these are both in the kind of same artistic world um but different games. So, Rolling Deep uh is sort of this you're you're delving to the center of the earth. You're journeying to the center of the earth and essentially over the rounds and chapters, I think there's five chapters with three rounds per chapter, something like that. Uh, you're going to be given a target score that you need to hit and you have essentially like three turns to do it. So, you're going to be rolling these huge these

21:06 chunky dice, dude. Yeah. With these removable dice faces and they're going to give you kind of a score. They're going to give you money and potions and mushrooms and things that are going to help you along your journey. And as you uh get to and pass the target scores, you'll move on to the next round. You know, eventually, you know, you'll have these shopping rounds where you can spend your money to uh, you know, get cards that are either going to go out into a tableau of abilities and stuff for you that are going to trigger essentially depending on the score that you roll on a turn. So, the top row will be if your total sum value of your dice, which at the start they're like zeros and ones, very low.

21:45 If your sum total is zero or one, you get to trigger all the cards in that row. if your score is two to, you know, two to four or two to three or whatever, you do the next row and onward like that.

21:55 So, you're also like kind of building stuff to maybe like I want to roll low here

22:01 because I want to be able to trigger all these things and you can spend uh potions, I believe, to reroll dice. Uh, but a lot of the cards you buy will also allow you to change the dice faces. So, they will become stronger dice faces that might provide you uh resources on top of whatever the score is and on and on and on. So, you're kind of doing like this dual engine build of like the tableau of cards in front of you, the dice themselves, uh, and you are going through and dealing with these bosses that will kind of hamper you along the way. Uh, so it just seems like a great buildup where it's like the first round your target's like four or whatever and the last round it's like 50 and there's all these ways to kind of boost your your score. And so, it just seems something that like the art style is very cool. Really love that. uh watch uh Before You Play. Mon'nique did a a solo play of this game and Eureka. Uh so if you want to see the game in motion, that's what I did. Uh go check out Before You Play for that. Um but yeah, it just looks so good, dude.

23:00 Next up is Container. You bought this game. Uh

23:02 I did.

23:03 But this is a classic game. Classic game where you're you're building out container ships and you're

23:08 It's one of those This is This is how you know this game is great cuz like every like three or four years it just gets remade.

23:12 There's a new vers. This one is by AllPlay. Um, and yeah. Yeah. You just bought it and you have you had a chance to play it yet? No, not quite. Right. We've read the rules and stuff.

23:21 Really want to play it. Yeah.

23:22 Really bad.

23:23 We'll try and play it really soon here. Yeah. Cuz Mikey's also really wants to play this one.

23:27 Yeah. I got kind of like I had never really known much about classic for a long time.

23:32 I knew that it was a classic. I kind of just assumed like I don't think I'm going to like that game. And then not to keep shouting out Monique Mon'nique and Naveen for Play, but they had a playthrough of the new version. I was like, you know what? let me see what this game is about. Obviously, it was a very successful crowdfunding campaign and uh stuff like that. So, I was like, "Oh, let me check it out." Uh, and it looks really cool. So, it's an economic game where you're trying to have the most money. Uh, and you are going to indeed be uh gaining containers, putting them onto your ship, sailing them to container island to drop off in your little area to uh score them at the end of the game. And you basically have a card that's going to give a hierarchy for the different colors. Like which colors are valuable to you, which ones are not. So you're trying to of course amass, you know, as many containers as you can of the color you're mo, you know, that's most valuable to you.

24:22 However, whatever color you have the most of at the end of the game, you lose all those, right?

24:26 So you don't want to you got to kind of have it, you know, you got to be dialed in with it. There's basically auctions that are going to be happening where a player uh can like set up a bank auction and auction between different players for containers. Uh when you you can produce containers on your factories and move them to your harbors and stuff and you can set the prices for those things. So then someone can come on and sail on down to your thing and then buy those from you. Uh so there's this idea of like you're you're ne you can never just produce containers for your own ships, right? So you want to produce things, sell them at a good rate that's going to make you money and hopefully buy containers from other people for less money than that. So if you buy containers, you want to then sell them for more in this kind of, you know, game of of amassing as much cash as possible.

25:13 It just seems really cool. Like it was something that it's a classic for a reason.

25:17 Yeah, it's like kind of straightforward. Take two actions per turn. Uh the new uh version is really high quality and I just bought it from AllPlay for like 30 bucks or something and it's got cool container pieces and stuff. I was like, "Wow, this is really nice." Uh and in a in a nice small box to boot, which I appreciate so much.

25:37 It's a big deal.

25:38 It's nice. It's contained. Containered container.

25:43 All right. Number one is going to be Entropy. Entropy uh is the kind of I I I assume Gen Con release. Uh this is the big board and dice game. I feel like they always have a a big Euro game that's releasing at Gen Con.

25:54 They be doing that.

25:55 And Entropy is uh this year's or at least one of the ones this year's. Uh yeah, this is a really cool game where you're kind of exploring

26:02 various planets. You're like running a simulation essentially like creating you're like doing your final test. There's been like this theme a couple times like evolution as well where it's like yeah, you're creating stars and solar systems and planets and life and stuff, but yeah, it's in this like elaborate simulation.

26:17 Yeah, exactly. And it's like a worker I guess worker rondelle game more than anything else where we have this kind of rondelle around the big circular board and you're moving your scientists around and basically like

26:28 uh the least far that you move will dictate you want to move less far because that'll dictate

26:34 how strong the action is. So basically you can move like one to three but if you move three you're going to get a lesser action than if you only move one. you get these bon these traffic bonuses for going slowly, but of course you might you want to get to the actions you need to do and stuff.

26:48 But yeah, so in this game you are are evolving stars. Uh you are aggregating planets, putting them into your solar systems. You are playing these cards, these uh these life cards which have bacteria, plants or animals. Animals of course are much more complex and difficult to produce uh than bacteria and things. Uh there are these like biome uh uh tiles you can get on and on and on. This is like a big old engine buildy sandbox kind of game uh where it seems like you can do all these things and try to find synergies because the biomes will trigger when you do certain actions. So it's like I want to do this action because then I can get a planet and oh they'll trigger this biome which means I can evolve a star. And you're just trying to be efficient in the way you kind of build up uh points in the game. uh and then kind of trigger the endgame uh as well. It seems this is this is probably highest on my like want to play list right now. I have read the rules.

27:44 Yeah,

27:44 I know it.

27:45 I haven't played it, but I really want to. It looks so good.

27:49 It looks good. Again, board

27:51 game of the year. I called it.

27:52 Yeah. One of our favorite publishers calling it way too early in general.

27:54 Haven't played it. Game of the year.

27:56 Hey, there you go. You heard it here, folks.

27:58 Um yeah, it's like we're big board dice fans. uh just us as the brothers Murf and so anytime they have a big Euro I'm immediately like cool so I'm going to like this

28:06 it gets us excited

28:07 yeah it's cuz like they they make games for us and generally this one's really pretty it's got a cool theme

28:12 I like Rondell's

28:14 the uh I believe all three designers from uh so it's like got bonafidees there uh yeah like there's a lot going on there

28:22 it seems really really cool as um yeah I'm excited for Gen Con the next time we do this will be

28:29 just just after Gen Con.

28:31 Yeah, just after Gen Con. So, and looking forward uh in this month, we are going to do a people's choice like we do every month. And what we're going to do is our people's choice will be the games on the Gen Con preview is something you can see on uh Board Gamegeeek right here. You can thumb things up and that kind of creates the buzz essentially. So, we're going to do a People's Choice Gen Con anticipation list that is going to be these are the games that the users of Board Game Geek are most interested in. So, if you want to help contribute to that, go to the preview a to see what's going to be on, you know, for demo and for sale and things like that and then click on the things you're interested in because that's what changes up those lists.

29:07 Yeah, indeed. At the end of our hotness here, we always talk about the 10 most played games of the month. So, make sure to log your plays on BG. You can link up your BGA accounts. You can link up your board game stats accounts. Lots of different stuff. Um, get these in here. So, Sea Salt and Paper Mikey has 5,565 plays. Wingspan has 6,06. Toy Battle has 6,96. Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring tricktaking game has 6,838.

29:37 Wow.

29:38 Uh, yeah, still doing good. Castle combo has 6,924. Harmonies, we were talking about earlier, has uh 7,536. Take Time has 7,549. Arc Nova, big jump up to uh or it's not a huge jump up to 8,07. Then a big jump up. Flip 7 has 10, 2016. And just above it is Bomb Busters has taken over as the most played game month with 10,240. That's crazy. People are playing bomb. It's been here for a while, but it's been going up and up and up the list. And it won the spiel yards last year. Like it's not a new game.

30:15 I mean, it's just I think it's a game that kind of anyone can play. Like it it really works for whole families and things. and you of course play multiple rounds, but that is quite impressive because of course games that are on board game arena largely dominate this because there's people playing in person and then also online

30:32 but uh fade the uh fellowship of the ring tricktaking game and bomb busters are not on to my knowledge board game arena

30:40 oh I thought Bombbusters was wow so I could be wrong I don't believe so that is extra impressive that it is at number one uh that just means there's truly that many people gathering around a table to play which We love to see and what we also love to see, Nick, are ad reads.

31:22 Okay, here's the thing. I love factories. Factories are super cool. Any sort of like how it's made thing, if there was ever a show, if anyone had that book, the how it's made book that has all the exploded out views of of things. Uh, all of those things are fascinating. I think it doesn't matter what the product is. is I'm interested in seeing like how does this come to be? And something that's really cool is Elany over at CGE went to the factory. CGE uh prints their games locally in the Czech Republic. Uh and and Elany went to the factory and showed us uh different games being made. They're working on their code names uh Critical Role edition. Uh SETI is still printing their upcoming game Drillers and showing how different components are put together.

32:09 uh how the boxes are are kind of made and seeing like this big team of people on this assembly line adding components and things. Quality assurance all the way through. That stuff is so cool to me cuz I I always like to find out like what part is just a machine, what part is just someone packing in bits and things like that. And it really is a mix of both. So if you are into that kind of stuff, I think as board gamers we kind of have like little factory minds anyway. You're always searching for efficiency. Seeing videos like this is incredibly satisfying and it makes me appreciate when I get a game and it's put together super nicely because I know a lot of people worked really hard to make sure that happened. If y'all watch Best of BG, y'all know I love my crafty stuff. I love when board gamers get so passionate about a game that they make some cool crafty stuff. This is by War Hamster One. First of all, great name.

32:55 And this is a like custommade Spirit Island boards. They're the boards in Spirit Island which are these kind of like diamondy type shapes and however many players you're playing with that's how many boards you have in the game. So you're playing a solo game just have one but they all just kind of slot together and they have different regions on them and they made their own. They made them out of like foam core and they put like cork on top and again in this um board there's a lot of different regions like desert, there's like mountains and water. The mountains they use like kind of like gray clay. They use like sand and stuff for like the deserts. These are so freaking cool. And because like Spirit Island is not like a humongous game, they're still very very playable. Like a lot of times these big kind of crazy things aren't really all that practical and playable although they're very very cool. This one is they have just they're just kind of more flat boards. You can still put your pieces out. They have like the hand painted dawn which really flow well into the board. They look like they're supposed to be there because they are. That's the whole point of the game. It's outstanding. I think this is so so cool.

33:56 I love this kind of stuff. I love board gamers getting passionate about things like this and making them. I just I love passion about anything. I'll listen to you talk about anything as long as you're passionate about it, you know. And uh when it's about board games, it really really hits home. And this one is just so cool. All right, so to end the video, every month we always talk about the uh favorite game of the month that we personally played, whether that be new or old for me. Uh I've been really getting back into Wondrous Creatures. I played it a couple times uh when we first received a copy. Uh there is an expansion coming out uh and so we've been playing it recently. It's on board game Arena as well. So I've been playing a lot of Wonders Creatures and I really enjoy a the production of this game is incredible.

34:39 Uh with just awesome fun, you know, little meuples to run around and stuff. Uh there's a really great kind of tableau build if you're into like Arc Nova, that kind of uh you know, you're building out multiple cards with different tags. certain things are prerequisites for other cards or will give you endgame scoring. There's just a lot of like little tributaries and avenues to uh explore and a lot of ways to get points. It's really really fun. I enjoy it every time. I do something different every time. Uh I've just been all in on Wondrous Creatures.

35:07 Yeah, it's been super super fun. Um I've really really enjoyed it too. My best month is going to be Lords of Water Deep. Taking it back. Um I I had never played Wars of Water Deep somehow. Um and we got a copy and we got to play it and I was like, "Oh, this game is great." like this game is

35:21 genu it genuinely is genuinely just like really solid.

35:24 One of the first kind of big worker placement games. It wasn't the first worker placement game, but kind of one of the ones that put that kind of mechanic on the map,

35:31 you know, set in like kind of the D and D world. It's just like cubes and very simple worker placement. You go to a spot, you're getting these uh various um

35:39 I guess party members. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Your adventurers.

35:42 Your adventurers. Your party members and you have contracts that are quests and stuff that you'll have to turn these people in to have them go on the quest. You're mostly getting points that way. But it's a thing where you can go to this one spot to build buildings, which will be more spaces that people can go to, and you're putting those out, and it's just a really straightforward worker placement game. But as you play, you're just like, "This is just good. It's just clean. It's it doesn't do anything fancy. Um, it's it's just got cubes. All the adventures are just like cubes. It's just like it's just good and clean and good. Euro fun, right? I think it's something that like even you know it's older uh compared to you know a lot of stuff and and has some of those qualities to it but like there's also beauty and simplicity. It is really kind of straight up contract fulfillment. Like you're getting adventures, sending them on those quests, you're doing things, but the fact that the board state kind of changes throughout the game. I think there's a lot of beauty in it kind of like streamlined nature. It's easy to teach. And that's why Lords of Water Deep, I think for so many people was like an early game that they got into. We're very late to the party, but I'm glad you enjoyed it because when I played, I had the same feelings. It's like actually this is really great.

36:44 It's really, really good.

36:45 Cool. So, I'm glad you like that one.

36:46 Yeah. So, that's our best of the month. Down in the comments, let us know what your favorite game that you played this month. Favorite bit of news this month. Again, convention season is starting, so there's a lot of news coming out. A lot of games we're finally seeing like first pictures of and names of and things like that. So, let us know down in the comments what you've been excited for. And until next time, I'm Nick. I'm Mike. We're the Brother Smurf. And we'll see you later, everybody. Bye.