Spiel Essen Hidden Gems 2026 | Top 10 Hidden Gems at Spiel Essen

0:00 Hello and welcome to board stupid. My name is Wayne and I'm Matt and it is of course the spielacular season. Spielacular 2026 where we talk all things spiel essen for this year. And Matt, this video is possibly my favorite one.

0:16 It is. It's both our favorites because this is the hidden gem video.

0:20 Hidden gems. So, all of those games that me and Matt have dug in deep into the board game geek lists to try and find something just for you

0:29 from all of the small publishers, indie publishers, Asian publishers,

0:34 something that you probably haven't seen before, something weird and wonderful. You go and try.

0:39 But what is wonderful is the subscribe button. If you're super wonderful,

0:43 you are wonderful. Everything is wonderful. And then we can roll into the video.

0:47 Let's go.

0:56 Okay. So, for the first hidden gem, we must go to Rome. I think it's it's part of Matt's contract, so I have to include a Rome game in every list. Yeah. I couldn't Yeah. Yeah. It was part of his negotiations.

1:07 Uh, so this is by um the DLP games team, and it is, of course, Loyalty

1:14 Rome. Super exciting. Yeah, it does sound because in ancient Romes the gods um uh could be they could be good, they could be bad, they could be but what you want to do, you want to be a senator and you want to have the majority with this or that god.

1:30 Exactly. You want to be doing all of the good stuff, being a nice good corrupt official.

1:35 Yes, exactly. So, this is essentially going to be what looks like an area control game where you're going to be trying to get majorities on the cards in order to get the various bonuses. Uh this looks Matt like there's going to be a lot of interaction there because when you place or move your senators other people can follow

1:50 follow you and do stuff.

1:51 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you of course you're trying to get the majority for this or that gods the of the available gods during the during the round. And you basically need to try to keep the majority by the beginning of your next turn. So if you got the majority for that you getting um you getting points. Each gods will have different type of effects they can do when you send your uh your senator there. Uh, sounds really um a really cool idea. Uh, the box looks like a smaller things but with with a very lovely production is Roman gods and stuff like politics. Oh, that's that sounds amazing. Leaving up our streets.

2:28 Yeah, we're going to go and try that.

2:29 Let's go and be loyal in or not.

2:31 Or not. But most likely God stand.

2:36 Now I do like a cocktail.

2:38 Yes, you do.

2:39 Genuinely, I do. No, we've had we had some nice cocktail nights, haven't we? It was that was a nice

2:44 Yeah, had a good time. Yeah, it was really good actually.

2:47 And what better than to uh play games about pretending to be a mixologist.

2:53 Yeah, exactly.

2:54 While drinking a cocktail, preferably

2:55 with the mixer from the guys as a rose game.

3:00 Yeah, ruse game. R Games. Um so, uh this game sounds a lot brown things all together. Uh but maybe mixing them up doing a nice cocktail with a very nice production. I think it's going to be really really cool. Uh so it's um mix a blend of of course mix a blend of uh of engine building, um action management, resource management, and worker placement. What you're trying to do is trying to get ingredients for your cocktails. Whoever makes the the best cocktails wins some points. And at the end of 15 round or 15 cocktails being made, that's the end of the game. And who's the coolest mixologist is uh is the winner. Uh I'm not sure why on the box there is a very hipster guy cuz he's like is the other mixologist all like that. I mean I got a friend of mine who looks exact like what his job is.

3:55 I think it comes with fair enough. Um, but no, um, it sounds very interesting with a a lovely production, a game playing that goes between 60 and 90 minutes. It's going to be a Euro. Uh, but we do love a Euro with a with a strong team with interactive,

4:12 especially I'm really curious to see if the guys manage to do what, for example, Distilled managed to do with um, some of the of the actual mechanic of the game being very much the similar. This one sounds interesting with the with these like small glasses where you can pour your ingredients. Uh it looks lovely lovely production.

4:32 Little dice that look like ice cubes. It looks awesome. So interested to try it.

4:36 Yeah. Go have a a cocktail. Chicky chick.

4:41 Wait. Have you ever dreamed about being the president of Korea?

4:48 Now which Korea? I'm not I'm not saying which one, but have you ever

4:53 have I ever dreamed of being the president of Korea specifically?

4:56 Yeah, I can't say I have, but

4:59 but you can become one now with President M.

5:04 I could live out all the dreams I never had.

5:07 Yes,

5:08 of being president of Korea.

5:10 So, of course, this is a Korean game. Um, so this is the the coolest things about Shiro when you got to see these kind of games that are so difficult to find anywhere else. Uh, but this is basically a two to four um uh player game where each one is a candidate to trying to become the next president of Korea.

5:28 Man, political themes are fun as hell and genuinely you've got all of the political backstabbing and shenanigans that goes with that. You know, trying to like, you know, it's politics is a dirty game, right? And I love the idea of this. Not only does the production look super nice, it has

5:43 Yeah. This clean minimalist.

5:45 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's abs super cool.

5:48 Super cool.

5:49 It looks like a lot of trucks. So, you're going to try to get influence in different type of things. So, influence with the with the politics in in um influence with the with the actual people and trying to get the more votes and the backstabbing the the the other people. All of this then managed to to be elected president. Um, yeah, it's a little bit of a end management with the Yeah, with the

6:13 cast to play. You got an era majority piece obviously with the with getting the most value on all of the tracks. Um, just this looks absolutely fantastic. I'm really excited to get a little bit of political drama in my life. Why not? And become the president of Korea. The good Korea.

6:30 The good Korea.

6:32 Which one is the good Korea?

6:33 I'll let you decide. Okay,

6:38 Matt, do you think the president of Korea dreams of cathedrals in Italy?

6:44 Every night.

6:45 I think [clears throat] that's that's what every Korean president ever done.

6:48 And I'm not surprised cuz they're very beautiful. Everyone would dream about them and we're talking about that.

6:53 Opera Ma from the guys at Ludus Magnus Studios. So, Italian Excellency. And we've been very lucky that we've been able to play this game before before it came out. Uh and uh we were super surprised.

7:08 It's well good. Like not necessarily a hidden gem for us, but we liked it so much we wanted to tell you about it. And if you haven't heard of it, you must go and try out Opera Mania. Very, very fun. That's some really interesting stuff, man. Very interactive.

7:21 Yeah. What basically what you're trying to do is is to um collaborate to build the cathedral in Florence. And how you do it is with the power of worker placement. You're taking uh one of your worker, you're sending on one of the three available cities where you need to collect um the the goods to then build build your shop and making it bigger and then send the materials to the cathedral and being like famous and renowned in in Florence because who doesn't want to be famous and renowned in in Florence? But it's got this very cool mechanism. So each one of the cities where you can put your your workers is divided in top and bottom kind like day and night section top and bottom section uh you're going to have some cards in your hands and whatever you putting your workers depending on which line you you put it you will you will be able to modify that market because at the top of the city you can modify what you need to um pay kind of like in tax tax and instead at the bottom part you manipulate what you're going to take out.

8:21 Yeah. the reward. Really interesting. So there is this very cool mechanics and then you you're building up your boards with um building shops, building houses and trying to get like a little bit of set collection a little bit of area majority on the on the actual cathedral ball cuz every time that you send materials you put in it's kind of like signing a piece of that you want the most signature in in the cathedral way was

8:48 uh with a very uh short like the game is is nine rounds uh so um independently from how many people are playing is nine rounds gave us a lot of like vibes on something like White Castle not in the actual game play but the tension that feeling every action that you take it is going to impact so much the rest of the game.

9:10 Yeah, really awesome game. They did a fantastic job. Took us by surprise. Definitely go and check out Opramana.

9:17 Yes. Have you ever asked yourself what's the meaning of life?

9:24 Literally every night when I have my regular um crisis

9:30 I be when you dreaming about Italian cathedral being the Korean president.

9:35 Yeah. I think all of the different paths my life could take. I could I could have been an architect. I could have been president of Korea. But now I I'm on a YouTube channel about board games.

9:44 Fair enough.

9:46 I don't know if that's that what happened. That will happen in a live

9:50 in a live.

9:51 No, it's not about the game about opening a YouTube channel.

9:54 It's not about me having a having a crisis. No, this is a game from Skeleig Games. Uh, and this look sounds absolutely wonderful. And what we love about doing this particular list is picking themes and games and uh that really evoke something new or interesting or exciting that we just want to we have to go and play it. We have to go and see it. We're like, I need to know how this works. Um, this is a one to four player game and you play through a lifetime from birth through to old age. You need to choose the experiences that your character will have. Uh, when doing so, you're going to get different resources. The resources in this game are represented by knowledge, uh, by money, for example. Um uh and during that those experiences that the person the character goes through will determine their inner values of the character which will then tell you what that character will be scoring for at the end. So for example, you might score uh for having the most uh fun personal experiences or the biggest friend group. Someone else might be trying to score to have like the most money. Someone else is playing as Jeff Bezos, right? Uh, so this really just sounds absolutely fabulous and I think the message of the game is great.

11:08 So it's not necessarily the richest or the smartest or the most successful person that wins. It's the person that lived their life in the way that they wanted.

11:15 Yeah, it's super it's done a lot.

11:17 Yeah. Super interesting with like Yeah. Um um an open drafting mechanisms like in the in the game. Uh I think uh I'm going to win with the back pain probably.

11:32 The one with the most back pain.

11:33 I had the most back pain in my life.

11:37 Uh, no. I love that.

11:38 No, it sounds sounds superior values. That's what I did. Beautiful.

11:41 This again spiel weird weird games. Let's go and have a look. This is sounds super weird,

11:48 but yes, it's definitely to to try.

11:51 Absolutely.

11:52 A life a lot. So, next one on this list is a very exciting one and it's a much bigger game from the other game we've played from this team. Uh, yeah. So, Volform Games. We We played Loaf. We love Loaf. Loaf. Fabulous little game. But this is not that. This is

12:11 Packed. Yes. Uh, Pacted uh is a game about insect. It's a game about aristocracy. It's a game about rebellions. is a game about influencing the boards to be the winner.

12:23 And the insect kingdom uh of branchorn apparently this looks super cool like as a production way different to everything else that those guys have done. Looks fantastic.

12:34 Yes, it sounds very much it's a three to four player game. So there is no two-player version. So it's more like this is because basically each player plays a different faction with different power and stuff. But the um the the main mechanisms of the games is like to influence the board is going to be represented by uh you know the the the rich people. Yeah. So revolutionaries each faction will have different ways to influence the the board and the self getting ceiling packed with the with with this with people and trying to get more influence them overall to be the leader of the um of the kingdom. Um the production is absolutely magnificent. It looks um absolutely great. Uh so definitely go and check if you're looking for something a little bit more beefy um a little bit more like with this like political influences.

13:30 Um this is definitely something that you need to check out. Uh especially if you like insects. If you don't like insects, I'm not really sure about

13:38 I'm not really sure. But

13:39 you can Yeah. But yeah, another another political one like it. Yeah.

13:45 The guys at Tactics Games came out last year with a deep regret. Couple couple of years ago with Deep Regret.

13:52 Crushed the market. Well, did great. What a fantastic artwork and the game play was quite like unique and theatic the team was super cool and they are doing something similar in terms of my cool theme and absolutely gorgeous like artwork and the the design is is something fantastic with personal demons

14:15 personal demons man I've seen adverts but all over the place for this my algorithm is jamming this me and I'm

14:21 I did [clears throat] I did back it already because it already worked on I did And to be fair, the campaign is fantastic. So, do go check that out, by the way. But absolutely beautiful. We saw this last year. I think it was Ashiel.

14:31 Yeah. UK.

14:33 And it's essentially a closed drafting game where you are going to be drafting one of numerous demons to add to your personal tableau and they will interact in different ways. I mean, I love drafting anyway. Close drafting has an intrinsic sense of tension which is really fun. Um,

14:50 you got this like circle of board. Each each place has got these secret B where you're putting up all these demons. Of course, there is a a deeper meaning on the personal demons cuz each demon represent uh something about the human uh personality and experiences. Uh so it there is much more thinking than just being a cool artwork and a and a cool mechanic. Um so yeah, as I said, I already bet the game cuz I when we saw UKG, I was like, "Yeah, absolutely. Yes, the campaign is live now and it's going to go through for the next few weeks. So, um you're going to be able to see that UKG and decide what you want to do.

15:27 Absolutely. Your personal demons.

15:31 Next one, we going back east.

15:34 Yeah.

15:34 Uh we're going uh to Taiwan uh Paul to be precise uh because the games is been uh designed and uh everything is coming out from Taiwan. And we're talking about Lion Way. It does look very eastern.

15:49 Yeah, looks very interesting. Yeah, another interesting cultural um production. Uh so this is featuring neon beasts from Asian mythology running rampant and raiding a village to satiate their hunger. Um so there is a select few that have been chosen to defend the village, lend them mythical strength, their mythical strength. Uh and this looks super fun. that use uses um a kind of action economy with dice battling and deck building.

16:19 A lot of stuff that we like.

16:20 Love that stuff.

16:21 Multi-use cards. Love multi-use cards, which is actually fantastic.

16:24 The production looks super cool. Super super cool. That was the first things that attracted us to the um to the game. uh you got these kind of like things with these lions moving on different terrain but at the same time uh being a very euro board of like player board with this like card game and yeah it's it sounds super cool. Um yes, we don't know much more of this because it's just it's one of those like weird stuff that comes out for sure.

16:53 Yeah, but also look the idea sounds fabulous. that the the theme is unique and interesting. And also, I like the idea of the dice battling system. It's kind of two-tier where you've got like this intimidation role first and then you are in like a try to intimidate people out of the Yeah, exactly. That sounds really fun as well. And also the idea of having like different ways to score points so it's not like just trying to do one thing. It's multiple parts of the victory. You've got objectives, you got end game, you've got strategic points of interest that you're working towards. So, lots of interaction there as well.

17:26 Yeah. Mix it all with like this fantastic production of what we what we can see at the moment. So, we want to really see it in um in person.

17:35 Multi layers and everything. This looks absolutely

17:37 epic. So, very keen to get our hands on it and check it out.

17:40 Yeah. Lion Wake.

17:44 The guys from Esper Game Studio. Yes.

17:47 From Japan. So, we stayed on that side of the world.

17:50 Staying over there. Uh because there's a lot of gems coming out on that side. We're all good stuff.

17:55 Um last year one of our favorite games came out last year was Gogi. I was like I'm still so much in love for the with the game just like um I can't wait for the 1.5

18:07 new edition to come out. Uh absolutely fantastic. But another game that they teased last year and then it went in crowdfunding and was uh um fully founded. that I'm actually waiting for my coffee to to to arrive is elderide a thousand light. Wait, what is elderide?

18:26 Elder tide a thousand lights is this absolutely beautiful, beautiful sort of worldbuing product where you are going to be you flying your airship around the different cities in this beautiful landscape, this world. And it's essentially kind of like a pick up and deliver game where you're going to be going from place to place uh trying to deliver the goods, buy from here, sell from here, uh to get the most points. The game uses this really interesting fuel system as well. So, you need going to need to refuel at certain points. You can't just stay in the air forever, which is really cool. But also more than that, it has this kind of storm that moves around and messes around

19:04 and kind of disrupt wherever you want it to go,

19:06 wherever the locations are. So where you might want to go, you might end up sort of shifting down. You might run out of fuel so you can't get there. So it's some really fun stuff in this game. I actually had the um pleasure of playing it uh last year

19:18 and it was really really fun. Much lighter game than you might imagine as well. Very playable. Just great fun. Really great fun.

19:27 On top of that, you got the the Sith building on your on your board as well. you're going to build your own like your own on your board uh with this very cool like anime manga look of all the of all the characters or of the ship. Um I mean again it's another games that I put my money on it because it's like it's it deserve it. It looks super cool. So uh if you haven't heard of of this before just go just go the guys at Asper Game Studio. If you haven't heard of Jizugi from last year and you love manga animes, this is something that you absolutely must see. Uh I'm loving this Japanese stuff like that's coming out, especially the guys in Tokyo.

20:12 I'm just loving it. Like next time I'm around, I'm going to find you. I'm going to play a game of Elder Tide. Okay, so the last one you got us probably not a hidden gem at this point, but like we can't not mention it or feature it because it is basically one of our favorite things that we've played in the last

20:31 Yeah.

20:31 couple of years.

20:32 Well, it's going to be hidden if people haven't followed our

20:35 you haven't followed the show and you haven't banned the campaign. Your

20:38 fault, but you can follow now. Hit the subscribe button.

20:40 Yeah, exactly. That was a new problem. But let's solve that problem. But then go and check out Almighty by Keen Bean Studios. Uh we got a full preview of a full preview. You can go check you can go and check it out. It was fully founded on game found and now it's going to be ready to you can take it bring it home

20:57 pick up limited quantities. So save one for me. Uh but absolutely Matt what a fantastic game this is.

21:03 Yes. Um the game works as a a lane battler uh on on four different territories but you're doing um being one of the four gods of angry uh teti gods. are always hungry. Some of them are some of them wants to you to fall in love with other people.

21:21 Oh, that's true. God,

21:22 that's true. That's true.

21:23 But basically, as a god, you can do whatever you want. You can uh create life, you can move life, you can poke the people living in uh in your

21:31 get them to do your bidding. All of this basically what you want to do, you want to have the majority in each one of the territories and you want the people on that territory to be believers because those are going to give you points because if they're not believers, well, it's minus points. So, probably you want to smack them,

21:50 smite them or send them away somewhere else to to bother one of the other gods and and you cause them problems. Just a fantastic game. And one of the most amazing things about this game is the interactions with the poor mortals. Well, every mortal has like this unique thing where they'll interact with each other. They'll interact with the gods in different ways. When you poke them, they'll go and do something else. Really fun. It gives me like feelings of like was it populace from that sort of like those old god games, god sim games.

22:20 Just brilliant.

22:21 On top of that, each one of the gods will be different. Each one will have their own stack of cards with different with different powers and during the game you will be a will be able to add more powerful cards especially these are very cool like catchup mechanisms you are going you you are um pretty much at the bottom of the of the points things you going to get some very powerful powerful card but you got the god of death that basically wants people to die so they he can reanimate them the god of love is going to make people fall in love and create new life. The sun god, the wind god is it's absolutely fantastic. This

23:00 so go and watch our full preview that we did like last year.

23:04 This game is magically it's it's got a lot like it's got beautiful beautiful artwork, beautiful production. Everything about this game you should go and check.

23:13 Absolutely.

23:18 So that was just a few of the hidden gems that you can find at spiel. And here's the beautiful thing about that show, Matt.

23:24 There's so many.

23:25 There's so many and many from different parts of the world that you never heard before.

23:30 No. And we're going to discover them while we're there. That's the exciting thing. We go, what's that cool thing? Show me it. So, so good. Uh, but we'd love to know in the comments below, what are your hidden gems? Have you got a list of games?

23:42 Yeah, you got something in the list. Only me got this. Exactly. Let us know. Yeah. Let us know what we should go and check out. Uh, and if you'd like to check out more from board stupid, well, check the patre page. Yeah,

23:55 cuz you're going to have a lot of behind the scenes directly from exclusive stuff.

23:59 You can join our fabulous community with all the things that we do on the WhatsApp and the live meetup and all that

24:07 behind the scenes content. Absolutely. So, do go check out the Patreon for a price of a coffee. Loads of exclusive stuff just for you. But if that's too much, then well, hit the subscribe button.

24:16 It's free. It's free. It's not even It's not even hidden. It's not a hidden gem.

24:21 This is just a gem.

24:22 Yeah. Hit the bell. No, it's really important. Subscribe button. You're going to know every time we're coming out with a new video and we're going to have stuff directly from spiel every single day and more coming out before spiel and a lot of coming up after spiel. It's going to be a lot. That's that's the name of the game. Hit the thing. Do the thing. Check out the rest of our videos. We're going to see you in Germany. What's the game for you and me? What's