In the wide world of board game themes and gameplay, ‘Alchemy’ feels like one of the most commonly represented. This might just be my own bias though, as it turns out I have quite a few alchemy focused games in my own collection. From the widely popular Flamecraft to the hit bagbuilder Quacks to marble mayhem favorite Potion Explosion and more, I’d somehow become an accidental alchemy aficionado.

Maybe that’s why when Meeple Mountain was provided with a review copy of Grimbrew from Lucky Omen Studios, I quickly (maybe subconsciously) volunteered to provide a review for it.

Even though Grimbrew thematically has a lot in common with other alchemy themed games, it also separates itself in some unique and interesting ways.

Collect & Brew

As you might have expected, in Grimbrew, two to five players compete to collect the most points by gathering ingredients and brewing potions. Turns are as simple as the premise of the game.

On a player’s turn, they can:

• Take an ingredient from a shared market
• Brew a potion
• Rekindle flames

Active flames are required in order for players to brew potions and refresh the market (more on this in a moment). When taking the ‘rekindle flames’ action, players flip two of their five flame tokens from inactive to active,…

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Around these parts I'm known as the RPG guy for my love of different systems and the opportunity to immerse myself in the theme of a game. Accidental Heroes, an upcoming app-driven adventure game designed by Wojciech Grajkowski and published by Lucky Duck Games, puts your hero on a topsy-turvy joyride through an ever-changing world bursting with familiar references. Let's hop on the tracks and see how it plays.

Accidental Heroes: The World is Your Oyster

I'll preface my discussion of Accidental Heroes by acknowledging that my experiences are based on a prototype copy that was limited in scope compared to what's expected in the complete game. At first I thought that the lack of content would be disappointing, but instead I was surprised by how many branching paths were available to my heroes as I played.

In Accidental Heroes, players assume the role of an "hero", a term surrounded by quotation marks because whether or not you live up to the moniker is up for you to decide. The object of the game is to pass two difficult Tests associated with Final Missions, acquiring a pair of Dragon Eggs before any other player is able to do so.

Heroes have three main attributes: brain, body, and combat. Each of these attributes is represented in an 'exquisite corpse' fashion…

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Ever since I first played Tag Team with Meeple Mountain's Justin Bell at Gen Con 2025, I've racked up dozens of plays of the 2-player autobattler card game. I revel in its simplicity. After playing thoroughly with the entire stable of Fighters, I still craved more. Enter Tag Team: Arthur's Legacy, introducing six new Fighters from Arthurian myth, available to play standalone or combined with the base game.

Tag Team: Arthur's Legacy: By Merlin's Beard

Instead of rehashing the main mechanics of the original game, I'll let Andrew's Tag Team review speak to that. Tag Team: Arthur's Legacy uses that same core gameplay loop, so instead I'll focus on the six new Fighters and the shenanigans they bring to the (round) table.

First up is Excalibur, the fabled sword gifted to Arthur by the Lady in the Lake, or the sword that he pulled from the stone, depending on the tale you follow as canon. Excalibur enhances your partner, typically offering benefits like increased power. If Excalibur's HP goes to 0, the game isn't over like it normally would. Instead, the card gets flipped over to its Broken side and those positive abilities on Excalibur's deck become accompanied by a negative effect.

Morgan places a Crow…

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By almost every metric, the latest Unmatched Adventures set, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is an improvement on its predecessor.

Now, that’s quite some feat, given Unmatched Adventures: Tales to Amaze's impressive achievement. It turned the competitive Unmatched system into a cooperative experience and did it with style. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars just a few months ago, and I stand by that score.

But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the better game and the better experience. I’m going to use Tales to Amaze as a comparison throughout this review, not because it’s lacking, but to show how this new version builds on it.

Raise some shell

For the record, I am fairly indifferent to the cowabunga-ing Turtles. My 9-year old son recently asked me who has what weapon and I had to shrug and promise we’d look it up when we got home. They like pizza, they hang about with people whose names are months, and they wear colourful masks. (Why do they need masks, how many other humanoid turtles are wandering about New York?) Both their teacher and their villain are named after processes of making small fragments, but I couldn’t tell you which was the good one.

My praise for this…

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Mini Rogue: The Council (2026, Nuts! Publishing) is a dream come true for rogue-like video game fans like me. Sometimes, I just want a quick-playing challenge to table by myself, and I now see why the Mini Rogue series (first released in 2016 as Mini Rogue: A Roguelike Microgame) is so popular with tabletop players who also love rogue-like video games.

I was recently musing about my love affair of rogue-like video games such as Dead Cells, Balatro, Brotato, and The Binding of Isaac in an article on BoardGameGeek. Around the same time, I cracked open my review copy of Mini Rogue: The Council and was instantly hooked. That’s because gameplay in Mini Rogue is so easy to parse.

Players take on the role of one of the four included adventurers: Rat Catcher, Plague Doc, Alchemist, and the Flagellant. A series of rooms (laid out as a 3x3 grid of room cards), an enemy hit point (HP) tracker, and a personal play area that tracks player HP, food, spells, gold, and experience points (XP) are all you need to get rolling.

Across four floors, players must navigate 2-3 “areas” per floor, with each area represented by the 3x3 grid. Starting in the upper left corner, players must first complete that corner room before moving orthogonally from room to…

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Gudnak has a great name, and maybe that’ll be enough to overcome the gigantic obstacle that the genre of games that are trying to become lifestyles struggle with.

That obstacle: gluttony. Customizable competitive card games are the definition of an oversaturated market. Step into any local game store, and you’ll see the locus of competition for space and time on full display.

Gudnak has a lot of things going for it, but it also struggles with a few usability issues. I also imagine it will have a market visibility problem going forward, but that’s not for me to decide.

What’s a Gudnak?

Gudnak is an ambigram, which the back of the box helpfully tells you, meaning a symbol that can be flipped and retains its shape. The game is played on a grid of different sizes depending on player count, with square cards functioning as units and spells. You have a 20-card deck that serves as your game timer/health bar (reminiscent of my beloved Ortus Regni). If the other player occupies your gates (the square in front of your stronghold/deck) at the start of your turn, you discard a card. No cards? You lose.

Gameplay is reminiscent of

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Tea Witches is a competitive worker placement and contract fulfillment game for 2-4 players in which you take on the roles of competing businesses trying to become the most popular and successful over the course of four rounds. Is the result as dry as that ‘elevator pitch’ sounded, or does the gameplay live up to the sweetness of its fantastical premise?

Let’s Get Brewing 

Every player starts with a player board, a matching deck of “basic witch” cards, and two matching “Tea Pups”, which are magical four-legged teapots that serve as your workers. You start every day drawing cards from your basic witch deck in a push-your-luck mini-game to draft customers and what bonus resources you receive. After that, you’ll take turns sending out tea-pups onto locations on the board, gaining even more resources and taking location-specific actions like purchasing upgrades for your shop, gaining one-time-use powers, or serving Celebri-Tea witches with strong bonuses but demanding requirements. You’ll also spend your turn serving some of the witchy customers you drafted at the start of the round, as well as fulfilling to-go orders for bonus coins and victory points.

At the end of the round your tea pups return, dropping their held tea into any open spots on your player…

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One of my big things as a reviewer is actually not tied to total play count, although I try to get three, maybe four plays in with a game before I pass judgment on a game’s quality.

The thing I prioritize more than anything else: getting as many plays in with the same game at different player counts. If a game says that it accommodates 2-4 players, I try my best to play at two, three, and four players. (If a game says it plays 1-4 players, I try my best to get in plays at all four counts, but a game typically plays almost the same way at one player as it does with two, since the solo usually mimics a two-player experience.)

Encyclopedia of Monsters is a new family memory game for 2-4 players. Designed by a pool of the same people who designed my game of the year pick for 2024—Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game—I had Encyclopedia of Monsters on my radar as soon as the team at publisher Scorpion Masqué showed me a mockup at SPIEL Essen last fall.

Encyclopedia of Monsters is a fully resettable campaign memory game, spread across five volumes (here known as continents) and three chapters (countries) per volume. That means you have 15 short games included in…

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Being relatively new to the world of modern board games (since around 2022), I’m still regularly amazed by the various elements of games that I play. While artwork and components are often the first thing to grab my attention, I usually leave the table most impressed and surprised by the ways in which a designer implements a game’s mechanics.

When I come across a brand new (to me) game mechanic, my interest is heightened to another level. This is exactly what happened after I played The Seekers, designed by Jay Cormier & Sen-Foong Lim, and published by Off the Page Games. For those familiar with Jay and Sen or Off the Page Games, The Seekers is actually a reimplementation of one of their previous games, Mind MGMT, which Andrew Lynch reviewed for Meeple Mountain back in 2023.

The mechanism in question, in The Seekers, was Hidden Movement, and after four review plays, I’m eager to explore other games in the genre; perhaps even the very first Hidden Movement game, Scotland Yard, which Meeple Mountain reviewed back in 2018. My only fear is that The Seekers set the bar too high for other hidden movement games.

A Twist on a Classic

At its core, The Seekers is a tabletop version of Hide and Seek. One player is…

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Board gamers are allergic to anime.

At least, that's the impression I've gotten after reviewing board games for the better part of a decade. I've covered plenty of games from across the ocean that barely made a stir in the West, including the card-based boss battler Testament, the calculating superhero co-operative game Tokyo Sidekick, and WizKids' reprint of the time-traveling one-vs-all game Tragedy Looper: New Tragedies. Search for reviews of any of them, and you’ll only encounter a handful that give these games a fair shake.

Jisogi: Anime Studio appears to have broken free from those chains of tradition. Well-known YouTube channels are talking about, praising it, and gushing over its artwork. I won’t lie, I’m about to do the same. I’ve played this ridiculous number of times despite the short timeframe I’ve had with it. I love this game.

Lights, Camera, Debt

Jisogi’s story is a somewhat familiar one in the animation industry. A massive animation studio lays off its employees, and the government decides to intervene. It will fund the next great small studio, provided someone can prove they have what it takes to run one. That someone is you. You take control of one of these struggling studios and have four rounds to…

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At the end of the day, my review criteria is really simple: is the game fun or not?

Trails & Tails is a new self-published title. (BGG does not list a designer, artist, or publishing company…only “self-published.”) It admits its hook right up front: Trails & Tails is going for a Snakes & Ladders-style gaming experience (or, if you’re a gringo like me, Chutes & Ladders), where players move their playing piece up a board all the way to the top…hopefully taking short cuts along the way to reach the top faster.

The downside of Snakes & Ladders comes when snakes appear in the space where you end your movement…because if that’s what happens, you fall backwards and/or downwards until you reach a much less desirable space lower on the board. So, keep moving forward and things will generally work out.

Trails & Tails adds spice by giving each player two starting dice, differing by player; one player gets a D4 and a D20, while another might have a D6 and a D8. In each round, players roll these dice, then get to use 1-2 dice per turn to their liking. You can add the results of two dice, move forward a number of spaces on one die, or even subtract a larger die value from a smaller one…

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Taking Tricks!

Some readers may know that I wasn’t into trick-taking games at all a couple of years back. Since then, though, trick-taking has become the trend for small-box games, and somewhere along the way I developed a love for them. Whether or not I’m actually good at them is a different story.

The downside is that the seemingly endless wave of releases has started to oversaturate the genre, making it rarer to find one that brings something unique to the table. But when games like Rowdy Partners, Tricky Kids, and Rebel Princess offer something different, my head turns.

I had a chance to demo Crits & Tricks at Gen Con this year, and at first glance, I thought it was an RPG card game. Laid out in front of me were full sets of dice, from d4s to d20s and everything in between. Move over to the cards, and they stand out with fantasy artwork featuring bards, barbarians, and other adventuring types.

Wait a minute, these cards don’t have any values? Are you sure this is a trick-taking game?

Just wait and see.

Dice & Quests

Crits & Tricks plays over three rounds, and whoever collects the most loot wins. The deck is made up of different hero classes, such as wizards and rogues, that…

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Shards of Creation is a great idea. I haven’t read any Brandon Sanderson, and my understanding of his magic system can be charitably described as patchwork—“There are…metals?”—but from what little I do know a trick-taking game in which each suit corresponds to a shard—don’t ask—is spot-on. That’s a wide-open design space that invites exploration and could result in some great ideas. It really could.

Shards of Creation is a trick-taking game with set collection tendencies. This immediately sets the game up for an uphill climb in my experience. There are eight suits in the box, five of which are randomly chosen for each game, and the winner of each trick selects one card to add to their scoring tableau. You score points for complete sets of the five suits and for numerous copies of the same suit.

The trump suit changes across each of the game’s three rounds, and each trump suit brings with it a corresponding rule. Autonomy cannot be led if you have any other choice. Cultivation allows players to draw extra cards at the start of the round before discarding back down to a normal hand size. Dominion forces the winner of each trick to score the highest rank. Many of the cards in each suit have their own powers as well. Some get…

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Very few games fall into a gray area for me, but Tales of the Arabian Nights does. It's easily one of the most random games I've played, and it often makes no sense at all. Still, it's given me some of my most memorable gaming moments, especially when my friends and I end up laughing at the absurd stories, like getting rewarded for beating up beggars.

​With so many old games coming back after years out of print, it's not surprising that Tales of the Arabian Nights is returning with a 40th Anniversary Edition. It's a clear sign that we're all getting older.

A New Genie in Town

​But this isn't just a basic reprint, a phrase that gets slapped on far too many of these revivals. Now there's a solo mode, some status cards have been changed or removed, and getting thrown in prison is no longer a death sentence. Many of the passages have been rewritten, though they still hold on to the harsh themes the original Arabian stories were built.

​Even with the updates, the main gameplay is still about earning destiny and story points by exploring, finding encounters, and interacting with them. City cards give you some direction by offering bonuses if you visit them, and…

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About four years ago, I wrote a negative review of the game Lacrimosa. I’d never written a major pan before and, while I stand by the diagnoses in that review, I have come to believe that the review itself was too much. In trying to capture the feelings of exasperation and bloat that Lacrimosa brought up in me, the review itself became exasperating and bloated.

 I’ve played more than my share of unsuccessful games in the years since Lacrimosa, but Whisperwood is the first to evoke similar negative feelings. They are not similar games: Lacrimosa was dry as could be, an efficiency Euro with combos galore. Whisperwood, with its massive table presence, multiple tracks, and plurality of tokens, gives off the impression of a sandbox game. I think that was the goal, anyway.

If designers Brad Brooks, Erin McDonald, and Christian Strain had pulled that off, it might have suited the setting. As members of the Council of Druids, players compete to best restore the magical Whisperwood, clearing away Corruption and gaining the favor of ancient Golems. That made manifest as a wide open space in which you can more or less do what you want…

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Thrilla in Manila

Fellow Meeple Mountaineer Andrew Holmes recently published a review covering Unmatched: The Witcher - Realms Fall and Steel & Silver, and his opening comment mentioned that we at Meeple Mountain differ on our opinions of the Unmatched franchise. But that makes sense as different reviewers covering differently themed sets are going to land differently on their thoughts.

(The correct opinion is that Unmatched is awesome)

However, Andrew is right that Unmatched is a great system because of its simplicity, quick pace, and heavily contrasting roster of fighters. And like him, I’m the ideal demographic, but for different reasons. The original game, Star Wars: Epic Duels, was played dozens upon dozens of times by my friends in middle school and me. We even found custom heroes online and printed them out, and though they were wildly unbalanced, it was a blast nonetheless.

Fans of Unmatched will recognize Bruce Lee as a highly sought-after expansion, being the first single-character pack and, at times, running upwards of $250 on the secondary market. Fortunately for those patient enough, Bruce Lee has returned in both an affordable and memorable set, going toe-to-toe with the famous boxer Muhammad Ali. I wasn’t alive during their height of fame, but their quotes, stories, and larger-than-life personas live on through pop…

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All the Crawl

Co-op dungeon crawlers are becoming so prevalent that they are pretty much their own genre. Open up Kickstarter or Gamefound, and you’re bound to see a flashy ad for some variant of this, often packed with oversized minis, excessive expansions, and a price tag that makes your wallet start sweating.

Early in my gaming career, I was enamored with these games, enjoying my time with Mansions of Madness, Gloomhaven, Arcadia Quest, Cthulhu: Death May Die, and many others. As time marches on, these games start to blur together, many feeling like different mix-ins of the same ice cream flavor. The theme changes, but innovative mechanics don’t always follow.

I had a chance to check out The Stygian Society, a game that came out in 2020 during the pandemic, with a cooperative angle perfect for partners stuck inside together.

But unlike other dungeon crawlers I’ve played, this one is a tower crawl, and a physical tower at that. Dexterity games are definitely not my thing, and it took me a good 15 minutes to build this centerpiece. At the very least, the table presence will turn heads.

The Big Climb

The Stygian Society plays out over a series of turns as players try to clear six…

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I have played my fair share of Root games, lord knows. I have no official play count. I respect the impulse of those who track their plays, but board games are one area of my life where I don’t do that sort of thing. Some back-of-the-envelope math tells me I have played well over 50 games of Cole Wehrle’s juggernaut since I first bought a copy back in the summer COVID lull of 2020. It quickly became, and has remained, one of my favorite board games.

Root’s status as a personal all-timer has never been threatened, but I have found myself moving away from it over the last few years. Since the release of The Marauders Expansion in 2022—an expansion of which I am very fond—I’ve found myself less and less interested in playing. This has nothing to do with the quality of the game. It hasn’t worn on me, nor has it grown tired. If anything, the fact that I haven’t played Root as much as I used to is Root’s fault; it offered early instruction in the idea of board games as strange and ungainly, and I’ve spent the last few years eager to explore new designs, new spaces, and tracking down new experiences. Root became the kind of game I would happily play if suggested,…

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Seek No Further

Trading card games are one of the anchor pillars of the tabletop hobby. Whether it’s something mainstream like Magic: The Gathering, Lorcana, or Flesh and Blood, something a little more niche like One Piece Card Game or Final Fantasy Trading Card Game, or the crazy phenomenon that is still Pokémon, TCGs will always run parallel to board gaming.

The downside is that TCGs can require a heavy financial investment, and there’s always a risk surrounding the game’s longevity. Unlike staples like Magic and Pokémon, many TCGs fizzle out soon after release, becoming another name on the tombstone. Is anyone still playing Altered?

X: Seekers of Fortune is a card game that simulates the feeling of a TCG with no continued investment, no chase cards to pull, and no meta deck-building. That’s a huge draw for me since I love the playstyle of TCGs, but I’d rather have a self-contained experience like Compile  or Mindbug.

The folks at Mega Moth Studios were nice enough to send over the deluxe version of the game, which includes crisp playmats and even a first edition booster pack to mix into the base game. Hmm…do I smell a system being built here?

Fortune and Glory, Kid.…

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Dungeon Delve for One, Please

On lazy Sundays, I quite enjoy breaking out a solo game and throwing on some old records. No group bickering over game choice, no fear of another player’s analysis paralysis, just me, myself, and a deck of cards. There’s a particular joy in quieting down and figuring out a game by yourself, and Puzzle Dungeon is an ideal mix of dungeon delving and puzzle solving to keep those silent thoughts busy.

I was fortunate enough to experience the deluxe edition of the game, which comes with an overwhelming amount of heroes and baddies alike. It’s a smorgasbord of characters packed into this monster-hunting card game, so any characters mentioned here may not be present in the base game!

Puzzle Play

Puzzle Dungeon is a straightforward, solo-only hand management game that challenges players to defeat the required number and types of monsters listed on their hero’s card before their deck runs out. The monster deck is made up of five different monster types, randomly shuffled into four columns and laid out into ordered lines.

To defeat the frontmost monster in a column, players must discard cards with symbols matching that monster. These cards can be…

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