And that was June 2026

Our games room was finished a year ago. Two months of building works followed by a month of me decorating, putting together a bunch of Ikea funiture, and then moving everything in. My, how the time has flown.

Towards the end of the summer, it was clear to my wife that the two desk fans we had were not enough to keep the room cool during hot and sunny games days. She suggested getting aircon. I scoffed at the cost and the possible damage that might be done to the new gaming space if the installation was lazy and shoddy.

She won the discussion, and boy, am I glad she did.

To say that June has had hot moments is an understatment. Sure, there have been rainy days and cool windy days, but when that heatwave hit you could almost hear my wife whispering “I told you it was a good idea.”

So yeah, when the heat gets too much, I’m beyond grateful that we can retire to our games room and be comfortable partaking in our favourite hobby.

TIME TROOPERS

This solo deck construction game came to my attention when a gaming friend championed it on it’s run up to crowdfunding. Taking a bunch of soldiers through time across a campaign that is broken up into different eras sounded awesome.

The game’s arrival was delayed several times due to the shipping mess we’ve been experiencing recently. When it did arrive, there were also several issues with the distribution company that was used. It was a bit of a mess. But as long as the game was good, all that other stuff would soon wash away.

Unfortunately, after a fair few plays across the first four time zones, I’ve discovered a game that maybe should have been left in the oven a little longer.

There are major balance issues between scenarios. While I’ve enjoyed some of the missions (the challenging ones with some interesting mechanics) several are either too easy or insanely difficult. Insanely!

But it’s not a case of starting cute and cuddly before slowly building to Dark Souls levels of crushing defeat as you close in on the end game. The second scenario in the game is a level that only the highest amount of luck can grant you the win.

And it’s not just me struggling with it. I’ve read comments and reviews online of others suffering with that specific scenario too.

I think the hardest part, for me at least, is that I can see some real nice potential just beneath the surface, but with all the issues currently plaguing the game, and a couple of design choices that just don’t make sense, I’m wading through the campaign instead of being taken on a journey.

KINFIRE DELVE: CALLOUS’ LAB

I don’t have too much to say about this one. But not in a bad way. I’ve played and talked about the other two KINFIRE DELVE games, and this is pretty much the same.

I will say that Incredible Dream Studios have made each of the Delves feel a little different, which is nice. The Challenge cards are themed around the enemy you eventually face off with, and each box offers it’s own types of challenges.

And, of course, the heroes can be used on any of the Delves, so it’s nice to now have six different characters to choose from, allowing me to mix things up further.

Yeah, I like the KINFIRE DELVE games, both solo and co-op. Highly recommend if you like a good challenge and enjoy gorgous art and production.

KING OF TOKYO: GODZILLA

Most of the early gateway games I picked up when getting into the hobby have moved on, but KING OF TOKYO is still in the collection.

In fact, it’s not alone. With New York, the Dark Edition, the Duel version, and the big ol’ Monster Island all sat on our shelves, I have a decent number of games from the King of Tokyo universe in our collection.

And so it was no surprise that I quickly grabbed the recently released Godzilla version.

Sure, it doesn’t change much. It keeps the rule from KING OF TOKYO DUEL where you claim energy at the end of your turn if you don’t purchase any power cards. This gets interesting abilities into the game quicker.

Something that is new are power cards in the market that are Events, only revealed when you draw a new card from the deck to fill a space. These Events affect everyone and stay in play until someone pays energy to get rid of it.

Other than that, what does this version offer? Well there is the gorgeous artwork in it’s very distinct style. And there are the really nice wooden dice.

Who is this version for? People like me who collect everything King of Tokyo, or for those who like a little classic Godzilla in their board games.

MINDBURNERS

I backed this game years ago because it was an add on to DOOM MACHINE. Where that one is solo only, MINDBURNERS is 1-4 players. But for some reason I’ve not gotten around to it for ages now.

Well, that was rectified during a solo gaming morning I had this month. The solo game is a push-your-luck delve where you have six rounds to hit 10pts.

You’ll be flipping a deck of ten cards that get reshuffled every round. Six of the cards do damage, and it totals more than the health you start with. There are also two cards that make you draw from a random action deck. You get a positive or negative event, and then roll a dice to see how good or bad things turn out for you.

And then there are the points cards.

It’s a tough one, for sure. Which I normally don’t mind. But here it wasn’t as fun as I’d hoped. I really like DOOM MACHINE from the same designer, but this one felt like only luck would get you to the end. I didn’t see the points cards at all on four of my six rounds. So I only got 4 of the 10 points needed yo win. It was mostly just damage.

Perhaps the game is better competatively, though I don’t think it’s one I can get my friends to try. We’ll see.

ADVENTUROUS

I had a few ButtonShy games slowly coming in after I got into boardgames, but the last two years saw me backing almost anything they put out. Last year I had five games arrive and ADVENTUROUS was one of them.

In the game you’re drawing two map cards and laying them out to form an ongoing sea route. But the cards have symbols on them, symbols you’ll need in certain groupings if you want to place down your Marvel cards.

There are different types of ButtonShy games, and this is one of those relaxing tile placement type ones where you’re just deciding the best outcome for current placement, then drawing up and doing it again.

The game felt a little too easy as I was playing it, but I eventually saw that I’d placed my Marvels too early and was stuck with just map cards between me and the end of the game. This meant I would probably end up with too many of the icon sets (if you cross certain thresholds for each symbol then they won’t score at game end).

Sure enough, I went one over with the shark fins. I then added up the scores and found that I had only ‘won’ by a single point.

The game has a more challenging version and I have an expansion too. Definitely interested in giving it another go.

ONODA

I’ve been interested in the solo historical games from Salt & Pepper Games for a while, but when I tried RESIST! on BGA last year, I found it to be a hot mess and got put off.

While I was out shopping last month, I spotted ONODA on the shelf of my local(ish) Forbidden Planet and decided to give it a chance.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of people online complain about how difficult and random the game is. And looking above where I discussed not liking this aspect of gaming in TIME TROOPERS and MINDBURNERS, you might be somewhat surprised to hear that I really enjoyed ONODA.

Based on a true account of a group of soldiers on an island who didn’t believe that WW2 had ended, you’ll be sort of reenacting this moment in history over six rounds, each round representing a five year period. You’ll move around, forage for food, and attempt missions, all while drawing unwanted attention to yourself from the locals.

Every action you take makes the game harder. And drawing tokens from a bag is all that stands between success and failure for almost every single thing that you attempt.

So yeah, it’s random and mean. But when it’s done right, like FINAL GIRL or ACE OF SPADES, it’s a good experience., And this is too. I’m really enjoying the game.

SYNDICATE

My wife didn’t venture into crowfunding for very long. She backed only nine games, and one of those she cancelled and got a refund on.

The one that took the longest to arrive, and appeared to be the biggest disappointment, was SYNDICATE.

It appears to be a game that mixes a sprinkle of TWILIGHT IMPERIUM with a dash of TERRAFORMING MARS, but in the weakest, most diluted way. You’re crime syndicates trying to take over a region of space. And you’ll only succeed if the dice behave themselves.

You have a bunch of actions to choose from on your turn, with most of them being uneventful and, at times, undoable. Cash in Operation cards for resourses. Trade resourses. Build a base. Upgrade a base. Good to do when you need to, but they won’t always be possible if you don’t have the cards or resources to carry them out, so having all 8 actions to choose from is a rare state in the game.

But it’s the two main actions that cause the biggest friction with the gameplay. Both require you to use one of your two action dice so you can only carry these actions out twice. Either attack twice, attempt a mission twice, or do one of each.

You basically just say what you’ve chosen, roll a dice, and see if you got a number high enough to succeed. Yay. Oh, and there’s not really a way to mitigate this. You rolled bad? Tough. You’ve just lost that mission. Discard the card, spend that dice, and walk away with nothing to show for it.

In my opinion, that’s terrible game design. Lazy.

On top of that, this isn’t a 2-player game, despite what the side of the box says. If one of you is doing well with territory, the other is struggling. And because the planets produce resources, if you have less, you’ll make less income, meaning it’s harder to do stuff. Which will snowball once the balance is broken.

I can see it being improved at 3-player and 4-player, but I’m not sure if I have the energy to go through it all again just to find out.

ROLL FOR THE GALAXY

This is a game that gets mentioned a lot. I’ve heard good things about it, yet I never really knew what kind of game it was.

Our friends taught it to us on a recent visit and, as well as being able to scratch it off my BGG Top 100 poster, I also discovered a fun little game. Now I know why people praise it.

Choose a card to play an action. Reveal. Carry out action.

You’re playing cards to build cards, hopefully giving yourself a nice little engine. It took me a while to get to grips with the game. Knowing the rules for a game like this is one thing, but you need a play or two under your belt to see how it all clicks together.

While I was a little slow to grasp the inner workings of the game, I saw it’s potential towards the end, finally making decisions based on knowledge instead of going in on chaos.

This is one I’d like to play again.

DRAGON CASTLE

Another game our friends taught us on their vist was this now out of print game from CMON and Horrible Guild. It’s drafting mahjong tiles and placing them in specific ways on your own board to score points efficiently.

And boy, did I like it.

The tiles are really nice, as is the artwork. The gameplay is straightforward with a small amount of tactics with what tiles you choose. It’s one of thiose games where you don’t want to open up opportunities for you opponents when you take stuff.

I was able to plan ahead towards the end, paying attention to everyone elses board to give myself enough confidence that no one would take the tiles I needed. And I was right. If just one had gone, that colour would have been depleted, thus scoring me nothing and being dead weight on my board.

Instead I came out on top. It’s rare for me to win a game and it not be by luck or someone playing poorly. This was my highlight of the gaming day and I’m sad that I can’t get hold of a copy now.

SUNSET OVER WATER

The final new game that our friends taught us on their vist, this sees players navigating a 5×5 grid of cards, collecting them and selling them based on certain criteria.

It’s a relaxing game, played over just 6 rounds, with an interesting turn mechanic.

Players have a small deck of cards, and each cards has three things that you’ll carry out on your turn; turn order (dictated by a clock showing who wakes up when), movement (direction and number of spaces) and paintings (how many cards you pass over you’ll be allowed to pick up.

The clock on your card decides the turn order for the round, with the earlier cards being weaker in the rest of the actions, while the later in the day cards letting you get more done.

But here’s the rub. Paintings and goal cards don’t get replenished until the end of the round. So you might be able to move far and pick up a lot, but what you want and how many you want might not be there by the time it gets round to you. It’s quite clever.

My one flaw with this was the directions. Some cards only let you move diagonally or orthangonly, but I think that the small grid of 25 cards doesn’t need this. It should just be how many spaces you can move.

Other than that, it was a fun, relaxing card drafting game.

TINY NINJA HEROES

I backed this on Kickstarter in my early days of the hobby when I was getting everything 2-player after meeting my now wife and finding out she liked board games too.

This looked cool. Ninjas as dice battling on a 4×7 grid, each with their only health, attack methods, and special abilities.

Yet it has sat on our shelf of shame since it arrived in 2021. I can’t tell you why, but at least now we’ve finally got it to the table.

You’re basically moving the dice like CHECKERS or CHESS pieces, getting them in range for their attacks and hopefully doing some damage.

And here lays the problem for me. Attacks mostly do one damage, sometimes two. Players can purchase shields that can cover one damage, and sometimes two. Whether something does two is down to a dice roll.

This means that taking your opponents pieces down can be a slow process. Especially with healing availble. And there isn’t much in the way of tactics. The board is only four spaces wide meaning it’s tough to get away from the enemy once you’ve closed in.

It just went on longer and played slower than it flet like it should. It reminded me of ROOKLING HEROES, another game that looks about 15-20 minutes worth of game that instead lasts for nearly an hour.

My wife thought it was okay. I’m not sure about keeping it. I’m not eager to play it again and we have much better 2-player only games in the collection.

TINY EPIC CTHULHU

I started backing Tiny Epic games on Kickstarter with TINY EPIC DINOSAURS but ended up not rushing to play them once they arrived. It was the collector in me that was continuing the support of the game series, and not the gamer.

Deciding to cull the ones we don’t enjoy now instead of keeping them just because we have all of them, we approached TINY EPIC CTHULHU to see if was one to get rid of.

I’d heard some negativity online about it’s length and the amount of admin required each turn, so I wasn’t expecting much.

Yet it wasn’t an immediate cull after that first play. I actually kinda enjoyed it. Sure, it has a lot of small wooden pieces making set up a chore. And the admin for the Old Ones phase is sometimes more than you’ll do on your own turn. And yes, that first act can drag on a bit as you collect a lot of books.

But its PANDEMIC vibe sees players putting out several fires while trying to stay on top of set collection and it’s fun. And there’s a decent amount of variabilty with the different Old Ones and six Investigators to choose from.

For now, this one earns it’s keep and will stay in the collection.

A DRAGON’S GIFT

As I mentioned further up this list, I’ve backed a whole bunch of ButtonShy games in the last two years, especially the ones I can play solo.

A DRAGON’S GIFT looked super cute and has an interesting puzzle of completing deliveries in levels to get to the final gift for the dragon.

Yet, despite it’s simple looking nature, it feels a bit fiddly for what it is. And the cards aren’t as clear as the need to be when tracing routes to see it you can deliver.

After one play I’m not sold on this one, and it’s something I’m finding with a bunch of ButtonShy games recently. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve stopped backing them, having enough that I really like with a lot more that I don’t.

We managed two gaming days with friends during June. Our first was with our good friends @getintogames and @mrsgetintogame where we played 9 games in about 11 hours. As is often the case when we visit them, lots of new games are played, which was exacerbated more than usual by their recent return from UKGE 2026. Tis the season of huge hauls after all.

Two weeks later we were visited by @thoughtsofameeple and her husband and once again we played a heck of a lot. 11 plays over 10 games to be precise.

Check out the videos below to hear more about what we played and what I thought of them.

I also got a couple of reviews up on the channel.

I covered my new favourite solo game, ACE OF SPADES. This was a review copy sent to me by Kosmos UK, but I enjoyed it so much, I then hunted down the Zombie expansion and purchased that myself. Check out the review for the base game below.

And I put up a short review of CATAN: ON THE ROAD. Due to it’s 3-player minimum count, it took a little longer to get enough plays in, but my friends came to the rescue. Check out that review further down.