Revenant – Thomas Wells
I’m a big fan of euros with a little bit of investment/stock game flair. Revenant seemed like a slam dunk. A Battlestar Galactica-esque (TV show, not board game) flotilla of ships flying through space, trying to survive whilst arguing ideology? Boom! Shared board space that is growing and shrinking as you play? Awesome! Tons of interesting and oblique powers? Yeah!
Each subsequent play of Revenant got me less excited to try again. I was teaching the game each time, and while the core systems are well-designed, the sheer volume of iconography and rules grit that gets granularly layered over each game system results in a near-impenetrable miasma of choices. Just during setup you have to parse icons on 8 different cards and determine how they’ll interact with your choices. On top of this, as the game goes on, player engines become more and more elaborate, and even at 3 players, turns can really drag. I just got tired of pulling the thing out to teach it. My running theory of Mindclash Games’s output is that they take a simple concept and layer so much procedural busywork over top that it gives the impression of complexity, rather than actually requiring complex thinking. Most of the decisions in the game reduce down to “I need two blue resources so I can do all my blue resource superpowers and increase my point threshold.”
Not exactly as dramatic and cutthroat as I’d hoped. Inferno does everything this game does with 900% less difficulty of entry.
Ease of entry?
★☆☆☆☆ – Rough
Would I play it again?
★☆☆☆☆ – Would play again but will cry about it
Read more articles from Thomas Wells
Dino Racer – Justin Bell
Gen Con 2026 was an interesting show for a lot of reasons, but one reason stood out: for the first time since COVID, there were no real standout “buzzy” titles. But, two friends separately recommended a demo play of the family-weight racing game Dino Racer at the Underdog Games booth.
So, on the final day of the show, four of us did a play of Dino Racer. The game is very simple: five racers—all dinos, from a T-Rex to a Tri-Top—are slated at the start of a race track made up of simple, empty table space. In the first round, there are seven checkpoints between the start line and the finish line. A large deck of cards, sorted so that there are a lot more T-Rex cards than Bronto cards, are revealed slowly, one card at a time, with one card more than the number of players revealed each round. Each revealed card advances one dino one space closer to the finish. Then, each player drafts one of those played cards, worth points at the end of the round if that dino finishes first, second or third. Over three rounds, the player with the most points wins.
“A better version of Hot Streak,” said one player after we played just a single round…and I had to agree. Dino Racer is a betting game just like Ready Set Bet or Hot Streak, but much simpler, much faster, and with much more control over the proceedings with all the yelling and screaming one wants in a game this silly. The checkpoint cards also provide the additional chaos the game needs to get past the finish line, with shenanigans ranging from light boosts to a single dino all the way to a card that puts the dino currently in first place all the way at the rear. This triggers each time all dinos reach the rear-most unflipped Checkpoint card at any point during a turn. Dino Racer will probably end up being about $15 outside of a convention floor, and for that price, this might be one of the biggest surprises of 2026.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Justin Bell.
Thiefdom – Kevin Brantley
Thiefdom puts players in the role of rival thief guilds, each moving three separate members of their crew alongside NPCs that rove around the town and catch players in the act, sending them to prison and forcing them to drop their loot. Players move across the town, slipping in and out of the guards’ view, recruiting vagrants, stealing paintings, collecting money, and getting into all sorts of other heisty goodness.
What sounds great in concept, however, falls flat in execution. There’s a bit of inventory and hand management as you juggle three thieves with different powers and loot, needing to line up their positioning efficiently to successfully pull off a steal. Players also move the NPCs, including nobles and guards, theoretically giving you opportunities to mess with other players’ plans. But we found it usually made more sense to simply move them out of your own way and benefit yourself rather than mildly inconvenience someone else.
It also felt surprisingly difficult to actually get caught. In a game where being thrown in prison and losing your loot is supposed to be a huge bummer, it just doesn’t happen that often. The threat is there, but it rarely feels threatening enough to create the tension you’d expect from a game about sneaking around and stealing from the rich.
The modular board makes traversing the town somewhat interesting, as you count out spaces and use buildings to stay out of sight, but the anticipated fun never really comes a-knocking. At its core, Thiefdom is a pick-up-and-deliver game, but the interaction feels absent when it should be one of the main attractions. In my plays, everyone mostly stayed in their own lane, grabbing whatever loot they could and avoiding the other players.
That was disappointing because I was hoping for a lot more mudslinging between rival thieves. Instead, the limited number of turns shifts the focus toward solving your own efficiency puzzle, and the chatter around the table stays pretty quiet. For a game built around competing criminals prowling the same streets, I wanted more opportunities to ruin someone’s perfectly planned heist.
I love the art and the concept, but the actual game just felt very bland and uninteresting. This is the kind of title I’d love to see get some sort of “remaster” a few years down the road to spruce things up and lean harder into the player interaction. Unfortunately, all signs point toward that probably not happening.
Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Read more articles from Kevin Brantley.
Container – Justin Bell
If you’ve spent enough time in “the hobby”, you know that Container is, by most accounts, a “grail” game that many players want to try at least once. The game’s first edition first hit almost 20 years ago (!!), then a 10-year “Jumbo” anniversary edition hit…then, nothing. I’m fortunate that I have two friends who own the original game, so I’ve played Container before…but, Allplay’s new 2026 edition delivered to backers earlier this year, for the shockingly low price of just $35. Almost everyone I know who didn’t own a copy backed this new campaign, and I recently picked up a deluxe edition of the game with metal container components at Gen Con.
Whether you use the new edition’s rules (which include ways to make the game a slightly easier onboarding experience for new players, including an offshore bank and auctions that offer passive ways to flip static containers for cash, or vice versa) or not, Container still represents an exceptional way to explore a challenging economic gaming experience. For hobbyists who have never heard of Container, the basics are very basic: make the most money by operating a simple shipping supply chain. You’ll have to produce crates that are later purchased by opponents to sell at a better margin, to then later be bought and shipped to Container Island, where players can bid on containers to be scored (for cash) at the end of the game, based on each player’s unique scoring cards that values each container color differently.
Players have a lot of different ways to create a scoring engine, from being a production specialist to using the new passive ways to get new crates from the offshore location to making a lot of cash through their harbor operations. Container is still great: it’s snappy, interactive, and occasionally brutal, with loans, tight margins, and many actions tied closely to being “downwind” from a player who makes decisions beneficial to the player next in turn order. However, the final 20-25% of my recent five-player game stalled out a bit because players can legally stall by doing things like repricing their crates or using turns to start auctions instead of moving the game towards its natural end-state. Supply-and-demand games like Brick & Mortar have become my preferred route to the same mechanics in roughly the same timeframe. Allplay’s budget price point makes Container a must…and for under $100, the splurge for metal containers was surprisingly hefty and surprisingly worth it, adding real weight to the proceedings.
Ease of entry?
★★★☆☆ – There wee a few questions
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Read more articles from Justin Bell.
Four Gardens: The God’s Caprice – K. David Ladage
Back in the earliest days of my time with Meeple Mountain, I took on my first review copy: Four Gardens.This was the 13th article I had published on the site. I was pleased that this game turned out to be a lovely experience and a game that my wife and I still play to this day. Not long ago, I discovered that the game had a small expansion called The God’s Caprice. Loving the game as I do, this purchase was a no-brainer. The expansion has two parts:
- A double-thick scoreboard. It’s gorgeous and worth the price by itself. 5/5, no notes.
- A set of replacement bonus tiles. I get what they are going for, but these are wrong.
When playing with the new bonus tiles, you set the original tiles aside. The original tiles were good, but not game-breaking. There were three types of bonuses, each having four copies, so everyone could get one. Granted, the effectiveness of two of those stacks diminished if you were not the first one to get one of that type. But that was a choice, so no harm, no foul.
The new ten are singular (one of each) are shuffled and placed face down with two potential bonuses shown upright. When a player would gain one, they can chose from either face-up tile, then a new tile replaces it. Most of these are decent and interesting. But there are a couple that are over-engineered and at least one that is purely broken.
As I said, I can see what they were going for. I think my wife and I can take these and re-think them into something far-less swingy. Until then, we will play with the updated scoreboard and the original bonus tiles.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★★☆☆ – Wouldn’t suggest it, but would happily play it
Read more articles from K. David Ladage.
