Today’s roundup includes the very big (the biggest?) to the very small (which “micro” is micro-er?). As usual, most of these are for games I haven’t gotten to play myself, but this time around there are several that are expansions or sequels to games I have played, so I have at least a bit of personal experience with them.
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Dungeon Crawler Carl: Role-Playing Game & Unstoppable from Renegade Games
I’ve been reading through the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and writing about them in my Stack Overflow column—Book 8 is coming out in a couple weeks and I’m excited to see where the story goes next. In case you’re not already familiar with it, it features a guy (Carl) and his cat (Princess Donut) who end up stuck in a multilevel dungeon built by aliens taking over Earth, as part of an intergalactic reality show. The stories include lots of details about stats, spells, inventories, and so on, which the crawlers access through menus as if it were a videogame—which also happens to make it great material for an RPG.
This Backerkit campaign includes two separate games: one is the RPG (which includes rulebooks and custom dice and a bunch of miniatures), and the other is a DCC-themed version of Unstoppable, a card-crafting game by John D. Clair. Although much of the attention—and the bulk of the stretch goals—seems to be on the RPG side of things, I’m more of a card game person myself. I’ve played the original Unstoppable game, and I’m excited to see the changes in the Dungeon Crawler Carl version.
Unstoppable uses some oddly-shaped cards with cut-outs, and as you play you will add upgrade cards to the sleeves that will fill in the cut-outs, giving you improved abilities when you play the cards. However, every card is double-sided and the back is a threat that you’ll have to fight … and upgrades also make the threat a bit more challenging. It’s a very cool system, designed for solo or 2-player cooperative play. The DCC Unstoppable will include the first three dungeon floors, with some expansions that add the fourth floor and additional characters. Watch for my review of the original Unstoppable soon!
Mega Empires: The Far East from Ares Games
Okay, I don’t know a whole lot about this one, but since I promised “very big” I figured I better include this game that claims to be “the biggest board game in the world.” It’s a civilization-building game, and although these two Far East titles (North and South) are standalone games, you can also combine them with other Mega Empires sets (sold separately) to play with up to 30 people! You’re gonna need a bigger table for sure. (How well do these games handle representation of the various cultures across the world, and what’s their take on colonizing? That’s something I’d probably look into a little more closely if I were going to back the campaign myself.)
Arcs: Beyond the Reach from Buried Giant Studios
Arcs is a 4X game with an unusual trick-taking(ish) mechanic at its core. The card you play to the trick determines what actions you can take as you move your spaceships throughout the galaxy, build facilities on various planets, or wage war on other players. There’s a campaign mode in the first expansion that plays over 3 sessions and has multiple branching paths that lead to different outcomes. Beyond the Reach includes three expansions to choose from: one that expands the base game, and then two that add to the campaign.
Arcs was originally published by Leder Games, and this is the first offering from Buried Giant Studios, a new studio formed this year with some of the folks from Leder Games to focus on some of their bigger titles like Oath and Arcs. I’ve gotten to play Arcs a few times but have yet to tackle the campaign, but it’s on my bucket list!
Earth Express and Behind the Lens from Inside Up Games
Earth was one of our 2023 Game of the Year finalists—it’s a tableau-building game about plants and landscapes, and it’s great for people who like looking for great card combos. Yesterday, for Earth Day, Inside Up Games launched a campaign for two standalone Earth-related games. Earth Express is a smaller, faster version of Earth—the same theme about building out an environment, but in about 20 minutes. Behind the Lens is about taking photos of nature, and uses a sort of sliding-tile puzzle as the system for setting up your camera to get those incredible shots. I’ve received prototypes of the two games, so I’ll have more in-depth reviews of those in the coming weeks!
Reactor Rescue from Labbox Education
I’m not familiar with Labbox Education, but I came across some ads for Reactor Rescue that looked intriguing. It’s a strategy game about racing to repair your spaceships, and the gimmick is that you actually build real, working circuits as part of the game. I love this concept of learning some basic electronics through fun!
Unearth 10th Anniversary Edition from Brotherwise Games
Unearth, a tile-laying game about unearthing ruins from an ancient civilization, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a new edition that includes updated graphics and gameplay, plus some new expansions. There’s a regular edition and a deluxe edition (with wooden components), but both include all the same gameplay. I wrote about it back in 2017, but the original has been out of print for several years, so here’s another opportunity to experience it.
Dice Throne Digital from Dice Throne
Dice Throne isn’t quite 10 years old yet, but it’s getting there—and over the years it’s had several expansions, including a whole set of Marvel characters. This campaign is for a cross-platform digital version that will include a rogue-lite campaign in addition to the ability to play against other players. There will be 8 characters at launch, but there are plenty more in the Dice Throne library that will be added later on. The game will eventually be free to play but you’ll pay to unlock more heroes; backers of the Kickstarter will get early access to the game, plus better bundle prices for the heroes.
Gal4Xeon from Eurydice Games
If you like roll-and-write games, here’s a 4X game with a difficult-to-type title! The campaign is an inexpensive print-and-play, so you’ll get the files both in color and in a low-ink black-and-white version depending on how fancy you want to get. Play solo or multiplayer, with each player using the same dice values to expand their influence across the galaxy. And if you missed Eurydice Games’ previous roll-and-write games, you can get the whole bundle of five titles for £17 (about $23USD).
Arribada & Seagrass from Bitewing Games
Here are two adorable games—one about nesting sea turtles, the other about exploring reefs—that have optional travel cases so you can play on the go. Bitewing Games has made a number of titles with these travel cases and they look fantastic (though I actually haven’t played any of them myself).
Monster Decoy from PhantomLab
Monster Decoy is a little 2-player tile game about walling off regions to capture monsters, using little 3×3 tile grids. It reminds me a little of Go since you’re trying to surround regions of the other player’s color, but instead of single stones you’re placing tiles that include both black and white regions. I hadn’t heard of PhantomLab before, but the graphics for Monster Decoy caught my eye, and then I saw that there are a bunch of other cool-looking games listed as add-ons for the campaign. I’m planning to take a closer look at all of those soon.
Micro Hero: Ulysses and Micro Hero: Achilles from Grammes Edition
Here we are at the “micro” end of things! The Micro Hero series started with Hercules, which funded on Kickstarter last year in January and delivered by summer. It’s a solo card game about facing the twelve tasks using a kind of deck-building system with a bit of a puzzle in how you play out your cards each turn. The artwork is very silly, and puts a spin on the classic myths. This current campaign is for two more sets featuring Achilles and Ulysses, with very different mechanics.
One unique feature about Grammes Edition is that their campaigns have a “pay what you want” system. You actually can just back the project for €1, though they have some suggested levels—the games will eventually retail for €12. I’m backing these myself because I liked the concept (and found Micro Hero: Hercules a tricky challenge!), though the one caveat is that I didn’t like the card quality of Hercules—the linen finish on the cards for some reason was very grippy so the cards don’t slide apart from each other, making the card handling difficult. The narrow size of the cards means that my regular card sleeves are too wide, so finding sleeves that fit the cards and still fit the game into the tuckbox was a Herculean task in itself. Still, you can’t beat the price!
Micro Games: Spring 2026 from Button Shy Games
Oh, there’s that word “micro” again! This time it’s for four small games from Button Shy. If you’re familiar with Button Shy, you may notice something unusual in the image above: boxes! For various reasons, Button Shy is finally putting their micro games into small boxes instead of just the vinyl wallets, though if you still want a wallet they’re available as an add-on in this Kickstarter.
This set of games includes Astro ROVE, the latest in this line of solo puzzly exploration games; The Rise of a Jarl, a solo game about building a Viking civilization; Everything Machine, a word-association game; and Shaper, a guessing game where you create visual clues by assembling various shapes printed on the cards. While I’m a little sad that the wallets are sort of phasing out, I understand the reasons for the boxes (and I’m glad it’s still possible to get wallets for these titles, at least).
