Here’s to 2026

Hey board game designers! Just SIX DAYS left until submissions for next year's Cardboard Edison Award open! Get your pitches and prototypes ready! cardboardedison.com/award

Here are the six #boardgames I want to unbox and learn in-person each day during the @SpielMas.com ⛄️ festival starting this Friday: Diatoms Deep Regrets Knitting Circle Isle of Cats Duel Kabuto Sumo Roll in One #SpielMas ⛄️

A quieter year for us with just the one Kickstarter campaign, but a good reception to 52 Realms bolstered sales from our webstore. Eager to get stuck into more Postmark in the new year! (Reposted because I got one of the numbers wrong 🤦‍♂️)

“Like prime, but with human beings”

I mean yeah it’s an authoritarian takeover but can we take some comfort in the fact that the people doing it are INSANELY stupid?

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

“What more is there to say about the character of this petty, hollow, squalid, overstuffed man? — sometimes the point bears stressing: We are led by the most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House.” www.sltrib.com/opinion/comm...

While a non-serious roleplaying administration struts around with their racist rhetoric about immigrants, outlandish claims about “antifa”, and obsessive bigotry against trans kids, a sadistic u.s. home-grown actual threat grows for our kids online.

Thanks to #GGJ26 Partner Level Sponsor Kickstarter 🚀 Since 2009, Kickstarter’s global community has pledged $8B+ to help creators bring games and other creative projects to life. Learn more: buff.ly/zCwbl7S

Apparently no one is going to stop trumps looting of famous presidents memorials & renaming them for himself. He wants his name on everything. I guess for him it proves he’s the greatest man in American history as he steals & loots this country & its people to make himself appear rich & famous.

And you could see it sinking in. The thing he always wanted to happen had happened. And he was so scared and so nervous that he almost missed it. The look on his face? Panic. You hope to find the "adult" button to turn on. The one that helps you feel like you know what to do. It does not exist.

To be clear.

Our current Kickstarter ends on Friday, so there's still time to jump in. Highlighting two small box games we are bringing over to North America: Hits & Outs and Beer Mug Dice. 3 original 25th games plus 7 new import titles are all available. www.kickstarter.com/projects/cha...

Announcing the nominees for the 2025 Thinky Awards! 🎉

Bovino, the man overseeing mass deportations, publicly declared that we must all have our papers on us, at all times, or we could be stopped, harassed, kidnapped, and detained, as they did with the man in this case, who is a US citizen.

FRO with this

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win

Their closing message to Indiana: change your maps to artificially benefit the President's political party or 'roads will not be paved' as punishment. They are openly saying this. Who would want to live in a country that works like that?

MAGAZINER: How many veterans have you deported? NOEM: We haven't deported veterans MAGAZINER: We are now joined on Zoom by a combat veteran you deported to Korea

ICYMI — “I identified myself as a U.S. citizen and a veteran, but that didn't matter. ICE Agents smashed my window, sprayed tear gas and pepper spray into my car, dragged me out… this experience violated the very principles I fought to defend.”

AS SEEN ON TV?!! What a delight to see both our games get a shoutout on Talk Pittsburgh in this segment with Dr. Jessica Hammer from Carnegie Mellon's Center for Transformational Play @cmuctp.bsky.social www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/v...

Art is anything one human being makes for other human beings. All games are art; all my games are equally art. Some of mine are more serious, some are baubles, some are more concerned with pushing boundaries or experimentation, but they're all made with thoughtfulness, love, and purpose.

Hey board game designers, it's nearly that time again: Get your prototypes and pitches ready for the 2026 Cardboard Edison Award! Submissions open January 1! cardboardedison.com/award

"When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts." Michael Ende - The Neverending Story

It’s #MoneyMonday at my small board game business. Today I want to highlight a fab book I’m reading by Hannah Cole. If you are an independent artist/entrepreneur in the United States, check this book out.

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

Cleaning day confrontation: the most curious game on my shelf of shame.

Duckworth: "It is a war crime. It's illegal. No matter how you put it, it's all illegal. I've been shot down behind enemy lines. Under the laws of war, you are supposed to help render aid to that individual ... you're not allowed to go back in and kill them."

Part of being a grown up is making your own magic. You want a magical Christmas? Go stab an orange with cloves. Hang fairylights. Light some candles. Bake cookies. ✨Create the magic you wish to see✨

DMV tabletop gamers: meet your favorite local designers at @labyrinthdc.bsky.social TOMORROW (Sunday): 🦚 Elizabeth Hargrave 🦁 Dom Crapuchettes 🐝 Connie Vogelmann 🚘 Dave Chalker ⚒️ Jason Matthews 🙀 Joel Sparks 🏯 Kevin Bertram www.labyrinthdc.com/events/calen...

Should you playtest in-person or virtually? Why not both? Here are some upsides to each approach.

👏

From The Betrayal of Anne Frank, by Rosemary Sullivan. #booksky

Unconstitutional

To be very clear, Kennedy's team is messing with a vaccine which has led to a 99 percent drop in the incidence of hepatitis B, which kills, early and painfully, 25 percent of the people who get it as children. lnk.thebulwark.com/3Xt957M

I cannot imagine the level of moral bankruptcy to describe the actions of people whose boat has just been hit by a missile from nowhere (this was the FIRST such strike) and who were most likely making a desperate attempt not to drown in the ocean as trying to "stay in the fight."

Wowwwwww.

Super pleased to find Diatoms on such a great list of games from this year!

The future is going to watch these clips and wonder wtf how did it go on this long

We’re live and funded! 52 Duels is the playing card battler you never knew you needed 🃏 On a serious note, it’s always a gut-wrenching feeling hitting launch on a campaign. I’m super grateful for the words of support and for folks checking out what we make. Let’s goooooo!

This administration is seemingly comprised of people who lie as easily as they breathe to suit their machinations and those who willfully live in their own la la land reality of sound bite thinking. a pantheon of villains and useful idiots

Just an absolutely amazing morning in #Pittsburgh today. The snow looked incredible as it fell over the city, and I spent nearly six hours capturing so many different areas of the city. We'll start with a couple snowglobe images of the Horne's Tree and Duquesne Incline though. What a day.

My favorite kinds of human anecdotes are stories of beautiful connections and serendipitous inspirations. We are all connected in ways we may never know. Your work is more than your own.

The first, fresh snow in early morning light—tufts of magic lining every branch.

If the Venezuelan sailors were enemy combatants, then the 2nd strike is a war crime. If the Venezuelan sailors weren’t enemy combatants, then both strikes are criminal murder. It’s that simple.

Board games played over the holidays with family: Just One, Green Team Wins, There and Back Again*, Fate of the Fellowship*, Smug Owls, Clank!* and The Gang (*new to me) MVG of this year’s holiday: The Gang- An intergenerational blast!

I was worried I overhyped Chicken Fried Dice (@urbanprogames.bsky.social ) and that my wife wouldn't like it as much as I did when we got to play it. The response was "Best game we played this year" Adding in the best card in the game, if I do say so myself. Photos by @peppermintfox.bsky.social

Sickening — “Massachusetts college student (Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19 year-old business major at Babson College) deported to Honduras after attempting to fly to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving…” www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...