UKGE - Sunday recap
Sunday, day 3 of UKGE 2025 is over. The last day of the convention always arrives so fast, and brings with it an unwelcome tinge of sadness. On the flipside, the hallways are a lot more breezy and tables seem less crowded - we managed to sit down for quite a few games. 👍 We decided to stay one more night to avoid having to leave at noon, and also to hopefully avoid any airport mishaps. 🫣 So we stayed until closing time, then continued with the gaming at Hilton. 😉
As usual, here are some impressions!
🎙️ Gatsby
This is a tug-of-war duel game with 3 distinct areas (very simple mini games) where you can earn tiles in different ways. Get 3 tiles of the same color or 1 of every color and it's an instant win. The game is a bit more abstract than I hoped. One of the demoer dubbed it as the best 2p tug of war games he played—let’s just say I should have asked if he ever played any of those before. 😂
🥷 CODO Berlin 63
A pretty unusual duel game, which resembles the old classic Stratego. Players have 5 unique characters on a small grid (out of 8), all of them with special abilities. The opponent doesn't know which is which so you can use any ability you want, and it's up to them to call out your bluffs - and vice versa. Fail 3 bluffs or lose your leader, and it's game over.
🧭 Boreal
A beautiful little card drafting duel game. Complete your pyramid shaped tableau in a well-scoring way. Ultimately it has very little new things to give players, but it looks pretty cool.
🛕 The Architects of Amythis
This one was surprisingly good. You draft tiles with a bit of a tic-tac-toe twist (potentially claiming bonus scoring opportunities), and build your 3x3 grid - both to match pattern cards and to score the chosen building itself. My problem is only that I personally find such pattern matching games mentally demanding.
🐲 Bahamut Dispute
We couldn't resist this one. A 16-card duel game from Japan. It gets better as you get to know the limited pool of cards. You want to deal 4 damage to your opponent and there are just a few specific ways to do so, leading to mind games in quick bursts. And it looks really cute!
