August 2026 Plays

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone!

I only took three days off this August, but it turned out to be a good month anyway. Most evenings after work I found my way to the beach, which made up for a lot. And I got two festivals in, both here in Portugal: Vilar de Mouros, in Caminha, where The Lathums and Kaiser Chiefs both put on brilliant sets, and Arredas Folk Fest, in Tregosa near Barcelos, where Tanxugueiras closed things out beautifully. If you don’t know The Lathums yet, they’re a British indie band with genuinely great songs and even better live energy, well worth a listen even outside the board game context. And Tanxugueiras, a trio from Galicia, Spain, blend traditional folk with a modern sound in a way that just works, one of my favourite live discoveries this year.

So between the beach and the festivals, board gaming took a bit of a back seat some weeks, but looking back at what I said I’d play last month, I did manage one of the three: Black Rose Wars and Dune weren’t played, but I did get the chance to try Coming of Age, so it’s not all bad.

Table of Contents

August 2026 by Numbers

22 plays (vs. 20 in July)
14 different games
6 new games to me
Most played: Verdant
Solo plays: 17 (11 different games)

The month in numbers

All fourteen games from August, at a glance

Favourite Game of the Month

Luthier

Designed by Dave Beck and Abe Burson, published by Paverson Games.

In Luthier, you’re a family of artisans gaining prestige by fulfilling patrons’ requests for fine instruments, performances, and repairs. You’ll also compete to be first chair in the orchestra for the instruments you craft, repair, or play. This is a magnificent game. My first game from these designers was Distilled, which I loved, and Luthier doesn’t change that impression at all. The illustrations are wonderful, and the design of the instruments and patrons is really well done. Just be aware that this game takes up a lot of table space, and I was playing solo, so at four players it would need a big table.

I never expected the game to play so well solo, since the main mechanic is bidding on different locations. Each turn, you place a luthier on a location, secretly setting the force of the luthier of your choice. At resolution, each player, in player order, selects one location to solve, all luthier tokens there are revealed, and resolution happens starting with the highest force down to the lowest. Solo, this mechanic is handled in a clever and simple way: each turn, the automa reveals a location card and takes a random luthier token to place there. The location cards are then reordered before resolution based on the automa’s interest in each one, and that’s it. It’s clever enough that the automa never feels like a chore to manage, and it creates a real challenge with decisions that make sense and genuinely simulate a true player.

This game won me over completely, and for that I’ll give it a 9/10. Luthier isn’t just my favourite game of the month, it’s also new to me. After just one round I felt confident, and by the second game I had no need at all to go back to the rulebook. The automa is easy to run and a real rival. I’ll be playing more, and if I still feel the same, this rating could go even higher.

Luthier: my favourite discovery of the month

New Games

Once Upon a Line

Designed by William Aubert and Dan Thouvenot, published by Perte & Fracas (Lucky Duck Games for the English edition).

In Once Upon a Line, you go through a fantastic story using a mechanic that’s completely unique. At each chapter you get a scratch card, and on the back you’ll find the chapter text that gives you your first cases to scratch, revealing your first word. Scenario cards then start telling the story, with highlighted words to look for. You represent one to three characters, each with little tokens shaped like lines from one to five letters long. During the game, you take one or more tokens and place them over the scratch card, anchored on an already revealed word, to scratch out exactly the number shown on the tokens. You scratch one case at a time, starting from the revealed letter, since missing the word you were aiming for comes with penalties.

The game is very well designed. It’s a legacy game, so a scratched card can’t be unscratched, but the experience is lovely. I’ve only played the prologue so far, on my own, and I’m positively surprised, now curious to know more. The game can be punishing but also extremely satisfying, and the text gives you clues about where to scratch and what to avoid, since some outcomes are traps or hostile encounters. So far it’s a 9/10 for me, for the originality and the story, which already feels compelling. I’ll continue the campaign and report back.

Once Upon a Line: Just the prologue so far, but already hooked

Coming of Age

Designed by Dani Garcia, published by Ludonova.

Have you ever wanted a game about playing through your own adolescence? Coming of Age is exactly that: you start as a child and go through your teenage years making friends, trying new things, getting frustrated, and shaping your character. The theme doesn’t sound that exciting at first, but the game is really well done. Dani Garcia captures that sense of growing and learning through a dice mechanism that expands at each age, starting with one D4 and building up to two D6, three D8, and three D10. More dice means more possibilities and more experiences. Each age also opens up new places to visit. You play cards representing your parents’ help, which you use less and less as you grow, gradually shaping your own character.

I really appreciated this game, playing solo throughout. The automa is easy to run, even if it seems confusing at first, and the actions all made sense to me. There’s a lot of room for combos: you place your personality tokens on the places you visit using your motivation, so when you resolve the end of the day, you resolve actions both where your dice are and where your tokens are, which really helps chain things together. Objectives help guide you on what to do and where to go.

I’ll give it 8/10. Clever, funny, and frustrating, much like growing up itself.

Coming of Age boards

Fit to Print

Designed by Peter McPherson, co-published by Flatout Games and Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG).

I had the chance to play this at three players at the Legião dos Jogos weekly meetup, and it was a wonderful surprise. It’s another game from the Flatout Games CoLab team. Up to six players take on the role of reporters racing to lay out the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday editions of the newspaper. You get five minutes (on easy mode) to collect parts, articles, adverts, and photos to build your paper, playing day after day as the paper grows bigger each time. During those five minutes you collect pieces and lay them out on your desk (each player gets a beautiful little table for this), and when you feel ready, you start laying out the page. All the material still on your desk or in your hand counts against you, so you place pieces onto the articles, with constraints: articles of the same colour can’t be adjacent, nor can pictures, nor adverts. You score for your articles, and compete over who has the least blank space left, losing points for too much. Each article also carries a mood, and you lose points for the gap between good and bad moods, so balance matters. All of this sounds simple, but you only have five minutes for everything.

That tension is what makes the game so much fun. Do I have enough pieces to fill the paper? Do I have too many, which will cost me points? Have I invested enough in advertising? That last one matters because the player with the least money doesn’t count towards winning, having failed in disgrace. I loved all three plays, I’d happily play again, and I recommend it without hesitation. We laughed a lot, we had fun, and that’s exactly what I love about board games. It’s a 9/10 for me.

Fit to Print: Five frantic minutes of laying out the paper

Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest

Designed by Paolo Mori, published by Stonemaier Games.

Another new game for me, played at four players, also at Legião dos Jogos. Here we’re sky pirates in search of adventure, treasure, and glory. Each player starts with an identical set of crew member cards in hand. Each turn, players choose one card and reveal it simultaneously, and crew members resolve in ascending order for the day. Then, in descending order, you resolve any end-of-day powers and take one token from that day’s findings. If memory serves, the game plays out over three trips made up of several days each, and at the end of each trip you resolve the tokens and gold you’ve gathered, not all of them positive, and all your gold goes into your chest. Most gold at the end of the game wins.

I really enjoyed this play. It was fun, I liked the mechanic, and the game is beautifully illustrated. I’d like a few more plays before I feel I really know it, so I’ll rate it 7.5/10 for now: a beautiful game with good vibes that I still need to explore further.

Libertalia: Sky pirates, treasure, and a beautifully illustrated board

Micro Hero: Hercules

Designed by Léandre Proust, published by Grammes Edition.

This is a tiny game, just one deck of cards, the size of a regular playing card deck. You play as Hercules, working your way through the 12 Labours in a deckbuilding game where you improve your cards and fight each Labour in turn. So far I’ve only tried two Labours solo, as standalone plays rather than a full campaign. The experience was nice, but I completely misread the rules on my first play, comparing my fighting number to the Labour’s fighting number and my defence to its defence, which doesn’t work since the fighting number climbs each turn, so I lost that one badly. On my second attempt, once I understood the rules correctly, I won.

Even so, the cards are lovely, with humorous illustrations, and one play sets up and finishes in about 15 minutes, so it’s really quick. You can save your progress and pick it up later, so the full campaign can be spread across 12 days if you like. Replayability looks good too, since the Labours shuffle differently every campaign. It’s a 7.5/10, and I’d recommend it if you travel a lot or enjoy quick games.

Micro Hero Hercules: Tiny box, big lesson in reading the rules properly

Other Games Played

Verdant

Designed by Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, Aaron Mesburne, Kevin Russ, and Shawn Stankewich, published by AEG.

I wrote a full review of this one last week. Verdant is a cozy puzzle where you arrange plants around your house to help them grow in the best light, while collecting objects and animals that decorate your rooms for victory points. The art is wonderful, and I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys puzzles and wants a relaxing solo session. 8/10.

Verdant: a cozy board game

Terraforming Mars

Designed by Jacob Fryxelius, published by FryxGames.

In Terraforming Mars, you run a corporation competing for prestige while helping terraform the planet, raising the temperature, adding oxygen, and placing oceans until all three reach their maximum and the game ends. I’ve owned this game for several years and have a good number of expansions. This month I only played it solo, using the Automa expansion, which for me is now essential, since the base game’s solo rules don’t do much for me. The automa is a tough opponent: I lost both my plays this month, 86 to 108 and 66 to 107. Even losing, I love this game. The artwork doesn’t bother me, in fact I quite like it, since Mars isn’t a colourful place and the illustrations reflect that reality, even if that’s a slightly unpopular opinion among fans. This game remains one of my favourites: 9.5/10, simple rules that are easy to recall, but genuinely hard decisions.

Terraforming Mars main board

Ugly Gryphon Inn

Designed by Scott Almes, published by Button Shy Games.

I played this again this month, and my rating of 8/10 stands. It’s a nice puzzle with the big advantage of being small and quick to set up. Both my plays this month ended in defeat, but it’s still a pleasant game.

Ugly Gryphon Inn: Small box, quick setup, always a pleasant puzzle

Earth

Designed by Maxime Tardif, published by Inside Up Games.

I introduced Earth last month, in July’s recap, and I played it again this month, falling in love with it all over again. The illustrations are lovely, the game is colourful, and the way action selection keeps you engaged, even during the automa’s turn, has completely won me over. It’s a 9/10, and I’ll definitely be playing it more.

Earth: Fell in love with this one all over again

Clank! In! Space!

Designed by Paul Dennen, published by Dire Wolf and Renegade Game Studios.

In Clank! In! Space!, your task is to steal an artefact from a spaceship, simple in premise, tense in practice. It’s a deckbuilding game where you move around the ship using boots from your cards, all wrapped in fun sci-fi references to things like Star Wars and Star Trek. I’ve played this many times, it’s simple and endlessly replayable. In multiplayer it’s almost a race: the first player to steal the artefact puts real pressure on everyone else as Lord Eradikus grows angrier. The heart of the game is noise, the “clank” of the title: noisy actions add cubes to the clank space, and whenever an enemy token card appears in the row, those cubes go into the bag with the others, and you draw based on Lord Eradikus’s rage. The angrier he is, the more cubes get pulled, so discretion sometimes beats speed. Solo, the Dire Wolf app gives you missions and a campaign, which I used this time and had a lot of fun with. Now I need to finish the campaign to see how I do. It’s an 8.5/10 for me, funny and satisfying.

Clank! In! Space!: Sneaking around Lord Eradikus, solo campaign style

Race for the Galaxy

Designed by Thomas Lehmann, published by Rio Grande Games.

Another comeback, and another nice play. I already covered how this one works last month, so I won’t repeat myself, but my opinion hasn’t shifted: I love how resources are managed entirely through cards, paying with your own hand. I rated it 8.5/10 then, and I’ll keep that for now. More plays to come next month, for sure.

Race for the Galaxy: Another comeback, still love how the cards do double duty

Final Girl

Designed by Evan Derrick and A. J. Porfirio, published by Van Ryder Games.

This one isn’t new to me, I’ve owned it for a few years and played it several times, though this is the first time it’s featured on the blog. It’s a solo game where you play the final girl who needs to survive a killer and take them down, the perfect game for Halloween night. Dice rolls are essential here, so if you don’t enjoy the swing of bad luck, I wouldn’t recommend it, but if that kind of tension is fun for you, you’ll love it. I always feel frustrated in this game, since I have terrible luck with dice, but I still love the cinematic tension it creates. This time I played the Carnage at the Carnival scenario with Geppetto as the killer, my first time with that box, and goodness, it’s hard. I’ve never won this game, and I was almost afraid to try the other scenarios (I backed the Kickstarter for the first season and own the whole set). I loved this killer and his little puppets, but they were tough enough that I lost without much of a chance. It’s an 8/10 for me because of my bad luck with dice, but a 10/10 for the cinematic experience.

Final Girl: Carnage at the Carnival with Geppetto, and yes, I lost again

7 Wonders: Architects

Designed by Antoine Bauza, published by Repos Production.

I played this again at Legião dos Jogos, this time at six players. Last time I mentioned it, back in June, it was at two players and I rated it 6/10. I can now say the game is a little better than I thought, so the rating goes up slightly to 6.5/10, though it’s still not my first choice when I have other options. During this play, I had the sense that some powers felt overpowered, even though the final scores ended up fairly close. If you’re introducing new players to the hobby, want a relaxed family session, or need a first game for a board game night, this one’s a great fit, easy to teach, quick to play, welcoming for beginners. Where it falls short for me is at the other end: the limited choice of cards and the difficulty of setting up a real strategy mean more experienced players probably won’t fall in love with it, even if they won’t be bored either. So it really depends who’s at the table.

7 Wonders: Architects. Better than I remembered, at six players this time

Final Thoughts

This was a month full of fun games and some really good discoveries. Luthier gave me a genuine “whoa” moment, and Once Upon a Line gave me a “whoa” mechanic moment. I also replayed games I love and hold dear, Terraforming Mars and Clank! In! Space!. I’m closing out August with a good feeling and a happy heart.

Looking Ahead

September is the new January, a month where everything feels like it’s starting over again. I’ve got a lot of work on my plate this month, plus a conference to attend, so I’m not sure yet how much time I’ll have to play. Still, I’m hoping to bring Unconscious Mind to the table properly (spoiler: I already played it once, but with the wrong rules!), and I’d love to get Planta Nubo out too.

Your Turn

And you, what did you play this month? I’d love to hear about it! Come find me on Mastodon, Facebook, and BoardGameGeek.

Terraforming Mars on Marta's BG Corner