Unconscious Mind on Marta's BG Corner

The Art of My Shelf, Part 2: Worth Framing

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone!

Some games stop me before I even start playing. Others stop me right in the middle of a turn.

That happened with Unconscious Mind, the first time a dream card with a flying whale came into play. The art is wonderful, but it was the sheer improbability of it that made me put everything down and just look.

Welcome back to my little series on the games whose art I love. Part 1 was about boxes, cozy worlds and invented creatures. Today it’s all about cards: the ones I’d happily frame, and the ones that build a whole world on the table.

The card that stopped me mid-turn.

One Card at a Time

Codex Naturalis

Art: Maxime Morin · Publisher: Bombyx

In Codex Naturalis you continue the work of the illuminating monk Tybor Kwelein, assembling the manuscripts that list the living species of the forest. It’s a puzzle: every card has conditions before it can be placed, and they all connect through their corners, so your manuscript grows into one big picture.

The species are sorted by kingdom: trees in green, animals in blue, insects in purple, mushrooms in red. The illustrations are quite realistic, but each card stays monochrome, playing with the different tones of its own colour, with gold traces running through to lift it. That’s what makes the whole thing so relaxing.

The gold catching the light, which is what sold me in the first place.

I bought this one for its cards. I saw them online and they won me over before I knew anything about how it played. The end of a game delivers exactly what I hoped for: a shiny tableau, vibrant and full of gold.

Four kingdoms, four colours, all locking together at the corners.

Unconscious Mind

Art: Andrew Bosley, Vincent Dutrait, Yoma · Publisher: Fantasia Games

In Unconscious Mind you play as one of Freud’s followers, treating patients. The palette is dark throughout, and that’s exactly what makes it work: it puts you straight into a psychologist’s cabinet. The only things that pop are the dreams, with their bright colours in the middle of all that darkness.

A psychologist’s cabinet, in board form.

The dream cards are the ones I love. The longer you study them, the more details you find, and that part is fantastic. The flying whale still gets me every time.

Everything is muted except the dreams.

There are also transparent cards that lay over your patient’s card. They represent the fog, the catharsis happening in the patient’s mind, and they keep working every single time, not just on the first play.

The leaves and the flowers aren’t printed on the portraits. They’re the transparent cards sitting on top.

Terrors of London

Art: Ryan Pye · Publisher: Kolossal Games

A complete change of register. Terrors of London is a competitive deck builder for two players, where each of you plays an Overlord with a unique ability and two unique influence cards, recruiting monsters from four factions: Beasts, Mortals, Spirits and Undead. Line them up and they form hordes for some powerful combos.

Two Overlords, four factions, and a street full of monsters.

Opening this game is like stepping into a fantasy novel. You cross paths with vampires, werewolves and every other kind of creature, there are Cthulhu references hiding on the cards, and the relics are pictured perfectly. The illustrations are packed with detail, as if the artist wanted to capture every corner of that dark world, and for all that darkness everything stays perfectly legible at the table.

This is a winter game for me, or a Halloween one.

Mark of Cain and Healing Locus, two of the relics.

A Word on Sleeves

I take a lot of care of my games and I like the feel of the material, so sleeving is something I do whenever the cards are going to be handled a lot. Usually that means deck builders, because of all the shuffling. From today’s games I’ve sleeved Terrors of London, and the hero cards of Tainted Grail, which you’ll meet in a moment.

Cards That Build a World

And now the part I love most: the games where cards laid side by side build an entire scene.

T.I.M.E Stories

Art (base box): Benjamin Carré, David Lecossu, Pascal Quidault · Publisher: Space Cowboys

T.I.M.E Stories was the first game that did this to me. You travel through time to solve mysteries, moving from room to room, and each room is a panorama made of two to six cards laid side by side. Every card is something you can interact with or someone you can talk to, so there’s a lot going on in every scene.

The very first panorama I ever laid out wasn’t even in the scenario. It’s the agency base, with its pods and its blue light, where every mission begins. Seeing it unfold card by card was my first whaou, before I’d even travelled anywhere.

Pods and blue light. The first panorama I ever laid out.

I’ve played the base game and five of the eight scenarios in the white series, and every single one has had that same effect, so I really can’t pick a favourite. They’re thematic, they’re a pleasure to study, and they matter for the mechanics too, which is rarer than it sounds. Each scenario brings its own illustrators as well, Vincent Dutrait on A Prophecy of Dragons for example, so every new box feels like a new world.

One room, six cards, and the people you can talk to.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Art: Piotr Foksowicz, Piotr Gacek, Patryk Jędraszek · Publisher: Awaken Realms

Tainted Grail is set in Arthurian times, and you build the map with cards as you explore. Picture the map of Avalon cut into pieces: each card is one place, a village, a hunter’s grove with the skeleton of some huge animal, big standing statues. Lay them next to each other and they become a map, and a wonderful one.

A corner of the map. Each card is one place, and they join into a landscape.

How big it gets depends on how many menhirs you’ve lit, but it can reach five cards by five, and they’re big cards. That’s a lot of table. I stop every single time I open a new part of the map, just to take in the details and see how the cards connect. Don’t worry, I’m only showing you a corner of it here, nothing that will spoil anything.

The rest of the deck lives up to it. The combat and diplomacy cards are painted in the same Celtic, mystical style, and so are the creatures.

The combat and diplomacy cards, in the same Celtic, mystical style.

It’s long to set up, so it stays on my table for days. That turns out to be the best part. When you’re not playing and you just look at it, it makes even more sense, because you’re looking with nothing but admiration.

The One I’d Actually Frame

If I had to frame one thing from all of this, it wouldn’t be a single card. It would be the Tainted Grail map, complete, once I finish the campaign. I’m curious to see it all together, and I think it will be incredible.

As far as I’ve got. There’s a whole campaign still to come.

See You in Part 3

That’s it for the cards! The last part is about the games that take over the whole table: big colours, busy boards, and the miniatures I can’t play without. I’ll also finally tell you which game is my favourite of them all.

In the meantime, tell me: has a card ever stopped you mid-game, just so you could look at it?

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September 2026 Plays

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone!

September was the month of restarting, with a lot of work on my plate and less time for board games. So my gaming happened in the evenings, often in little pieces. That’s one of the joys of solo: I can set up a game, play a few turns, leave everything on the table and come back to it later. Only 11 plays this month, half of August’s, but not a single game scored below 8/10.

Of the two games I was hoping to play, Unconscious Mind and Planta Nubo, I managed Unconscious Mind. So let’s see how September went!

Table of Contents

September 2026 by Numbers

11 plays (vs. 22 in August)
6 different games
2 new games to me
Most played: Darwin’s Journey and Fromage (3 plays each)
Solo plays: 11 (all of them)

The month in numbers

Favourite Game of the Month

Darwin’s Journey

Designed by Simone Luciani and Nestore Mangone, published by ThunderGryph Games.

Picking a favourite this month was hard, but I’m going with the one that impressed me the most.

Darwin’s Journey puts you on the voyage alongside Darwin himself, gathering new specimens for your collection. And there’s a lot to juggle! You manage your findings, send letters to get funds and other benefits, publish, study specimens that have already been discovered, all while keeping up with Darwin so your ship doesn’t drift too far from his. It’s a competitive game, and the board is a real treat: beautifully illustrated, with each zone clearly separated.

Darwin’s Journey: a big, beautiful board with every zone clearly laid out

All three of my plays were solo, and they were my very first. In solo you face an automa with 4 difficulty levels. I played twice on easy and won comfortably, 154 to 53 and then 142 to 102. So I thought, why not jump to level 3? How hard could it be? Oh, how wrong I was. I lost 85 to 148, so badly it almost hurt 😅. And yet it was a perfect play, because it showed me that what looked simple really isn’t. Money is hard to come by: when a shared space already has a worker on it, you have to pay to place another one there. And you can’t do everything. You have to choose a path, build a strategy, and adjust along the way.

What did I love most? Managing your workers with the wax seals. Realising that the worker you wanted is the one you used last turn, and now you have to adapt, is a good kind of frustration. I also really enjoyed the combos. Once I managed to buy wax seals and place them on my board, I could unlock one of my characters, which let me move my ship, place a tent and place correspondence too. That’s a lot done at once, and in the meantime I even completed one of the objectives! Make the right move at the right time, and you can do a lot for maximum effect. Under those lovely colours hides a complex game. I rate it 8.5/10.

The wax seals in action on my player board

New Games

Besides Darwin’s Journey, only one other game was new to me this month.

Unconscious Mind

Designed by Laskas, Jonny Pac, Yoma, and Antonio Zax, published by Fantasia Games.

In Unconscious Mind, you’re one of Freud’s followers, joining him and his circle at the Wednesday meetings to discuss your cases and share experiences and opinions. It takes up a lot of table space: two main boards, plus player boards and cards, so there’s a lot going on. The game is wonderful. The dream illustrations are gorgeous, and the blurred minds of the patients are represented by transparent cards.

Unconscious Mind taking over my whole table

This is a heavy game with a lot of rules. I actually played it three times, but I’m only counting one: in the first two, I realised I’d made mistakes that would have let me win by a lot, and even solo I like to play fair. That last play, base game only and with the correct rules, was epic. I really liked it. And yes, I lost, 127 to 208.

I loved placing the bubbles on the main board to choose your action, and moving your inkpot to trigger more actions. It lets you build great combos and carefully prepare your next move. I really had to think and calculate to get the best turn possible. Those are my favourite kind of games: intense, but so rewarding when you pull off a great turn, and that’s why I give it an 8/10.

Other Games Played

Fromage

Designed by Matthew O’Malley and Ben Rosset, published by Road to Infamy Games.

In Fromage, you’re a cheesemaker, and I recently wrote a full review of it. It’s quick to set up thanks to its insert, quick to play, and a joyful, pleasant game on the table. The theme is so coherent, with the board rotating just like a cheese platter.

It’s one of my go-to solo games, and I played it 3 times this month. As much as I enjoy it, I was always winning easily, so I took the time to climb through the difficulty levels. I won 75 to 62, then 80 to 67 on level 3. On the hardest level, things got tougher, and I can never resist a good challenge: I lost 60 to 68, but I’ll try to beat it next time. It’s still an 8/10 for me, just like in my review.

Fromage against The Corporation at level 3

Black Rose Wars: Rebirth + Rotas Box

Designed by Andrea Colletti, Diego Fonseca, and Marco Montanaro, published by Ludus Magnus Studio.

In Black Rose Wars: Rebirth, you’re a mage fighting the others to become the best in the Lodge. I played it solo twice this month, and the feeling is still perfect. Both plays used content from the Rotas Box, a big expansion made of 6 smaller boxes.

The first used the Once Upon a Time box, with Maelice as my mage and Hastur, the avatar from that box, as my opponent. I won 49 to 28, but I doubt I played it right, since it was far too easy. Still, I enjoyed it, especially the planning in each phase to decide what to play first.

Maelice against Hastur, from the Once Upon a Time box

For the second, I tried the legendary scenario Damned Souls from the Last Dynasty box, playing Saba against Anubis. When you’re more careful with the rules, things get messy fast. Unsurprisingly, I lost 15 to 42. A big, big loss, but a really fun game. The Egyptian theme is right up my street, so this box is perfect for me.

Saba against Anubis, from the Last Dynasty box

What do I like most? Summoning creatures. Picking up the miniature and planning how to use it against my enemy is so much fun. I gave it 8.5/10 in July, and I’m keeping it. Just be aware that it needs a lot of room: the Lodge is big, and each player needs space around it to play.

The Lodge mid-game: Maelice in the Oracle Room, Hastur not far away

Once Upon a Line

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

As I explained last month, this game is quite unusual: a fully narrative crossword and scratch card game. I played Chapter 1 this month, which took me around 1h30, and it was surprising and really nice. It was harder than I expected, and I loved the charade. I even stepped away to cook while still thinking about which word could be hiding behind it. That’s exactly the kind of game I enjoy: one that makes me think outside the box. I have the French version, so I can’t judge the translation. A little tip: keep a cup nearby to catch the scratch dust, or you’ll find it everywhere! I’m keeping my 9/10, because it still surprises me.

Chapter 1 ready to go, with my three heroes (and a candle for the mood)

Nautilion

Designed by Shadi Torbey, published by inPatience.

Nautilion is a game for 1 or 2 players, though mostly played solo. It’s part of the Oniverse: a small box with a great game inside, and one I have a special love for. Like every Oniverse game, it comes with expansions in the box, and this month I tried The Mages. And I lost! That’s unusual, since I usually win this one, and I’ve already played it 10 times. The expansion looks like it makes things easier, with a new board for your mages and their powers, but it really doesn’t. You now have 3 more crews to recruit, and you still have to follow the order on the submarine board, so you need to plan ahead. Even though I lost, the game is still a win for me, so it keeps its 8/10.

Nautilion with The Mages: the new board sits right next to the submarine

Final Thoughts

As you can see, this was a month of games I love. What I love most about board games are the emotions they create: the frustration and the wow moments, the way the components make you dream, and how hard you have to think to make the best turn ever. I enjoy playing solo because it gives me time to really appreciate a game.

This month, Darwin’s Journey stunned me. I’ve owned it for a long time (I backed it), but I’d never given it a chance, because the components overwhelmed me the first time I saw them. I was wrong: the game is wonderful, and I recommend it. But the game that keeps calling me back is Black Rose Wars: Rebirth, with its dark mood and magical moments ❤️ The only thing stopping me from playing it more often is the long setup.

Looking Ahead

For October, I hope to finally make room for Dune: Imperium (yes, again 😅, it’s been on this list since July), and maybe Planta Nubo this time. But mostly, I’m so happy because I’m going to SPIEL Essen for the first time! I’ll be there from 22 to 24 October, and I’m so excited I can hardly wait to pack and head to Germany.

Your Turn

And you, how was your September restart? Will you be at SPIEL Essen too? Let me know, maybe we can meet!

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