Hello everyone!

How was your June? Mine was good, with a lot of sun, beach, and of course, games. I played 22 games this month, which is really good for me. Looking back at my plans from last month, I managed to play almost everything I wanted: Minos, Septima, and Hogwarts Battle. Unconscious Mind didn’t make it to the table this time, let’s see if I can fix that in July. So, let’s take a tour of what June brought.

June 2026 by Numbers

• 22 plays (vs. 24 in May)
• 12 different games
• 2 new games to me
• Most played: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

New Games

Minos: Dawn of the Bronze Age

Designed by Stan Kordonskiy, published by Board&Dice.

In Minos, you’re a member of one of the illustrious Minoan clans, competing to become the ultimate leader of your people. You’ll select actions through dice placement, and the way it works is clever: each action row favours the leftmost die, so if another player places a die with a lower value on the same row, your die slides to the right. You need to balance selecting dice that let you progress on the influence tracks (summing 9 on a single colour, or combining with grey dice) against grabbing the strongest actions with lower values. And that’s only part of it, you’ll also play cards for extra actions or place them on your palace to score at the end, plus area control with movement across a map as your people spread and build palaces, towers, and farms.

The game is huge, you’ll need a big table and a lot of space, and I was disappointed there’s no insert given how much material comes in the box. I’ve only played once so far, and honestly, the first play felt confusing, I didn’t really know how to combo or what to prioritise. I think I started to understand by the end. For now I’ll rate it 7/10, but that will probably change after a few more plays.

7 Wonders Architects

Designed by Antoine Bauza, published by Repos Production.

I finally got 7 Wonders Architects to the table, at 2 players. I’d wanted to try it for a while, and now it’s done. At that count, the game doesn’t quite shine, and you can feel it from the first round. It’s an easy game, ideal for introducing new people to the hobby, and the production is excellent, with the monuments beautifully represented. It plays very similarly to 7 Wonders Duel, which I’ve played several times: cards bring you resources, science, points, and shields. When you complete part of your monument, you discard the resource cards used, unlike 7 Wonders, where resources are never discarded. If a war is triggered, you compare shields, and the player with the most wins victory points (some shield cards get discarded too). With science, collecting two matching symbols or three different ones lets you take a bonus, and again those cards are discarded. You draft from the central deck, your own personal deck, and the decks on either side of you.

At a higher player count I think this would be a lot more fun, at 2 players it’s still fine and entertaining, but you’ll quickly notice what could be better, mainly that the cards don’t turn over quickly enough. I’ll give it 6/10.

Preferred Game of the Month

It’s a Wonderful World

Designed by Frédéric Guérard, published by La Boîte de Jeu.

It’s probably no surprise by now that It’s a Wonderful World is my favourite game from everything I played this month. I love this game, and I’ve already written a full review, which you can find here. It’s a 10/10 for me: quick, with easy rules, but it makes you think carefully about which cards to build or discard to optimise your production engine and points. It plays beautifully both solo and multiplayer, which is part of why it’s one of my beloved games. I’m currently working through the Leisure & Decadence campaign expansion and have already finished War or Peace. I’ll probably write a review of both soon, along with the third expansion, Corruption & Ascension.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

Designed by Forrest-Pruzan Creative, Kami Mandell, and Andrew Wolf, published by The Op.

Hogwarts Battle is a cooperative game for 2-4 players that also works really well solo, I usually play two hands, managing two characters. The game progresses through the years at Hogwarts: in the base box you can be Harry, Hermione, Ron, or Neville, fighting off the dark arts enemies. The rules evolve as you unlock material by opening each year’s box, adding new rules, enemies, and cards. It’s a deckbuilder, though with one downside for me: you can’t remove cards from your hand to improve your deck, so you end up carrying powerless cards throughout. Even though the game can be played in a campaign style, it isn’t a true campaign, you can pick different characters each time since you don’t carry improvements between plays, always starting fresh each year. That’s another thing I’d love to see change: carrying some knowledge from game to game. Still, for Harry Potter fans this game is a real treat, all the characters from the story are here, and the experience is lovely. Plays get longer as you advance through the years, but the enjoyment stays. I’ll give it a 7/10, it loses points on those gameplay quirks, but the theme is excellent and I’d happily come back to it again and again.

Other Notable Games

Septima (designed by Robin Hegedűs, published by Mindclash Games) — A witchcraft game where you lead a coven, avoiding the hunters while gaining enough wisdom to become the next Septima. Each round you play a card with an action, and if you match the action with another player or the Septima, you can execute a more powerful version, at the cost of raising suspicion. I played solo, and the tension of avoiding the Black Widow’s spiders (which cost you wisdom) never really lets up. It felt a touch repetitive, but the production is fantastic, with real table presence. 7.5/10.

Nautilion (designed by Shadi Torbey, published by Z-Man Games) — Part of the Oniverse series, you’re racing your submarine to the Abyss, lair of the Darkhouse, before the Phantom Submarine reaches your homeland, the Happy Island. It’s a dice game where you move and recruit crew at the same time, and the way hiring works (adjacent placements after your first crew member) is clever. I love the strategy and the feel of moving the submarines, usually I’d play it more than once in a sitting, but didn’t have time this month. Great for people who like to chill with dice and a quick game. 8/10.

The Lost Expedition (designed by Peer Sylvester, published by Osprey Games) — A team of three explorers trying to reach a lost city through the jungle. It’s a card game played across two phases, day and night. During the day, three cards come from the deck and you pick three more from your hand of six, then place all six in ascending order before resolving them left to right. At night, cards are placed one by one, and for each one you choose whether it goes on the left or right side, again three from the deck and three from your hand, resolved the same way, left to right. Along the way you’ll face all kinds of dangers from the jungle: animals, indigenous peoples, attacks, and you’ll have to survive using your wits. I really enjoy this game even though I’ve lost most of my attempts. It’s wonderfully thematic, you can build a whole story out of how the cards resolve. 8/10.

ROVE (designed by Dustin Dobson and Milan Zivkovic, published by Button Shy Games) — A micro-game of just 18 cards, a puzzle where you move cards under certain conditions to solve 7 patterns and win. It sounds simple, but managing your action points wisely, and picking patterns that unlock more actions, makes it clever. My two plays this month were with a wrong rule though, I only allowed moves of one space, which made the game much harder than it should be, so of course I lost miserably both times! Only 15 minutes to play, and it comes in a wonderfully compact format, perfect for travel. 8.5/10.

SOS Titanic (designed by Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc, published by TGG Games) — A solitaire-style game where your goal is to save the Titanic’s passengers as you turn the pages of a book showing the ship sinking. Save everyone and you win, otherwise you lose. I’ve played it 5 times and never won! I am really bad at this game. The game is simple at its core, but the iconography on some cards is genuinely hard to parse, I’d have preferred the action descriptions written directly on the cards instead of constantly checking the rulebook, which takes away from the enjoyment. I don’t dislike it, but I don’t love it either. 6/10, the challenge is there, but having to keep the rulebook in hand is annoying.

Demeter (designed by Matthieu Verdier, published by Sorry We Are French) — In Demeter you’re discovering and studying dinosaurs on a distant moon. It’s a flip-and-write game where you choose from four available actions, and by chaining them together you can pull off some really satisfying combo sequences. No two plays feel quite the same, since the objectives are randomly drafted each game. The theme comes through nicely, and the paper design is lovely. I’ve only played it solo, and since it’s a beat-your-own-score (BYOS) game with nothing to tell you whether your score is actually good or not, I don’t think it suits solo play. You only really notice this at the end, though, during the game itself it feels just as engaging as it would with others at the table. I’d give it 6/10 for solo, it’ll most likely shine more in multiplayer.

Trek12: Himalaya (designed by Bruno Cathala and Corentin Lebrat, published by Lumberjacks Studio) — A roll-and-write where you’re part of an expedition scaling the Himalayas, trying to score the highest to win. Each turn you roll two dice and choose from several mathematical operations, sum, subtract, multiply, or keep the higher or lower value, to decide which number to place next. At the end you score for each cordée (a sequence of consecutive numbers, you can build several, each one scoring individually with a bonus for the longest) and for zones of matching numbers, scored the same way, individually, with a bonus for the biggest. In solo mode you play against an automa that always places its number in the same spot as yours and always picks the higher option. The game is engaging, and comes with several mountains and sealed envelopes to open once you reach certain milestones. I like it enough to play it every week without getting bored. I will rate it 7/10.

Harmonies (designed by Johan Benvenuto, published by Libellud) — This time I played at 4 players, a change from the two-player games I covered in my full review here. I’m a huge fan of this game, the artwork is gorgeous, and that quiet, puzzly satisfaction I described in the review holds up just as well with a full table. I’m always up for another round.

Looking Ahead

For July, I’m hoping to get Black Rose Wars to the table, keep progressing through the It’s a Wonderful World campaign, and play an escape-game style experience with 50 Clues.

What About You?

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