I keep my eye on as much game-related material as possible, both to cover game announcements on Board Game Beat and to discover and learn about the history of games, among other things. Here's some of what I've seen recently:
▪️ On Friday, January 16, 2026, Mischief Toy Store in St. Paul, Minnesota was ordered to turn over employment records to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Here's an excerpt from a January 20 article by Dee DePass for The Minnesota Star Tribune:
The agents arrived three hours after [co-owner] Abigail [Adelsheim-Marshall] told an ABC News reporter that ICE agents were terrorizing immigrants and shared that Mischief gave away hundreds of free whistles to community members wishing to alert neighbors and schools when ICE agents were nearby... [Editor's note: You can watch that ABC video here.]
"In 27 years as retailers in St Paul, we've never been hit with this kind of audit," [co-owner Dan] Marshall said. "We just have five part-time employees, all Minnesota-born, so it's kind of a waste of their time to be targeting us. We feel very strongly that we were targeted based on the content of Abby's interview that day."
Since word of the audit spilled into the local and legal community, business has been brisk. Customers packed the store this weekend, buying toys and other items.
"We sold 250 anti-ICE yard signs in the first three hours that we were open on Saturday. I think people reacted to the story and wanted to express their support," Marshall said.
TwinCities.com also ran an article about the U.S. government harassment of this retailer. Mischief was previously in the news in April 2025 when it joined a lawsuit with manufacturers (including Stonemaier Games) and other retailers against tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
In a Jan. 17, 2026 Facebook post, Mischief wrote: "Thank you to everyone everywhere for your support! Our focus is always local! If you're outside MN, please support your local toy, game, and book stores right now. This is a stressful time for all of us! Or we'd encourage a donation to your local immigrant rights advocacy org. Thank you!"
▪️ On Greek Reporter, Abdul Moeed writes about research by Constantinos Ragazas of The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey that explains how the Phaistos Disk — a clay disc discovered in 1908 that bears hundreds of impressions in a spiraled arrangement — is not a three-thousand-year-old example of writing, but instead "likely a game board or rule-based object". An excerpt from Ragazas' research:
Figures in rim-adjoining cells are consistently oriented outward toward an external viewer, whereas signs within the inner spiral follow the internal path. Such outward orientation is difficult to reconcile with textual reading but readily intelligible in participant-oriented interaction.
Spiral-based board games are attested in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean well before the period conventionally assigned to the Phaistos Disk. The Egyptian game Mehen employs a segmented spiral track progressing toward a terminal point. While the Disk does not replicate Mehen's iconography or rules, the underlying design logic is shared.
Minoan Crete maintained sustained contacts with Egypt and the Levant, and elite cultural practices — including games — are precisely the kinds of knowledge likely to circulate through such networks. The Disk's segmented spiral is therefore culturally plausible within this horizon.
▪️ On YouTube, Canadian channel SPORTSNET featured NHL players taking a shot at the party game Telestrations. Results were mixed.
▪️ The Irish Times interviewed designer Kevin McPartland about The Great Hunger: Ireland's Tragedy in the 19th Century, a game co-designed with Jerry Shiles in which players attempt to survive famine, often at the expense of their fellow players. An excerpt:
He sees the Irish famine as having parallels to the modern US. "What I saw was a ruling class that was completely out of touch with the people they were ruling. Thus they made decisions that were so harmful to their people, but profitable to them.
"Guess what? If you don't know your history you are doomed to repeat it and I see this going on in America right now."
▪️ On BBC's "Witness History" in late December 2025, Surya Elango interviewed British designer Leslie Scott about the creation and marketing of Jenga, which started as "the brick game" in 1970s Ghana — and almost cost Scott's mother her home.
▪️ Discover the winners of the 2025 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition, including (from left to right above) "Arch Nemesis" from Rio Chilson, "Chained Frames" by Koichi Miura, and "Diagonal Twins" from Yasuhiro Hashimoto. In a Dec. 2025 NY Times article, Siobhan Roberts profiles some of the puzzle creators, including Junichi Yananose, who was one of the top vote getters for his adorable sequential discovery puzzle box, "Tortoise Protocol".
▪️ Spain's Ministerio de Juventud e Infancia (Ministry of Youth and Children) awarded El Premio Nacional del Juguete (The National Toy Award), which came with a €30,000 endowment, to a game that no one on the jury had seen or played. BGG user SamuraiCoyote has translated the text of this El País article, with Spanish gaming site Jugamos Tod@s weighing in on the game's lack of merits after playing it.
▪️ The 2016 family game Shark Bite has been licensed for use as a game show that will debut in 2026. From Variety:
"Shark Bite" centers around five 20-foot animatronic sharks, each with their own unique personality and name. Five pairs of contestants will battle for the opportunity to receive $100,000, with the chance of going into the shark's mouth if they get one question wrong.
▪️A late December 2025 Reddit post resurfaced what social psychologist Paul Piff and his research team demonstrated with a rigged game of Monopoly: Rich people discount their financial advantages, attribute success to smart behavior, and become less compassionate as they rise above others.
▪️ On the Singapore Boardgame Design website, Angel Poh interviews Noorashikin Zulkifli and Lum Jia Yi from Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum about "Let's Play: The Art and Design of Asian Games", a "playable" exhibit that runs until 7 June 2026. An excerpt:
By drawing attention to Asian boardgames, we wanted to spotlight both the diversity and universality of play across the region. Games such as congkak, go, xiangqi, or chaupar are deeply rooted in their cultural contexts, but they also travelled widely, adapting to new settings, materials, and communities. A congkak board in Penang might look different from one in Java, while chess, which began as chaturanga in India, evolved into numerous forms across Asia and beyond. These journeys tell a story of invention, adaptation, and exchange that resonates with ACM’s broader mission of connecting its visitors with diverse cultures.
The curatorial selection considered several key factors: cultural and historical significance, the stories that individual games could convey, artistic or design quality, and the diversity of play types, including strategy, skill, chance, and games practices by communities across the region. The exhibition aims to balance familiar examples with lesser-known ones. While games such as mahjong and weiqi are widely recognised, others like Snakes and Ladders trace their origins to gyan chaupar in India, where the game carried spiritual and moral associations.
