At Toy Fair NY 2026, I ran into Jason Schneider of U.S. publisher Happy Camper, and as is often the case with Schneider, he came dressed for the occasion. (In 2025, for example, Schneider had Trio jackets made for himself and those presenting the game in his booth, but he's also made these jackets available as a bonus to retailers who sell a certain number of copies of the game. Check them out here!)
Greek garb was called for because one of two titles due out in Q2 2026 from Happy Camper is a new edition of Zeus on the Loose, a game of his own design that debuted in 2006 from Gamewright.
Each player has four cards, which are either numbers from 1-10 or gods, each with a special power. On a turn, you play a card, adding the number to the pile on Mount Olympus and announcing the new sum of played cards or resolving the power of the god; you then draw a new card.
Your goal is to have Zeus under your control when the sum hits 100 or higher, and you claim Zeus by playing certain god cards, by making the sum a multiple of 10, or by playing a card out of turn that matches the previously played card and bringing the total to 100+. Thus, everyone positions themselves each round to be in good shape for Zeus grabbing once the total hits 80+ since an exact match out of turn can end the round instantly.
Beach Bandits is a 2-4 player card game from Michael and Lisa Eskue, who previously did Trash Pandas. Each player starts with a hand of five food cards, along with an "End Gull", a secret endgame scoring condition.
On a turn, you play a food card, each of which allows you to play it in front of another player or play it in front of yourself. By playing the card in front of someone else, you're often giving them points, but this is one of the few ways in the game to draw cards, and you need cards to give yourself choices. That said, not all giveaways are bad. For example, if someone has a single ice cream in front of themselves at game's end, they score 6 points...but if they have two or more, then the ice creams are only 1 point each.
You can give someone an inedible flip-flop worth -3 points, but they draw an End Gull as compensation, which might be worth more than the penalty. Maybe you should flip the beachwear your way instead so that you get a choice of two End Gulls.
When a player has nine card in front of themselves, the game ends, and you tally points. I played a mock-up of Beach Bandits during SPIEL Essen 25, and it's a quick game with head-scratching choices that are fairly random at first. For example, pizza scores 1 or 2 points each depending on whether you have an odd or even amount, but if you have only a few cards in front of you, the game isn't close to ending, so you're trying to figure out the right time to bust someone else or pump up your score. As the game nears its end after all of 10-15 minutes, then you try to position yourself to be on top at the right moment.
I've already written about the Codenames expansion packs coming in Q2 2026, but I want to highlight one of the elements of an event like Toy Fair that's important for both publishers and retailers, but not likely to be on gamers' minds — and that's how items are presented in stores.
As a retailer, you can order however many games you want from publisher Czech Games Edition, and those games will arrive in cardboard boxes, and you'll place them on shelves, and ideally store visitors will pick them up and buy them.
Or you can buy a pre-set bundle of games at a discount and receive a display stand like the one above for free (because its price has been baked into the bundle, of course). This stand serves as a focal point for Codenames, which is what the publisher wants, but it also serves as an extra salesperson, which is what the retailer wants.
Here's how the game looks, and here's what you do while playing: Receive a clue, and find the right words on the table. Yes, a QR code is present to provide more detail, but the stand conveys the hook of the game, gives an example of play, and possibly inspires viewers to imagine how they would give clues to certain word pairings. I worked in retail long ago at both game and toy stores, and items like this are a blessing since you can't be everywhere in the shop at once.
These displays can also be a curse of sorts in that if Codenames isn't selling, you have this giant display in your store that's just taking up space. Of course, if the games are selling, then CGE has boosted the odds of the store ordering more (instead of moving on to some other party game) since the store already has a display waiting to be filled.
One of the major themes of Toy Fair NY 2026 was squishy stuff — alternatively spelled "skwishy", "squeeshy", and (as exhibited above) "squishi". I don't get the point of a squishy RingPop as a RingPop is normally something you eat, not a toy that you play with, but the same is true Hershey Kisses and all of the other food items depicted in this booth.
I walked both floors of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center from end to end and didn't come across a squishy board game, so perhaps some enterprising designer will try to make that happen in time for Toy Fair 2027.
