I happened to look at one new game from a Japanese designer the other day, and (as always happens) that one link led to me discovering many more such games. Here's some of what I saw during that journey:
▪️ Japanese creator Kotori of PhantomLab is crowdfunding a new edition of her 2019 game Monster Decoy, a two-player game about trapping monsters.
Players each take a color — white or black — and a monster type, either orange or purple. On a turn, you place a 3x3 tile into the playing area; each tile has some combination of white and black squares, and you want to surround opposing monsters so that they have no freedom. While you might want to surround monsters as quickly as possible, the larger the area and the more monsters in it, the more points you score...assuming it is surrounded, of course.
As part of her crowdfunding campaign, Kotori is offering eight other games she's published, including Spot Me Gaffer!, which debuted on March 28, 2026 at an event in Nagoya.
In this game, each player electrician places sixteen circus performers in a 4x4 grid. On a turn, reveal a card that shows which performers must be spotlighted by your lights, then rush to arrange four cards with holes in them so that only those performers are visible. Do this quickly, and you'll score those performers, removing them from your board. Different game modes are included for a variety of challenges.
▪️ Another crowdfunding project from a Japanese creator is for a deluxe edition of Circlora: Guardians of Balance, a co-operative design for 1-3 players from designer Yoshihiro Yanagida, a.k.a. TottoTottino, that debuted in a Japanese-only edition in 2024.
In the game, players are forest spirits, each with a unique power, who must prevent a human army from reaching a wounded dragon, while also assisting in the healing process so that the dragon can take flight to safety.
▪️ Hiroken, who made a splash in 2025 with Eternal Decks from Tricktakers Games, has announced their next release: Eternal Sevens, which is an evolution of the public domain card game Sevens, which is similar but not identical to Fan Tan...at least as it's played in Japan.
Sevens is played with a traditional card deck, with players trying to empty their hand first by laying out cards in four shared sequences, one for each suit. You can pass instead of playing, but if you pass three times, you're eliminated.
As Hiroken explains in this BGG thread, Eternal Sevens uses a custom deck; introduces Eternal cards, each with a unique power; adds powers you can use when passing to make that an attractive action; and gives players a second victory condition — playing the final card in two sequences.
Hiroken plans to have Eternal Sevens available in an English and Japanese edition on Amazon.jp in Q3 2026.
▪️ Japanese publisher itten released the tiny cubic games Kappa Bros! and Nice Egg! in 2019, and at Game Market in May 2026 it's adding three more titles to the line: Ping Pond Frog!, Candy Tap!, and the surprisingly non-exclamatory Pack-Back Robot. So far only this single image has been revealed.
▪️ 14games debuted in 2024 with the crowdfunded game Snow Planner, and for the Spring 2026 Game Market the publisher will release Elementica, a revamped version of Millienea, which Seiya Seto of Ochibolab released in 2024.
The original game was about securing land on an island, building power plants of various types, and selling energy. This new version has been developed by 14games' Akashi and is a medium to heavy-weight game with lots of wooden pieces and a cloth map. Okay, that says nothing about the gameplay; rather it's an indication of this being an involved Eurogame, which is becoming more common among Japanese designers than in past years.
