Pics from Gen Con 2026 IV

Follow along on a re-enactment of my wonderings through the Indiana Convention Center to see some of what was on display during Gen Con 2026:

U.S. publisher Paverson Games showed a mock-up of Small Batch, a Ben Rosset design it describes as being a distilled version of Distilled, the 2023 game with which designer Dave Beck launched his company.

To its detriment, Paverson Games leans hard on the connection between the two games, making it challenging for a newcomer to learn what Small Batch is about and how it plays. Here's how the game is introduced in a company newsletter:

Small Batch is a standalone experience designed to capture the essence of Distilled in a tighter, high-intensity package. While the visual style and core theme will feel immediately familiar to fans of the original, Small Batch introduces fresh, crunchy mechanics that streamline the distillation process, making it the perfect entry point for new distillers yet also an exciting challenge for our returning Distilled veterans.

Okay, but aside from a nod to the "distillation process", what is the game like? Another paragraph:

Familiar Core Gameplay: Small Batch utilizes the much loved and highly thematic heads & tails mechanic from Distilled. Collect ingredients and distill different recipes from around the world. Invest in powerful upgrades, and add special bottles and barrels to improve your spirits.

And that "heads & tails" mechanism is what now?

For spinoff games, I suggest publishers intro the new release with a paragraph or two that stands on its own before referencing a connection to an earlier game. You don't want someone to feel like they need to learn about another game before learning about the one in front of them. Ideally you're expanding the audience for the product line, so you're reaching new people rather than selling only to those already familiar with the earlier releases.

For comparison with the title above, we can look at Chaosium Games' presentation of Samuel W. Bailey's Old Ones: Origins — or Call of Cthulhu: Old Ones – Origins to use the publisher's name, although you probably wouldn't get this from looking at the box. Here's how Chaosium intros this game:

Call of Cthulhu: Old Ones Origins takes players into the world of the Cthulhu Mythos, where ancient powers rise and rival factions fight for dominance in a battle that began long before humanity existed.

Boom! There's your thesis sentence, and everything that follows will build on that first impression...but unfortunately there's nothing more than that for now, other than Chaosium describing this 2028 release as "an enhanced re-implementation of Forbidden Stars", a 2015 Fantasy Flight Games release that was co-designed by Bailey, James Kniffen, and Corey Konieczka.

Publisher Ghost Galaxy showed off its fancy-shmancy "ultimate collector's edition" of Reiner Knizia's two-player game The Lord of the Rings: Confrontation, which collected US$1.3 million in backing during a crowdfunding campaign, with this table (minus leg and based) selling for US$2,200. As you can see, the table is the height of a small child — a child that would likely not be allowed anywhere near this game once it's set up at home.

Note that the game table cover is leaning against the leg of the table. (I initially saw this table as having a funky zigzag support, which seemed like an incredibly unwieldy design. Nope, just looking too quickly while zipping around the ICC.)

Erik and Acke Ambring's game Stuglandet debuted from Swedish publisher Ninja Print in 2023, with HABA now having licensed the game for release in other countries. "Stuglandet" is Swedish for "country cottage", and in the game you will be rolling your country cottages like dice to try to place them on the game tiles. You roll three cabins, then re-roll all cabins up to two more times, then carry out the results:

If a player fills a tile with their cabins, that tile is locked, and when any player has placed their final cabin the game ends. You score 1 point for each cabin placed, with bonus points for being next to a lake or on the city tile. You also want to have more cabins on a tile than others to score 2 bonus points and have the longest chain of connect cabins for 6 bonus points...even if you then have to plop a cabin next to a landfill and absorb that penalty. The bonus will be worth the smell!

I was amused to see this relatively large space fenced off in the Renegade Game Studios exhibitor area. So much empty space occupied by just a few standing tables! Clearly, this space was fenced (and roped) off for events that would attract a huge crowd, but at this moment it just looked like a flex: We have so much floor space that we give game testers the room to dance between turns.

Another somewhat spacious exhibit was this demo space for The Why Files Declassified, a conspiracy card game from Studio Far Horizons and lead designer Jacob Way that's based on the YouTube series The Why Files and that will be crowdfunded in September 2026.

In this game, 2-6 investigators gather evidence, outmaneuver rivals, and race to go public with the truth.

I saw this empty storefront while riding to the Indianapolis International Airport, a storefront for a closed Mexican restaurant called "nada", the letters now removed to leave behind a more ghostly "nada" than had existed — a restaurant called "Nothing" that was now more nothing than it had ever been before.

Beautiful...