Since its first release in 2024, publisher Play to Z has presented players with an eclectic range of games, a hallmark that company founder Zev Shlasinger has exhibited both with his original company, Z-Man Games, and during his time as director of board game development at WizKids from 2016 to 2023.
For Play to Z, 2026 started with Jeff Grisenthwaite's tarot-base card game Soothsayers in January (designer diary here) and will be followed in March by Peter Jürgensen's co-operative card-clearing game The Brain and in April by the fortieth anniversary edition of Eric Goldberg's storytelling adventure game Tales of the Arabian Knights, which includes fifteen adventures for a new solo mode.
Beyond that, Play to Z has two titles with impending crowdfunding campaigns, one being Siege Perilous, a 1-4 player game from Ivan Alexiev and Brian Saliba that plays in 90-180 minutes and that will launch on Gamefound in February 2026. Here's the publisher's pitch:
Ride forth into a living Arthurian world, a vast sandbox of valor and chivalry in which every choice shapes the fate of your knight. Through training and tithes, you will hone your skills and cultivate your virtues; serve Merlin's designs, earning wisdom and rare boons through trials; test your mettle against other knights in contests of skill and strategy; and embark upon quests that demand sacrifice, forcing you to choose between heavenly grace and earthly power.
You'll cross paths with more than a hundred Arthurian figures in castles of tournament and intrigue where alliances are sworn, secrets whispered, and rivalries ignited, and you'll carry your banner beyond the known lands on perilous foreign campaigns, where riches, renown, and death await in equal measure.
Meanwhile, on Kickstarter Play to Z will launch Dino DiBlasio's Meeple Vacation: Water Park, the subtitle of which suggests that meeples might vacation elsewhere in the future...although the description of this 2-4 player game suggests that they'll still be working during their vacay:
Each day at the waterpark starts with the funnest thing of all: rolling down the massive park slide and seeing how you land. Flopped? Standing? Headstand? Your pose decides where you can go and what you might do!
Send your family members to the Arcade for awesome prizes, bump rivals off The Plunge for points, race on the Slip & Slide, fill jungle rafts together, chill in the Lazy River, and score with perfect cannonball splashes. Along the way, you'll team up with lifeguards for extra fun, grab secret photocards for mementos, and turn every flop into opportunity over three days of working play.
Wee Folk is a two-player game from Scott Brady, Stefano Di Maria, and Rosa Linda Romano in which you want to create patterns that will score — or in more poetic terms, "where you’ll slide cards like stones across still water, weaving polyomino patterns to echo the hidden sigils of the fae. Where strategy wears the robes of story, and each game is a spell softly cast."
Cards collapse together a là Candy Crush when scoring patterns are removed from the play area, and collected cards might feature actions that can alter your personal tableau.
Seoul Journey, a 2-5 player game from Jean Curci, asks you to "plan your days wisely to visit iconic locations, indulge in festivals and food, shop for souvenirs, and summon mystical guardians for bonuses". Using strategy and market manipulation, you will "travel across the city, collect experiences, and build your own story of discovery through clever card play and tableau-building choices".
