Prep for Night Markets at SDHistCon and PAX Unplugged

Looking for something new to play? Like, new-new? Perhaps never seen before and possibly never seen again?

SDHistCon Night Market

Two opportunities for exploration in the wilds of game design are coming up in the U.S. before 2026 comes to a close. First, the San Diego Historical Games Convention (SDHistCon) takes place on 6-9 November 2026 in San Diego, California, and on 7 November 2026, SDHistCon will host its first "Night Market" event, with small print runs of historical games presented and sold by the designers. Ten games will be featured during this event, including the following:

▪️ Moe Poplar's 2-5 player game Party and Protest from his Ashy Feet Games brand covers the Black Power movement of the 1970s. Players work as asymmetric factions to control the city, while trying to establish the most enduring legacy. From the designer: "It's a game about a fractious but formative moment of protest in modern American history. The goal is to control the institutions of the city: the Government, the Police, the Media, the Church, and the University. To do this, you need to grow your faction, build coalitions, avoid COINTELPRO, and not have too much friction with other players."

▪️ Akar Bharadvaj's two-player, lane-battler Deny or Punish models Cold War escalation and deterrence in a game that consists of only 26 cards. From the designer: "Open war between the United States and Soviet Union would be an existential horror, and deterrence is less costly than fighting. Can the two countries achieve their objectives while managing their tensions and distrust? Will trying to do so bankrupt the countries? Or will it end the world in fire?"

▪️ Dan Bullock's Penitent from Lock Horns Games LLC is a solitaire game in which you're a Quaker reformer tasked with designing a visionary American penitentiary in the early 19th century. From the designer: "Players will draw a floorplan for their model penitentiary and determine how it is governed by resolving a sequence of event cards. Will your penitentiary adhere to the Auburn reform's silent system or Pennsylvania's bold solitary confinement system? Will your inmates achieve rehabilitation through ceaseless labor or intense religious instruction? Will your penitentiary serve as a model of reform or be instructive only for its failure?"

▪️ Another solitaire game is Throw Down That Flag, self-published by Liz Davidson and David Thompson. From the designers: This game "tells the story of the First Minnesota on the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Having already suffered catastrophic losses on July 2nd, the battered survivors of the 1st Minnesota were back in the fight the next day, where they aided in repelling Pickett's Charge and took a major role in the counter-charge which successfully ended the conflict. The defining moment of their day came when Private Marshall Sherman captured the battle flag of the 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment by threatening its bearer, Lieutenant John Lee, with his bayonet. Newspapers reported him demanding, 'Throw down that flag, or I’ll run you through.'... Throw Down That Flag leverages a mixture of traditional hex-and-counter concepts and a chit-pull activation sequence with a unique solitaire resolution system that means it’s always the player’s turn.

Indie Games Night Market

Taking inspiration from Tokyo Game Market, Daniel Newman of New Mill Industries kicked off the "Night Market" format in 2024 when he organized an event at PAX Unplugged 2024 in Philadelphia. (Designer Chris Wray wrote about his experience of participating in this December 2024 post.)

Indie Games Night Market returns to PAX Unplugged in 2026, taking place on 5 December with games from 26 designers chosen by Newman. In his words: "The intention is to feature games that have not been signed by publishers, have no intention to go on Kickstarter, and may otherwise not be available. This is meant to be an outlet for interesting ideas that may not have wide appeal." Here are a few of the titles to be found at IGNM:

▪️ David Masnato's 2-4 player game Pax Playground has a group of kids on the playground trying to make friends and fit in by having the same preferences in toys. From the designer: "The game is inspired by the player dynamics and systems commonly found in Pax-style games, but re-contextualized to omit the historical violence often seen in the genre. Pax Playground distills the Pax experience into a 20 minute game that (almost) fits in your pocket."

▪️ In Sarah Rowan's TIGER, the player bandits have kidnapped the Emperor's Son, but are now lost in the woods. From the designer: "As players move characters between limited hiding places, the paths around fill with tiger tracks, and characters begin disappearing into the beast's stomach. However, the game features no player elimination as the final results of the night are apparent only when the sun rises and the tiger at last departs. TIGER supports 2-5 players and is handmade from non-plastic components: wood and clay."

▪️ Marceline Leiman has participated in the first two IGNM, and she's back in 2026 with Palette Poker, a 3-6 player betting/bluffing card game. From the designer: "Players have hands of color cards and must make bids of how many of a particular color is present between all hands, with some colors able to mix and make other colors. On your turn you must bid a stronger bid than previous (in color or number) OR challenge the current bid. As players win hands, they are forced to play with their hand partially open. If you win a hand with all but one card open, you win the game!"

▪️ David Lombardo's Chubby Bear Salmon Gobble features handmade
fish dice and handsewn bags. As for the gameplay, the designer says the game was inspired by Fat Bear Week: "Take the role of the bears at Katmai National Park trying to catch and eat salmon to gain weight in preparation of hibernating through the winter. In this push-your-luck, set collection game, you roll dice to try to catch as many fish as possible before your opponents get them first. Balance catching the biggest fish, the most fish, and the tastiest fish to score special goals and out gain your fellow bears."

▪️ Manda Shafer's solitaire game Community Cats speaks to me as my wife Linda and I have just taken in a thirteen-year-old cat with an incredible number of health problems, but ideally a few weeks of many medications will get him ready to interact with our other animals. As for the game, the designer says: "Community Cats puts you in the role of a rescuer facing a neighborhood overrun with stray cats. You must manage limited time and resources against a growing population, using mechanisms that mimic real-world trap, neuter, and return (TNR) practices. It's a game of careful planning and meaningful trade-offs with a theme rooted in how cat rescue actually works."

I haven't seen the game, but Linda and I used to volunteer at monthly TNR sessions in New England, with 50-80 cats trapped for surgery day and surgeons volunteering their time with everyone else to try to keep the outdoor cat population under control. My primary job was "cat raker" in which you used long metal "forks" to squeeze the cat against the cage wall so that another volunteer could inject them with tranquilizer — a job that I took over at some point, letting others learn the joy of raking.