This year, while at PAX, I spent a good amount of time over in the Summit Building — the dedicated space for all the tabletop goodness that the Seattle convention has to offer. From board games to TCGs, role-playing games to plastic minis, for fans of these hobbies, it is the place to be. And honestly, while I did play some fun video games this year (check out my preview for Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse and Final Fantasy VII Revelation), the offerings were depressingly sparse this year. Summit, conversely, was popping off!
I spent a good day-and-a-half making my way through the vendors, publishers, and demo stations, scouting out games that stood out or tickled my fancy. As usual, there were some real stellar games that I got to play, and the following games really flipped the tables!
SIX-SIDED SEAS
First up, we have Six-Sided Seas, published by Solis Game Studio (same folks that published the solid Massive-verse Pocket Paragon Fighting Card Game) and designed by Kroze Kresky. In this swashbuckling pirate-themed dice roller, two players face off as rival captains trying to either sink the opposing ship, claim enough territory, or earn the most money and prestige. As the name implies, this is a dice-focused game where all of your actions are determined by the dice you roll, and it results in a simple but fun game that feels a bit like a mix between YAHTZEE and Blackjack. You roll dice one-by-one, trying to keep the total number of pips under your prestige value; otherwise, you bust and lose your turn. But if you stop before going over, you will be able to use those dice for various actions. If you are lucky enough to match your dice total to your prestige, you can increase it, letting you go for higher totals. The actions themselves, such as firing your ship’s cannons or claiming the nearby islands, require you to slot in specific value dice or combinations of values to pull off.
The whole process, from setting up the game to learning and getting a match in, was quick and painless, even with it happening on a small table on the show floor. All the small box contains is a stylish neoprene map featuring the two ships, two stacks of dice (red and blue), and two little trackers. While I may have lost the game on the show floor, it still won me over, and the kind folks at Solis gave me a copy to take home. Ever since then, my three-year-old has been obsessed with rolling the dice, and my wife and I have enjoyed using it as a quick game to play and unwind with after putting the little one down for bed. If you have a second box, you can play this with up to four players instead of just two, with players that die earlier on being able to come back as ghost ships.
I really have had a good time with Six-Sided Seas, and its combination of risk and light strategy, while being easy to learn, easily makes it one of the top games I discovered while at PAX West this year!
You can buy Six-Sided Seas over at Solis Game Studio’s website for $24.95.
SAGE STONES
Keeping on the dice-rolling train, we have Sage Stones from TNT Laser Works. The premise of Sage Stones is the simplest that you will find on this list — you roll three D3 dice; whatever value you roll, you take one of your stones and put it in that specific column somewhere, and the first player to place out all of their stones wins. The strategy comes into play in deciding where you will put your stones, as if you ever sandwich an opponent’s stone(s) between two of yours, your opponent’s stones will be removed from the board and returned to their pool to be placed out. Sort of akin to Othello or Go. There are a couple of other small gimmicks, such as if you roll the same number on all three of your dice, you get to go again, or if you roll a 1, 2, 3, you lose the turn, but if you really want to spice things up, TNT offers an expansion of sorts, a pack of tarot-sized cards with various game modifiers. Perhaps the biggest “downside” to Sage Stones is that the included stones make it a really not color-blind-friendly game, but you can buy a component upgrade that swaps out the stones for individual themed tiles should you need it.
Playing up to six players, Sage Stones wowed me not only with its presentation — you can buy either a gorgeous wooden board with resin artwork on it or a highly portable rollable board — but also its simplistic elegance. It’s one of those games that would feel right at home busting out at a coffee shop or during lunch at work.
You can pick up a copy of Sage Stones over on TNT Laser Works’ website, including both the travel faux leather roll version (in multiple colors) and the handcrafted wooden boards!
FARMS RACE
Take Catan, throw in some combat, and wrap it up in “farm animal with nukes” wrapping paper, and you will basically have an idea of what Farms Race is. Designed by Daniel Dranove and Tom Weiner and published by Medium Brow Games, Farms Race puts 2-4 players (5 with the deluxe edition) in the hooves of mutated farm animals, leading their factions in a sprint to be the first to earn 10 victory points. I wasn’t kidding when I said that Farms Race is similar to Catan; if you know how to play that, you will know about 80% of how to play this game. The big additions are combat (each player has their own color of unique animal meeples), mutations, which give you special gameplay features, and, of course, nukes, which you can build and then let loose on your neighbors. I was initially pulled in by the comical visuals and premise, but ended up being really blown away (pun intended) by Farms Race’s gameplay. I desperately want to play more and check out what sort of wild combinations of mutations are available to mess around with.
If you are like me and want more from your Settlers of Catan, don’t let the barnyard aesthetic sway you. If you’re like me and have wished for a bit deeper of gameplay, then I think Farms Race may be worth checking out!
Check your local game store for a copy of Farms Race or hit up the game’s website to get yourself a copy!
GUNSEN: THE BATTLE FOR TOSHI RANBO
Still available for preorder for wider distribution, Gunsen: The Battle for Toshi Ranbo, designed by Matthew O’Malley and Ben Rosset and published by Office Dog, was probably the most mechanically dense game I demo’d at PAX. Despite it looking rather complex at a quick glance, with a host of different decks of cards, small army minis, and asymmetric character faction boards to pick from, Gunsen was surprisingly quick to figure out. Pitting 2-6 players against one another, your end goal is to be the first to reach the victory point limit (I think it was seven), earned by completing specific tasks or holding the titular Toshi Ranbo castle. Turns boil down to picking one of the cards from the communal pool and taking the actions associated with that color of card, typically involving moving some units, earning a resource, and then spending those resources for faction upgrades or other goodies. It even has some dice-rolling combat if you feel like being a little spicy!
Playing Gunsen reminded me a bit of playing Scythe, both featuring hex-based movement tiles, unique factions, and resource gathering, but this felt far easier to wrap my head around and work out how the game plays. Perhaps my favorite aspect of what I played were the action cards themselves that you pick to play your actions. When you pick a card, not only does it allow you to perform an action or get a resource, but you are able to then add it to the base action that matches its color on your player board, adding that card’s main benefit to the action you take going forward. Meaning, every card you pick also makes your actions stronger. It was so cool! Only getting to play through a single 2-player game, I didn’t even come close to checking out what my faction could do, let alone all the others that come in the game, so Gunsen is high on my list of games to pick up and sink more time into.
I highly recommend checking out Gunsen if you are a fan of games like Scythe or just are looking for a good new strategy game to introduce to your game group. Preorder your own copy from the Office Dog Games website before it releases this fall!
COMING SOON
Not all the games I tried out, though, were ones that are currently (or soon to be) available. PAX conventions are great opportunities to check out prototypes of games that are still in development, and West this year was no different. These are a couple of the standout early WIP games that hooked me!
AKARA
I would describe Akara as “what if checkers pieces had superpowers.” This abstract game sees two players facing off with their discs, trying to either move their leader piece into the middle spot on the board or take out the opponent’s leader. After moving a piece, you are able to change a piece into a different elemental form, which will come with its own set of movement and capture restrictions that really shake up the standard checkers flow. The board itself is split into lines and “petals,” with pieces being able to travel differently across both depending on the element that piece is currently set to. Despite the readability of some aspects of Akara (especially the thin lines you could travel along), the added element of…elements…makes for a surprisingly complex and strategic game that really left a strong impression. Knowing when to swap a piece’s element, and to what, added a great new level of complexity, and playing with the game’s designer at Mythworks left me with that same satisfying head-scratching feeling like when I play chess. If you like those sorts of tactical games, Akara will be one to keep an eye on when it launches on Kickstarter next year!
You can currently follow Akara over on its Kickstarter page to be alerted when it goes live.
STRING THEORY
While I may have had a great time with every game on this list, no one game I’ve mentioned came as big a surprise, and highlights part of what I love most about the tabletop gaming space — its ability to bring folks together — quite as much as String Theory. Designed by Dani Aretskin, Eliot Aretskin-Hariton, and Asya Aretskin-Hariton and published by Tessellation Games LLC, String Theory pits you and the other players in the roles of competing podcasters who are trying to create the best conspiracy theory show out there. This is done by connecting various “popular” conspiracy theories (the JFK assassination, Area 51, Atlantis, Freemasons, etc.) but literally stringing threads from one to the other, creating a web of intrigue that would make Charlie Day blush from that Always Sunny pinboard meme. Connecting points will earn you resources that you can then turn into “prove” conspiracies and earn you victory points, and every time you cross over one of the other players’ threads, you net them a point as well.
What made my play of String Theory all the more memorable was the folks I played with. I found myself wandering about the hall and saw a group early in the teach of the game, total strangers, with the only things in common being that one of the gentlemen and I were both wearing Zelda shirts, and we all liked board games. They graciously let me sit down and join them as they waited for the rest of their crew so that we would have a full table of five, and what followed was an hour-ish of laughs, wild claims, and a great time. I doubt I will ever meet any of them again, but for that brief time, we were all friends having a great time, and it’s that sort of connection that makes trying games at conventions like PAX so special. You never know when you may make a new lifelong friend, and worst case, even if you unfortunately get paired with an asshole, after the game you never have to deal with them (thankfully, a situation I haven’t yet encountered).
I can see String Theory being both a great party game, but also having enough strategy that will make it a solid game night pick too when it releases in Q3 2027. I know I’m all on board, and eager to explain how the la chupacabras were behind the sinking of the Titanic, under the direction of the Freemasons stationed at Roswell. Until then, I will just live vicariously through String Theory’s BoardGameGeek page.
And there you have it, the real cardboard rockstars I came across during PAX West 2026! As always, support your local game store and enjoy!
