I am, once again, exhausted after a fun-filled weekend at PAX Unplugged… but I think that’s a sign of a good time! I love attending the show every year, and I love being able to introduce it to new people, which I did this year 🙂
Grab your snacks and drinks and sit down for a nice, long post that recaps the fun – let’s go!
General Notes
- Queue lines moved quickly
- Security was smooth
- Enforcers/Staff were friendly and helpful
- Signs were helpful to find where you were going, especially because of the escalators not reaching all the same areas
Expo Hall
Another great time at the expo hall! I will say, I find the extra large booths a little annoying, because I wish it was easier to just go aisle by aisle, but it’s a small price to pay to be able to visit so many vendors. I think overall the aisles are a good size, and everything is easy to maneuver.
First Look / UnPub
I was so happy to see these areas back up on the 4th floor again! I think it’s the best location for them, personally, but I’m a little biased since it’s where I spend a lot of my time, haha.
There were clearly a few very hot titles in First Look (talking ’bout you, Orloy) so it wasn’t possible to play everything, even if you showed up early, but there were a lot of great choices there to try out, fresh from Essen. I also spent a bit of time in UnPub (with the famous Jeff Johnston, of course!) I love that this area is here for designers to show off some of their new/upcoming/works in progress games!
PAX XP / Scavenger Hunts / Pinny Arcade
Does anyone else get as excited about the silly little XP prizes as I do? I love a little scavenger hunt, honestly, so this was a lot of fun for me.
I also did the Tabletop Gaymers and BackerKit hunts for free pins. And I got to demo a bunch of games to get free pins too! A lot of fun! I probably even missed other scavenger hunts, haha, if you know of others that happen every year – let me know!
I also love visiting the Pinny Arcade trade areas to play the game (Plinko this year was a huge upgrade in my opinion!) and try to get the latest set of pins. If you haven’t started collecting pins yet … get on it!
Press Meetings
I booked myself pretty solid this year because I was just so excited to talk to publishers! I got a lot of great chats in, and was even given a bunch of review games. Let’s run through a few of the booths I hit:
I demoed Sprout again with George Li at the Rabble booth. It’s come a long way since I first saw it – especially that box cover! I’m still super pumped for this one to come out. Keep an eye out for the Kickstarter next year!
I stopped by Studio Hermitage to learn a bit more about Our Brilliant Ruin which is an audio drama, comic series, TTRPG, and upcoming ARPG video game. I’m not a TTRPG player, but I’m definitely going to check out the audio drama, and the comic series since they gifted me a copy! It’s got the horror vibe I enjoy a lot, so I might even check out the video game in the future too!
I chatted with Jason from Phase Shift Games about Widget’s Workshop and Aetherspire (both of which I’ll be reviewing). I am interested to see a different style of “drop game” with Widget’s Workshop; I’m always afraid of losing cubes in their other games! haha
I sat down with Pavlína from CGE to talk about Wispwood, which is such a gorgeous game. I am so excited about this one! I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan these days, but I’ll also be checking out Codenames: Back to Hogwarts, which is a big twist on the original, giving teams special abilities depending on their house. Very cool!
Sean from Kids Table Board Gaming showed me some of their upcoming titles. The one I’m most interested in is Sea Shells, which seems like a fairly light set collection game, but it has great table presence, which really excites me!
Probably the most exciting thing for me this weekend was the Asmodee sneak peek event. I got to see a whole bunch of games coming out next year, and even play a few!
There’s a new card game, dnup, coming out from the designer of Scout that uses a similar card flipping mechanism. There’s a very involved nature game called Trial of the Forest from the company that did Meadow that has a “good and evil” type of mechanic, and seems really cool. But I’m most excited for Ghosts Galore which is soooo cute, and spooky and really gives players a lot of room for small decisions that can have big impacts.
Speed Round! — Shout outs to Galen’s Games, Capstone, Luma Imports, Ultra PRO, ButtonShy, Copper Frog Games, Wise Wizard Games, Kosmos, Brother Ming Games, and Doomlings who all took some to chat with me about their games, let me demo their games, and/or gave me some games to take home and review. Ya’ll are so awesome! ^__^
Games Played
I didn’t get to play as much this year as I normally do, but I’m glad I got a few plays in! Keep an eye out for my “new to me” list at the end of this month for the full breakdown of what I played. But for now, I think I will just highlight my favorite and least favorite games:
Favorite: Echoes of Time – This had a really cool ‘river flowing’ mechanic to push cards along your board. It played really smoothly and seemed like it will have a lot of variability. It did have some take-that elements, but it seemed like it was pretty equalized, and didn’t usually feel super bad. We did end up picking up a copy so more plays are on the horizon!
Least Favorite: CakoZaurus – I wasn’t super excited about this one, but I did think it looked cute! The gimmick of the game seemed fun, but overall, it just didn’t work. It seemed like the little monster tipped over immediately, leading to a not very fun game.
Thanks again to PAX for providing a media badge to me so I could attend and color the show.
PAX Unplugged 2026 Returns to
Philadelphia Dec. 4, to Dec. 6, 2026
Can’t wait to see you all there next year!! 🙂
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