by W. Eric Martin

In August 2025, I previewed Elizabeth Hargrave's game Sanibel after playing a mock-up at the Avalon Hill booth at Gen Con 2025 — and to continue the theme of "What does Avalon Hill even represent any more?" today I'm announcing another 2026 release from the Hasbro studio: Market Fresh, a 1-4 player game from Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling.

Here's an overview of the setting and gameplay:

If this game sounds familiar, that might be because you've heard of Jubako, a 2020 release from Kramer, Kiesling, and Ravensburger that plays similarly.


Avalon Hill's Patrick O'Rourke met Kramer and Kiesling at SPIEL Essen 23, and while discussing games in development, "they mentioned their prototype 'Farmers Market', which was the original concept behind what later would become Jubako", says O'Rourke. "They felt Jubako wasn't quite what they wanted this game to become, so as they reworked their idea over the years, this is what they developed."

In Jubako, players take turns stacking domino tiles that show rice, fish, and vegetables into Japanese-style lunch boxes, and after each tile you place, you choose one half of the tile and score 1 point for each space showing this item.

That's it — your turn stops there, which highlights the main difference between Jubako and Market Fresh. The former is a drafting game in which each player is doing their own thing, largely indifferent to what others draft, whereas the latter design layers that same stacking challenge with a majority competition in which you very much care whether someone is going to pip your pepper standing.


I played Jubako three times on a review copy from Ravensburger, and it's a fine design that left me uninterested in playing more because solitaire-ish game experiences aren't my thing. I want competition among players, and I enjoy designs that feel different depending on how many people are at the table.

I've now played Market Fresh three times, each time with two players, and I'm eager to see how the competition changes with three or four players. With two players, you both have a good chance of placing a farmer in each produce column, so you need to snipe tiles that will let your opponent place their final farmers on the market board. What's more, you might even decline to score three or four of a good because that will open up the 2 spot in the column and make it easier for your opponent to land there.

The majority market board also adds tension in terms of tile placement. In Jubako, you also scored 5 points for an exact match, and making an exact match always seemed like the right choice when possible. You could leave, say, that tomato symbol uncovered and score tomatoes for an extra 1 point, but you'd need to score tomatoes six times in order to score more than you would for an exact match, so you might as well cover that tomato and make the match.

In Market Fresh, you're now concerned about topping others on the produce columns, and once you're out of empty spaces, you can score a larger fruit or vegetable group only by covering other produce. When you make an exact match, you're not increasing the size of any group, which means you can't move higher in that column on the market board...and being one space higher would mean an additional 2 points, assuming you're the leader in that column. Rising in the column would also make it harder for an opponent to go higher than you, so the choice of when to take an exact match isn't as straightforward as before.

Market Fresh is due out in Q1 2026.